274-275
"Every Furrow is
infinite, and there
are infinite numbers of them. Living creatures are compulsorily made,
by the Force of Life, to gaze into one Furrow. To gaze into it means to
be trapped by it, to live that Furrow. She asserted, that, what
Warriors call Will, belongs to the Wheel of Time. It is something like
the runner of a vine, or an intangible (not palpable, not material, not
corporeal, not concrete) tentacle, which all of us possess. She
said, that a Warrior's final Aim is to learn to Focus it on the Wheel
of Time, in order to make it turn. Warriors, who have succeeded
in
turning the Wheel of Time, can gaze into any Furrow and draw from it
whatever they desire, such as the cosmic vagina. To be trapped
compulsorily in one Furrow of Time, entails Seeing the images of that
Furrow only as they recede. To be free from the
spellbinding force of
those grooves means, that one can look in either direction, as images
recede or as they approach. Florinda stopped talking and embraced me.
She whispered in my ear, that
she would be back to finish her instruction someday, when I had gained
the Totality of Myself. Don Juan called everyone to come to where I
was. They surrounded me. Don Juan spoke to me first. He said, that I
could not go with them on their journey, because it was impossible,
that I could withdraw from my task. Under those circumstances, the only
thing they could do for me, would be to wish me well. He (Don Juan) added, that Warriors
have no life of their own. From the
moment they understand the nature of Awareness, they cease to be
Persons and the human condition is no longer part of their view. I had
my duty as a Warrior and nothing else was important, for I was
going to be left behind to fulfill a most obscure task.
Since I had
already relinquished (give up, abandon) my life, there was nothing else
for them to say to me, except, that I should do my best. And there was
nothing for me to say to them, except, that I had understood and had
accepted my fate. Vicente came to my side next. He spoke very softly.
He said, that the challenge
of a Warrior is to arrive at a very subtle
Balance of Positive and Negative Forces. This challenge does not mean,
that a Warrior should strive to have everything under control, but that
a Warrior should strive to meet any conceivable situation, the expected
and the unexpected, with equal efficiency.
To be perfect under perfect circumstances was to be a paper warrior. My
challenge was to be left behind. Theirs was to strike onward into the
Unknowable. Both challenges were consuming. For Warriors, the
excitation of staying put, is equal to the excitation of the journey.
Both are equal, because both entail the fulfilling of a sacred trust.
Silvio Manuel came to my side next; he was concerned with
practicalities. He gave me a formula, an incantation for times, when my
task would be greater, than my strength; it was the incantation, that
came to my mind the first time I remembered the Nagual Woman, "I am
already given to the power, that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing,
so I will have nothing to defend. I have no thoughts, so I will See. I
fear nothing, so I will remember myself. Detached and at ease, I will
dart past the Eagle to be free -
Ya me di al poder que a mi destino
rige. No me agarro ya de nada, para asi no tener nada que defender. No
tengo pensamientos, para asi poder ver. No temo ya a nada, para asi
poder acordarme de mi. Sereno y dcsprendido, me dejara el aguila pasar
a la libertad."
He told me, that he was going to reveal to me a practical maneuver of
the Second Attention, and right then he turned into a Luminous Egg. He
reverted back to his normal appearance and repeated this transformation
three or four more times. I understood perfectly well, what he was
doing. He did not need to
explain it to me and yet, I could not put into words, what I knew.
Silvio
Manuel smiled, cognizant (aware or mental process to acquire knowledge)
of my problem.
He said, that it took an enormity of strength to let go
of the Intent of Everyday Life. The secret, that he had just revealed,
was how to expedite (assist, facilitate) letting go of that Intent. In
order to do, what he
had done (turned to Luminous Egg), one must place one's attention on
the Luminous Shell !
