The Second Ring of Power

Index:

Preface

Chapter 1. The Transformation of Dona Soledad

Chapter 2. The Little Sisters

Chapter 3. La Gorda

Chapter 4. The Genaros

Chapter 5. The Art of Dreaming

Chapter 6. The Second Attention

A flat, barren mountaintop on the western slopes of the Sierra Madre in
central Mexico was
the setting for my final meeting with don Juan and
don Genaro and their other two apprentices,
Pablito and
Nestor. The solemnity and the scope of what took place there left no doubt in
my
mind that our apprenticeships had come to their
concluding moment, and that I was indeed seeing
don Juan and
don Genaro for the last time. Toward the end we all said good-bye to one
another,
and then Pablito and I jumped together from the top of
the mountain into an abyss.

Prior to that jump don Juan had presented a fundamental principle for
all that was going to
happen to me. According to him, upon
jumping into the abyss I was going to become pure
perception and
move back and forth between the two inherent realms of all creation, the tonal
and
the nagual.

In my jump my perception went through seventeen elastic bounces between
the tonal and the
nagual. In my moves into the nagual I perceived my
body disintegrating. I could not think or feel in the coherent, unifying sense
that I ordinarily do, but I somehow thought and felt. In my moves
into
the tonal I burst into unity. I was whole. My perception had coherence. I had
visions of order.
Their compelling force was so intense, their
vividness so real and their complexity so vast that I
have not been
capable of explaining them to my satisfaction. To say that they were visions,
vivid
dreams or even hallucinations does not say anything to
clarify their nature.

After having examined and analyzed in a most thorough and careful
manner my feelings,
perceptions and interpretations of that jump into
the abyss, I had come to the point where I could not rationally believe that it
had actually happened. And yet another part of me held on steadfast to the
feeling that it did happen, that I did jump.

Don Juan and don Genaro are no longer available and their absence has
created in me a most
pressing need, the need to make headway
in the midst of apparently insoluble contradictions.

I went back to Mexico to see Pablito and Nestor to seek their help in
resolving my conflicts.
But what I encountered on my trip
cannot be described in any other way except as a final assault on my
reason
,
a concentrated attack designed by don Juan himself. His apprentices, under his
absentee direction, in a most methodical and precise fashion demolished in a
few days the last bastion of my
reason
. In those few days they revealed
to me one of the two practical aspects of their sorcery, the art of
dreaming
,
which is the core of the present work.

The art of
stalking
, the other practical aspect of their sorcery
and also the crowning stone of
don Juan's and don Genaro's teachings,
was presented to me during subsequent visits and was by far the most complex
facet of their being in the world as sorcerers.

I had a sudden premonition that Pablito and Nestor were not home. My
certainty was so
profound that I stopped my car. I was at the place
where the asphalt came to an abrupt end, and I wanted to reconsider whether or
not to continue that day the long and difficult drive on the steep,
coarse
gravel road to their hometown in the mountains of central Mexico.

I rolled down the window of my car. It was rather windy and cold. I got
out to stretch my legs.
The tension of driving for hours had
stiffened my back and neck. I walked to the edge of the
paved
road. The ground was wet from an early shower. Rain was still falling heavily
on the
slopes of the mountains to the south, a short distance
from where I was. But right in front of me,
toward the east
and also toward the north, the sky was clear. At certain points on the winding
road
I had been able to see the bluish peaks of the sierras shining in the sunlight
a great distance
away.

After a moment's deliberation I decided to turn back and go to the city
because I had had a
most peculiar feeling that I was going to find don
Juan in the market. After all, I had always done just that, found him in the
marketplace, since the beginning of my association with him. As a rule,
if I
did not find him in Sonora I would drive to central Mexico and go to the market
of that particular city, and sooner or later don Juan would show up. The
longest I had ever waited for
him was two days. I was so habituated
to meeting him in that manner that I had the most absolute
certainty
that I would find him again, as always.

I waited in the market all afternoon. I walked up and down the aisles
pretending to be looking
for something to buy. Then I waited
around the park. At dusk I knew that he was not coming. I
had
then the clear sensation that he had been there but had left. I sat down on a
park bench where
I used to sit with him and tried to analyze my
feelings. Upon arriving in the city I was elated with
the sure
knowledge that don Juan was there in the streets. What I felt was more than the
memory
of having found him there countless times before; my body
knew that he was looking for me. But
then, as I sat on the bench I
had another kind of strange certainty. I knew that he was not there
anymore.
He had left and I had missed him.

