The Power of Silence (5 page)

The nagual
was completely taken aback by that sight. He now understood the designs of the
spirit, but failed to comprehend how such a useless man could fit in the
sorcerers' scheme of things.

The woman
in the meantime had stood up and without so much as a glance at the man, whose
body was contorting with death spasms, walked away.

The nagual
then
saw
her luminosity and realized that her extreme aggressiveness was
the result of an enormous flow of superfluous energy. He became convinced that
if she did not put that energy to sober use, it would get the best of her and
there was no telling what misfortunes it would cause her.

As the
nagual watched the unconcern with which she walked away, he realized that the
spirit had given him another manifestation. He needed to be calm, nonchalant.
He needed to act as if he had nothing to lose and intervene for the hell of it.
In true nagual fashion he decided to tackle the impossible, with no one except
the spirit as witness.

Don Juan
commented that it took incidents like this to test whether a nagual is the real
thing or a fake. Naguals make decisions. With no regard for the consequences
they take action or choose not to. Imposters ponder and become paralyzed. The
nagual Elias having made his decision, walked calmly to the side of the dying
man and did the first thing his body, not his mind, compelled him to do: he
struck the man's assemblage point to cause him to enter into heightened
awareness. He struck him frantically again and again until his assemblage point
moved. Aided by the force of death itself, the nagual's blows sent the man's
assemblage point to a place where death no longer mattered, and there he
stopped dying.

By the time
the actor was breathing again, the nagual had become aware of the magnitude of
his responsibility. If the man was to fend off the force of his death, it would
be necessary for him to remain in deep heightened awareness until death had
been repelled. The man's advanced physical deterioration meant he could not be
moved from the spot or he would instantly die. The nagual did the only thing
possible under the circumstances: he built a shack around the body. There, for
three months he nursed the totally immobilized man.

My rational
thoughts took over, and instead of just listening, I wanted to know how the
nagual Elias could build a shack on someone else's land. I was aware of the
rural peoples' passion about land ownership and its accompanying feelings of
territoriality.

Don Juan
admitted that he had asked the same question himself. And the nagual Elias had
said that the spirit itself had made it possible. This was the case with
everything a nagual undertook, providing he followed the spirit's
manifestations.

The first
thing the nagual Elias did, when the actor was breathing again, was to run
after the young woman. She was an important part of the spirit's manifestation.
He caught up with her not too far from the spot where the actor lay barely
alive. Rather than talking to her about the man's plight and trying to convince
her to help him, he again assumed total responsibility for his actions and
jumped on her like a lion, striking her assemblage point a mighty blow. Both
she and the actor were capable of sustaining life or death blows. Her
assemblage point moved, but began to shift erratically once it was loose.

The nagual
carried the young woman to where the actor lay. Then he spent the entire day
trying to keep her from losing her mind and the man from losing his life. When
he was fairly certain he had a degree of control he went to the woman's father
and told him that lightning must have struck his daughter and made her
temporarily mad. He took the father to where she lay and said that the young
man, whoever he was, had taken the whole charge of the lightning with his body,
thus saving the girl from certain death, but injuring himself to the point that
he could not be moved.

The
grateful father helped the nagual build the shack for the man who had saved his
daughter. And in three months the nagual accomplished the impossible. He healed
the young man.

When the
time came for the nagual to leave, his sense of responsibility and his duty
required him both to warn the young woman about her excess energy and the
injurious consequences it would have on her life and well being, and to ask her
to join the sorcerers' world, as that would be the only defense against her
self-destructive strength.

The woman
did not respond. And the nagual Elias was obliged to tell her what every nagual
has said to a prospective apprentice throughout the ages: that sorcerers speak
of sorcery as a magical, mysterious bird which has paused in its flight for a
moment in order to give man hope and purpose; that sorcerers live under the
wing of that bird, which they call the bird of wisdom, the bird of freedom;
that they nourish it with their dedication and impeccability. He told her that
sorcerers knew the flight of the bird of freedom was always a straight line,
since it had no way of making a loop, no way of circling back and returning;
and that the bird of freedom could do only two things, take sorcerers along, or
leave them behind.

The nagual
Elias could not talk to the young actor, who was still mortally ill, in the
same way. The young man did not have much of a choice. Still, the nagual told
him that if he wanted to be cured, he would have to follow the nagual
unconditionally. The actor accepted the terms instantly.

The day the
nagual Elias and the actor started back home, the young woman was waiting
silently at the edge of town. She carried no suitcases, not even a basket. She
seemed to have come merely to see them off. The nagual kept walking without
looking at her, but the actor, being carried on a stretcher, strained to say
goodbye to her. She laughed and wordlessly merged into the nagual's party. She
had no doubts and no problem about leaving everything behind. She had
understood perfectly that there was no second chance for her, that the bird of
freedom either took sorcerers along or left them behind.

Don Juan
commented that that was not surprising. The force of the nagual's personality
was always so overwhelming that he was practically irresistible, and the nagual
Elias had affected those two people deeply. He had had three months of daily
interaction to accustom them to his consistency, his detachment, his objectivity.
They had become enchanted by his sobriety and, above all, by his total
dedication to them. Through his example and his actions, the nagual Elias had
given them a sustained view of the sorcerers' world: supportive and nurturing,
yet utterly demanding. It was a world that admitted very few mistakes.