276-277
"He turned one more
time into a Luminous Egg and then it became obvious
to me, what I had known all along. Silvio Manuel's eyes turned for an
instant to focus on the point of the Second Attention. His head was
straight, as if he had been looking ahead of him, only his eyes were
askew (to one side, crooked). He said, that a warrior must evoke
Intent. The glance is the
secret. The eyes beckon Intent. I became euphoric at that
point. I was
at long last capable of thinking about something, I knew without really
knowing. The reason, why Seeing seems to be visual, is
because we need
the eyes to focus on Intent. Don Juan and his party of Warriors knew
how to use their eyes to catch another aspect of Intent and called this
act Seeing. What Silvio Manuel had
shown me was the true function of
the Eyes, the Catchers of Intent. I then used my eyes deliberately to
beckon Intent. I focused them on the point of the Second
Attention. All
of a sudden don Juan, his Warriors, dona Soledad, and Eligio were
Luminous Eggs, but not la Gorda, the three little Sisters, and the
Genaros. I kept on moving my eyes back and forth between the blobs of
light and the people, until I heard a crack in the base of my neck, and
everybody in the room was a Luminous Egg. I felt for an instant, that I
could not tell them apart, but then my eyes seemed to adjust and I held
two aspects of Intent, two images at once. I could see their physical
bodies and also their Luminosities. The two scenes were not
superimposed on each other, but separate, and yet I could not figure
out how. I definitely had two channels of vision, and Seeing had
everything to do with my eyes and yet was independent of them. I could
still See the Luminous Eggs, but not their physical bodies, when I
closed my eyes. I had at one moment the clearest sensation, that I
knew
how to shift my attention to my Luminosity. I also knew, that to revert
to the physical level, all I had to do, was to focus my eyes on my
body. Don Genaro came to my side next and told me, that the Nagual Juan
Matus, as a parting gift, had given me duty, Vicente had given me
challenge, Silvio Manuel had given me magic, and he was going to give
me humor. He looked me up and down and commented, that I was the
sorriest looking Nagual, he had ever seen. He examined the apprentices
and concluded, that there was nothing else
for us to do, except to be optimistic and to look on the positive side
of things. He told us a joke about a country girl, who was seduced and
jilted (rejected) by a city slicker. When she was told on the day of
her wedding,
that the groom had left town, she pulled herself together with the
sobering thought, that not
everything had been lost. She had lost her
virginity, but she had not yet killed her piglet for the wedding
feast. Don Genaro told us, that the only thing, that would help us to
get out
of our situation, which was the situation of the jilted bride, was to
hold onto our piglets, whatever they might be, and laugh ourselves
silly. Only through laughter could we change our condition. He coaxed
(urge, persuade, plead) us with gestures of his head and hands to give
him a hearty ha ha. The sight of the apprentices trying to laugh was as
ridiculous, as my own attempt. Suddenly I was laughing with don Juan
and his Warriors. Don Genaro, who had always made jokes about
my being a poet, asked me to read a poem out loud. He said, that he
wanted to summarize his sentiments and his recommendations with the
poem, that celebrates life, death and laughter. He was referring to a
fraction of Jose Gorostiza's poem, "Death Without End." The Nagual
Woman handed me the book and I read the part, that don Juan and don
Genaro had always liked."
278-279
"The setting for the
poem was overpowering. I felt a shiver. Emilito and
the courier Juan Tuma came to my side. They did not say a word. Their
eyes were shining like black marbles. All their feelings seemed to be
focused in their eyes. The courier Juan Tuma said very softly, that
once he had ushered (leading)
me into the mysteries of
Mescalito at his house,
and that that had been a forerunner of another occasion in the Wheel of
Time, when he would usher me into the ultimate mystery. Emilito said,
as
if his voice were an echo of the courier Juan Tuma's, that both of them
were confident, that I was going to fulfill my task. They would be
waiting, for I would join them someday. The courier Juan Tuma added,
that the Eagle had put me with the Nagual Juan Matus' party, as my
rescue unit. They embraced me again and whispered in unison, that I
should trust myself. After the couriers, the Female Warriors came to
me. Each one hugged me and whispered a wish in my ear, a wish of
plenitude and fulfillment. The Nagual Woman
came to me last. She sat
down and held me in her lap, as if I were a child. She exuded (make
felt) affection and purity. I
was breathless. We stood up and
walked around the room. We talked about and pondered our fate. Forces,
impossible to fathom (determine), had guided us to that culminating
moment. The awe (wonder, power, respect),
that I felt, was immeasurable. And so was my sadness. She then revealed
a portion of the Rule, that applies to the three-pronged
Nagual. She
was in a state of ultimate agitation and yet she was calm. Her
intellect was peerless and yet she was not trying to reason anything
out. Her last day on Earth overwhelmed her. She filled me with her
mood. It was, as if up to that moment, I had not quite realized the
finality of our situation. Being on my Left Side entailed, that the
primacy (state of being first) of the immediate took precedence
(priority in importance), which made it practically
impossible for me to foresee beyond that moment. However, the impact of
her mood engaged a great deal of my Right Side Awareness and its
capacity to prejudge feelings, that are to come. I realized, that I
would never again see her. That was unbearable! Don Juan had told me,
that on the Left Side there are no tears, that a Warrior can no longer
weep, and that the only expression of anguish (extreme mental pain,
torture, torment) is a shiver, that comes from the very depths of the
Universe. It is, as if one of the Eagle's emanations is
anguish
(extreme mental
pain, torture, torment). The Warrior's shiver is infinite. As the
Nagual Woman talked to me and held me,
I felt, that Shiver. She put her
arms around my neck and pressed her head against mine. I thought she
was wringing (squize, compress, twist) me like a piece of cloth. I felt
something coming out of
my body, or out of hers into mine. My anguish (extreme mental pain,
torture, torment) was so intense and it flooded me so fast, that I went
berserk (deranged, destructevely violent). I fell to the floor with the
Nagual Woman still embracing
me. I thought, as if in a dream, that I must have gashed (long, deep
cut) her forehead
in our fall. Her face and mine were covered with blood. Blood had
pooled in her eyes. Don Juan and don Genaro very swiftly lifted me up.
