happened to me. He used to make me lie naked on a rock in
the very center of a particular dried-up water hole, but all I
did was to feel the presence of something that scared me out
of my wits.
Why does emptiness prevent one from seeing the mold?
The Nagual said that everything in the world is a force,
a pull or a push. In order for us to be pushed or pulled we need
to be like a sail, like a kite in the wind. But if we have a hole
in the middle of our luminosity, the force goes through it
and never acts upon us.
The Nagual told me that Genaro liked you very much
and tried to make you aware of the hole in your middle. He
used to fly his sombrero as a kite to tease you; he even pulled
you from that hole until you had diarrhea, but you never
caught on to what he was doing.
Why didn’t they tell me as plainly as you have told me?
They did, but you didn’t notice their words.
I found her statement impossible to believe. To accept that
they had told me about it and I had not acknowledged it was
unthinkable.
Did you ever see the mold, Gorda? I asked.
Sure, when I became complete again. I went to that par-
ticular water hole one day by myself and there it was. It
was a radiant, luminous being. I could not look at it. It blinded
me. But being in its presence was enough. I felt happy and
strong. And nothing else mattered, nothing. Just being there
was all I wanted. The Nagual said that sometimes if we have
enough personal power we can catch a glimpse of the mold
even though we are not sorcerers; when that happens we say
that we have seen God. He said that if we call it God it is the
truth. The mold is God.
I had a dreadful time understanding the Nagual, because
I was a very religious woman. I had nothing else in the world
but my religion. So to hear the Nagual say the things he used
to say made me shiver. But then I became complete and the
forces of the world began to pull me, and I knew that the
Nagual was right. The mold is God. What do you think?
The day I see it I’ll tell you, Gorda, I said.
She laughed, and said that the Nagual used to make fun of
me, saying that the day I would see the mold I would prob-
ably become a Franciscan friar, because in the depths of me I
was a religious soul.
Was the mold you saw a man or a woman? I asked.
Neither. It was simply a luminous human. The Nagual
said that I could have asked something for myself. That a
warrior cannot let that chance pass. But I could not think of
anything to ask for. It was better that way. I have the most
beautiful memory of it. The Nagual said that a warrior with
enough power can see the mold many, many times. What a
great fortune that must be!
But if the human mold is what puts us together, what is
the human form?
Something sticky, a sticky force that makes us the people
we are. The Nagual told me that the human form has no
form. Like the allies that he carried in his gourd, it’s anything,
but in spite of not having form, it possesses us during our lives
and doesn’t leave us until we die. I’ve never seen the human
form but I have felt it in my body.
She then described a very complex series of sensations that
she had had over a period of years that culminated in a serious
illness, the climax of which was a bodily state that reminded
me of descriptions I had read of a massive heart attack. She
said that the human form, as the force that it is, left her body
after a serious internal battle that manifested itself as illness.
It sounds as if you had a heart attack, I said.
Maybe I did, she replied, but one thing I know for sure.
The day I had it, I lost my human form. I became so weak
that for days I couldn’t even get out of my bed. Since that
day I haven’t had the energy to be my old self. From time to
time I have tried to get into my old habits, but I didn’t have
the strength to enjoy them the way I used to. Finally I gave
up trying.
What is the point of losing your form?
A warrior must drop the human form in order to change,
to really change. Otherwise there is only talk about change,
like in your case. The Nagual said that it is useless to think
or hope that one can change one’s habits. One cannot change
one iota as long as one holds on to the human form. The
Nagual told me that a warrior knows that he cannot change,
and yet he makes it his business to try to change, even though
he knows that he won’t be able to. That’s the only advantage
a warrior has over the average man. The warrior is never dis-
appointed when he fails to change.
But you are still yourself, Gorda, aren’t you?
No. Not anymore. The only thing that makes you think
you are yourself is the form. Once it leaves, you are nothing.
But you still talk and think and feel as you always did,
don’t you?
Not at all. I’m new.
She laughed and hugged me as if she were consoling a child.
Only Eligio and I have lost our form, she went on. It
was our great fortune that we lost it while the Nagual was
among us. You people will have a horrid time. That is your
fate. Whoever loses it next will have only me as a companion.
I already feel sorry for whoever it will be.
What else did you feel, Gorda, when you lost your form,
besides not having enough energy?
The Nagual told me that a warrior without form begins
to see an eye. I saw an eye in front of me every time I closed
my eyes. It got so bad that I couldn’t rest anymore; the eye
followed me wherever I went. I nearly went mad. Finally, I
suppose, I became used to it. Now I don’t even notice it be-
cause it has become part of me.
The formless warrior uses that eye to start dreaming. If
you don’t have a form, you don’t have to go to sleep to do
dreaming. The eye in front of you pulls you every time you
want to go.
Where exactly is that eye, Gorda?
She closed her eyes and moved her hand from side to side,
right in front of her eyes, covering the span of her face.
Sometimes the eye is very small and other times it is enor-
mous, she went on. When it’s small your dreaming is pre-
cise. If it’s big your dreaming is like flying over the mountains
and not really seeing much. I haven’t done enough dreaming
yet, but the Nagual told me that that eye is my trump card.
One day when I become truly formless I won’t see the eye
anymore; the eye will become just like me, nothing, and yet
it’ll be there like the allies. The Nagual said that everything
has to be sifted through our human form. When we have no
form, then nothing has form and yet everything is present.
I couldn’t understand what he meant by that, but now I see
that he was absolutely right. The allies are only a presence
and so will be the eye. But at this time that eye is everything
to me. In fact, in having that eye I should need nothing else
in order to call up my dreaming, even when I’m awake. I
haven’t been able to do that yet. Perhaps I’m like you, a bit
stubborn and lazy.
How did you do the flying you showed me tonight?
The Nagual taught me how to use my body to make lights,
because we are light anyway, so I make sparks and lights and
they in turn lure the lines of the world. Once I see one, it’s
easy to hook myself to it.
How do you hook yourself?
I grab it.
She made a gesture with her hands. She clawed them and
then placed them together joined at the wrists, forming a sort
of bowl, with the clawed fingers upright.
You have to grab the line like a jaguar, she went on, and
never separate the wrists. If you do, you’ll fall down and
break your neck.
She paused and that forced me to look at her, waiting for
more of her revelations.