Don Juan commented that it took incidents like this to test whether a nagual is the real thing or a fake, make decisions. With no regard for the consequences they take action or choose not to. Imposters ponder and become paralyzed. The nagual Elías, 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 Elías 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 Elías 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 Elías 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 tike 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 Elías 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 Elías 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 Elías 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 Elías 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 Elías 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 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, t 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.”
2
The Knock of the Spirit
THE ABSTRACT
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, e 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 hat 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. 1 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.