They held me. I was having uncontainable spasms, like seizures. The
Female Warriors surrounded the Nagual Woman;
then they stood in a row
in the middle of the room. The Men joined them. In one moment, there
was
an undeniable chain of energy going between them. The row moved and
paraded in front of me. Each one of them came for a moment and stood in
front of me, but without breaking the row. It was, as if they were
moving on a conveyor, that transported them and made each of them stop
in front of me. The Male couriers went by first, then the Female
couriers, then the Male Warriors, then the Dreamers, the Stalkers, and
finally the Nagual Woman. They
went by me and remained in full view for
a second or two, long enough to say goodbye, and then they disappeared
into the blackness of the mysterious slit, that had appeared in the
room. Don Juan pressed my back and relieved some of my
unbearable
anguish (extreme mental pain, torture, torment). He said, that he
understood my pain, and that the affinity (likeness) of the Nagual Man
and the
Nagual Woman is not something, that
can be formulated. It exists as a
result of the emanations of the Eagle; once the two people are put
together and are separated, there is no way to fill the emptiness,
because it is not social emptiness, but a movement of those emanations.
Don Juan told me then, that he was going to make me shift to my extreme
right. He said, that it was a merciful, although temporary
maneuver; it
would allow me to forget for the time being, but it would not soothe
me,
when I remembered.
280-281
Don Juan also told
me, that the Act of Remembering is thoroughly
incomprehensible. In actuality it is the Act of Remembering Oneself,
which does not stop at recollecting the interaction Warriors perform in
their Left Side Awareness, but goes on to recollect every memory, that
the Luminous Body has stored from the
moment of birth. The systematic
interaction Warriors go through in states of Heightened Consciousness
is only a device to entice (lure, attract) the Other Self to reveal
itself in terms of memories. This Act of Remembering, although it seems
to be only associated with Warriors, is something, that is within the
realm of every Human Being; every one of us can go directly to the
memories of our Luminosity with unfathomable (too deep to be measured)
results. Don Juan said then, that that day they would leave at dusk and
that the
only thing they still had to do for me, was to create an opening, an
interruption in the continuum of my time. They were going to make me
jump into an abyss, as a means of interrupting the Eagle's emanation,
that accounts for my feeling, that I am whole and continuous. The jump
was going to be done, while I was in a state of normal Awareness, and
the idea was, that my Second Attention would take over; rather than
dying at the bottom of the abyss, I would enter fully into the Other
Self. Don Juan said, that I would eventually come out of the Other
Self,
once my energy was exhausted; but I would not come out on the same
mountaintop, from where I was going to jump. He predicted, that I would
emerge at my favorite spot, wherever it might be. This would be the
interruption in the continuum of my time. He then pushed me completely
out of my Left Side Awareness. And I forgot my anguish (extreme mental
pain, torture, torment), my purpose, my task. At dusk that afternoon,
Pablito, Nestor and I did jump off a precipice. The Nagual's blow had
been so accurate and so merciful, that nothing of the momentous event
of their farewell transcended beyond the limits of the other momentous
event of jumping
to certain death and not dying.
Awe-inspiring,
as that event was, it was
pale, in comparison to what was taking place in another realm. Don Juan
made me jump at the precise moment, when he and all of his
warriors had kindled (arouse, inspire) their Awareness. I had a
dreamlike vision of a row of people, looking at me. Afterwards I
rationalized it, as just one of a long series of visions or
hallucinations I had had upon jumping. This was the meager (thin, lean,
deficient, scanty)
interpretation of my Right Side Awareness, overwhelmed by the
awesomeness of the Total Event. On my Left Side, however, I realized,
that I had entered into the Other Self.
And this entrance had had
nothing to do with my rationality. The Warriors of don Juan's party had
caught me for an eternal instant,
before they vanished into the Total Light, before the Eagle let them go
through. I knew, that they were in a range of the Eagle's emanations,
which was beyond my reach. They were waiting for don Juan and don
Genaro. I saw
don Juan taking the lead. And then there was only a Line
of Exquisite Lights in the sky. Something like a wind seemed to make
the Cluster of Lights contract and wriggle (twist, squirm).
There was a massive Glow on one end of the Line of Lights, where don
Juan was. I thought of the plumed serpent of the Toltec legend. And
then the Lights were gone."