After a while I discarded my speculations. I thought that I was
beginning to be affected by the
place. I was starting to get
irrational; that had always happened to me in the past after a few days in that
area.

I went to my hotel room to rest for a few hours and then I went out
again to roam the streets. I
did not have the same expectation of
finding don Juan that I had had in the afternoon. I gave up. I
went
back to my hotel in order to get a good night's sleep.

Before I headed for the mountains in the morning, I drove up and down
the main streets in my
car, but somehow I knew that I was
wasting my time. Don Juan was not there.

It took me all morning to drive to the little town where Pablito and
Nestor lived. I arrived
around noon. Don Juan had taught me
never to drive directly into the town so as not to arouse the
curiosity
of onlookers. Every time I had been there I had always driven off the road,
just before
reaching the town, onto a flat field where youngsters
usually played soccer. The dirt was well packed all the way to a walking trail
which was wide enough for a car and which passed by
Pablito's and
Nestor's houses in the foothills south of town. As soon as I got to the edge of
the
field I found that the walking trail had been turned into
a gravel road.

I deliberated whether to go to Nestor's house or Pablito's. The feeling
that they were not there
still persisted. I opted to go to
Pablito's; I reasoned that Nestor lived alone, while Pablito lived
with
his mother and his four sisters. If he was not there the women could help me
find him. As I got closer to his house I noticed that the path leading from the
road up to the house had been
widened. It looked as if the ground
was hard, and since there was enough space for my car, I
drove
almost to the front door. A new porch with a tile roof had been added to the
adobe house.

There were no dogs barking but I saw an enormous one sitting calmly
behind a fenced area,
alertly observing me. A flock of
chickens that had been feeding in front of the house scattered
around,
cackling. I turned the motor off and stretched my arms over my head. My body
was stiff.

The house seemed deserted. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps
Pablito and his family had moved away and someone else was living there.
Suddenly the front door opened with a bang
and Pablito's
mother stepped out as if someone had pushed her. She stared at me
absentmindedly
for an instant. As I got out of my car she seemed
to recognize me. A graceful shiver ran through
her body and
she ran toward me. I thought that she must have been napping and that the noise
of
the car had woken her, and when she came out to see what
was going on she did not know at first
who I was. The
incongruous sight of the old woman running toward me made me smile. When
she
got closer I had a moment of doubt. Somehow she moved so nimbly that she did
not seem
like Pablito's mother at all.

"My goodness what a surprise!" she exclaimed.

"Dona Soledad?" I asked, incredulously.

"Don't you recognize me?" she replied, laughing.

I made some stupid comments about her surprising agility.

"Why do you always see me as a helpless old woman?" she
asked, looking at me with an air of
mock challenge.

She bluntly accused me of having nicknamed her "Mrs. Pyramid."
I remembered that I had
once said to Nestor that her shape
reminded me of a pyramid. She had a very broad and massive
behind
and a small pointed head. The long dresses that she usually wore added to the
effect.

"Look at me," she said. "Do I still look like a
pyramid?"

She was smiling but her eyes made me feel uncomfortable. I attempted to
defend myself by
making a joke but she cut me off and coaxed me to
admit that I was responsible for the nickname.
I assured her
that I had never intended it as such and that anyway, at that moment she was so
lean
that her shape was the furthest thing from a pyramid.

"What's happened to you, dona Soledad?" I asked. "You're
transformed."

"You said it," she replied briskly. "I've been transformed!"

I meant it figuratively. However, upon closer examination I had to admit
that there was no
room for a metaphor. She was truly a changed
person. I suddenly had a dry, metallic taste in my
mouth. I was
afraid.

She placed her fists on her hips and stood with her legs slightly
apart, facing me. She was
wearing a light green, gathered skirt
and a whitish blouse. Her skirt was shorter than those she used to wear. I
could not see her hair; she had it tied with a thick band, a turban-like piece
of
cloth. She was barefoot and she rhythmically tapped her
big feet on the ground as she smiled with
the candor of
a young girl. I had never seen anyone exude as much strength as she did. I
noticed a
strange gleam in her eyes, a disturbing gleam but not a
frightening one. I thought that perhaps I
had never
really examined her appearance carefully. Among other things I felt guilty for
having
glossed over many people during my years with don Juan.
The force of his personality had
rendered everyone else pale and
unimportant.

I told her that I had never imagined that she could have such a
stupendous vitality, that my
carelessness was to blame for not
really knowing her, and that no doubt I would have to meet
everyone
else all over again.