Don Juan
reminded me then of something he had repeated to me often but which I had
always managed not to think about. He said that I should not forget, even for
an instant, that the bird of freedom had very little patience with indecision,
and when it flew away, it never returned.

The
chilling resonance of his voice made the surroundings, which only a second
before had been peacefully dark, burst with immediacy. Don Juan summoned the
peaceful darkness back as fast as he had summoned urgency. He punched me
lightly on the arm.

"That
woman was so powerful that she could dance circles around anyone," he
said. "Her name was Talia."

We returned
to don Juan's house in the early hours of the morning. It took us a long time
to climb down the mountain, mainly because I was afraid of stumbling into a
precipice in the dark, and don Juan had to keep stopping to catch the breath he
lost laughing at me.

I was dead
tired, but I could not fall asleep. Before noon, it began to rain. The sound of
the heavy downpour on the tile roof, instead of making me feel drowsy, removed
every trace of sleepiness.

I got up
and went to look for don Juan. I found him dozing in a chair. The moment I approached
him he was wide-awake. I said good morning.

"You
seem to be having no trouble falling asleep," I commented.

"When
you have been afraid or upset, don't lie down to sleep," he said without
looking at me. "Sleep sitting up on a soft chair as I'm doing."

He had
suggested once that if I wanted to give my body healing rest I should take long
naps, lying on my stomach with my face turned to the left and my feet over the
foot of the bed. In order to avoid being cold, he recommended I put a soft
pillow over my shoulders, away from my neck, and wear heavy socks, or just
leave my shoes on.

When I
first heard his suggestion, I thought he was being funny, but later changed my
mind. Sleeping in that position helped me rest extraordinarily well. When I
commented on the surprising results, he advised that I follow his suggestions
to the letter without bothering to believe or disbelieve him.

I suggested
to don Juan that he might have told me the night before about the sleeping in a
sitting position. I explained to him that the cause of my sleeplessness,
besides my extreme fatigue, was a strange concern about what he had told me in
the sorcerer's cave.

"Cut
it out!" he exclaimed. "You've seen and heard infinitely more
distressing things without losing a moment's sleep. Something else is bothering
you."

For a
moment I thought he meant I was not being truthful with him about my real
preoccupation. I began to explain, but he kept talking as if I had not spoken.

"You
stated categorically last night that the cave didn't make you feel ill at
ease," he said. "Well, it obviously did. Last night I didn't pursue
the subject of the cave any further because I was waiting to observe your
reaction."

Don Juan
explained that the cave had been designed by sorcerers in ancient times to serve
as a catalyst. Its shape had been carefully constructed to accommodate two
people as two fields of energy. The theory of the sorcerers was that the nature
of the rock and the manner in which it had been carved allowed the two bodies,
the two luminous balls, to intertwine their energy.

"I
took you to that cave on purpose," he continued, "not because I like
the place - I don't - but because it was created as an instrument to push the
apprentice deep into heightened awareness. But unfortunately, as it helps, it
also obscures issues. The ancient sorcerers were not given to thought. They
leaned toward action."

"You
always say that your benefactor was like that," I said.

"That's
my own exaggeration," he answered, "very much like when I say you're
a fool. My benefactor was a modern nagual, involved in the pursuit of freedom,
but he leaned toward action instead of thoughts. You're a modern nagual,
involved in the same quest, but you lean heavily toward the aberrations of
reason."

He must
have thought his comparison was very funny; his laughter echoed in the empty
room. When I brought the conversation back to the subject of the cave, he
pretended not to hear me.

I knew he
was pretending because of the glint in his eyes and the way he smiled.

"Last
night, I deliberately told you the first abstract core," he said, "in
the hope that by reflecting on the way I have acted with you over the years
you'll get an idea about the other cores. You've been with me for a long time
so you know me very well. During every minute of our association I have tried
to adjust my actions and thoughts to the patterns of the abstract cores.

"The
nagual Elias's story is another matter. Although it seems to be a story about
people, it is really a story about intent. Intent creates edifices before us
and invites us to enter them. This is the way sorcerers understand what is
happening around them."

Don Juan
reminded me that I had always insisted on trying to discover the underlying
order in everything he said to me. I thought he was criticizing me for my
attempt to turn whatever he was teaching me into a social science problem. I
began to tell him that my outlook had changed under his influence. He stopped
me and smiled.

"You
really don't think too well," he said and sighed. "I want you to
understand the underlying order of what I teach you. My objection is to what
you think is the underlying order. To you, it means secret procedures or a
hidden consistency. To me, it means two things: both the edifice that intent
manufactures in the blink of an eye and places in front of us to enter, and the
signs it gives us so we won't get lost once we are inside.

"As
you can see, the story of the nagual Elias was more than merely an account of
the sequential details that made up the event," he went on.
"Underneath all that was the edifice of intent. And the story was meant to
give you an idea of what the naguals of the past were like, so that you would
recognize how they acted in order to adjust their thoughts and actions to the
edifices of intent"

There was a
prolonged silence. I did not have anything to say. Rather than let the
conversation die, I said the first thing that came into my mind. I said that
from the stories I had heard about the nagual Elias I had formed a very
positive opinion of him. I liked the nagual Elias, but for unknown reasons,
everything don Juan had told me about the nagual Julian bothered me.