Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan, by Carlos Castan

Every person is a philosopher by nature; however, we are quickly dissuaded from this delightful activity by those who call philosophy impractical. But there is nothing more practical than knowing who you are and what you think. Try it sometime.

Re: Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan, by Carlos Ca

Postby admin » Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:42 am

Chapter 19: STOPPING THE WORLD

The next day as soon as I woke up I began asking don Juan questions. He was cutting firewood in the back of his house, but don Genaro was nowhere in sight. He said that there was nothing to talk about. I pointed out that I had succeeded in remaining aloof and had observed don Genaro's "swimming on the floor" without wanting or demanding any explanation whatsoever, but my restraint had not helped me to understand what was taking place. Then, after the disappearance of the car, I became automatically locked in seeking a logical explanation, but that did not help me either. I told don Juan that my insistence on finding explanations was not something that I had arbitrarily devised myself, just to be difficult, but was something so deeply ingrained in me that it overruled every other consideration.

"It's like a disease," I said.

"There are no diseases," don Juan replied calmly. "There is only indulging. And you indulge yourself in trying to explain everything. Explanations are no longer necessary in your case."

I insisted that I could function only under conditions of order and understanding. I reminded him that I had drastically changed my personality during the time of our association, and that the condition that had made that change possible was that I had been capable of explaining to myself the reasons for that change.

Don Juan laughed softly. He did not speak for a long time.

"You are very clever," he finally said. "You go back to where you have always been. This time you are finished though. You have no place to go back to. I will not explain anything to you any more. Whatever Genaro did to you yesterday he did it to your body, so let your body decide what's what."

Don Juan's tone was friendly but unusually detached and that made me feel an overwhelming loneliness. I expressed my feelings of sadness. He smiled. His fingers gently clasped the top of my hand.

"We both are beings who are going to die," he said softly. "There is no more time for what we used to do. Now you must employ all the not-doing I have taught you and stop the world."

He clasped my hand again. His touch was firm and friendly; it was like a reassurance that he was concerned and had affection for me, and at the same time it gave me the impression of an unwavering purpose.

"This is my gesture for you," he said, holding the grip he had on my hand for an instant. "Now you must go by yourself into those friendly mountains." He pointed with his chin to the distant range of mountains towards the southeast.

He said that I had to remain there until my body told me to quit and then return to his house.. He let me know that he did not want me to say anything or to wait any longer by shoving me gently in the direction of my car.

"What am I supposed to do there?" I asked.

He did not answer but looked at me, shaking his head.

"No more of that," he finally said.

Then he pointed his finger to the southeast.

"Go there," he said cuttingly.

I drove south and then east, following the roads I had always taken when driving with don Juan. I parked my car around the place where the dirt road ended and then I hiked on a familiar trail until I reached a high plateau. I had no idea what to do there. I began to meander, looking for a resting place. Suddenly I became aware of a small area to my left. It seemed that the chemical composition of the soil was different on that spot, yet when I focused my eyes on it there was nothing visible that would account for the difference. I stood a few feet away and tried to "feel" as don Juan had always recommended I should do.

I stayed motionless for perhaps an hour. My thoughts began to diminish by degrees until I was no longer talking to myself. I then had a sensation of annoyance. The feeling seemed to be confined to my stomach and was more acute when I faced the spot in question. I was repulsed by it and felt compelled to move away from it. I began scanning the area with crossed eyes and after a short walk I came upon a large flat rock. I stopped in front of it. There was nothing in particular about the rock that attracted me. I did not detect any specific color or any shine on it, and yet I liked it. My body felt good. I experienced a sensation of physical comfort and sat down for a while.

I meandered in the high plateau and the surrounding mountains all day without knowing what to do or what to expect. I came back to the flat rock at dusk. I knew that if I spent the night there I would be safe.

The next day I ventured farther east into the high mountains. By late afternoon I came to another even higher plateau. I thought I had been there before. I looked around to orient myself but I could not recognize any of the surrounding peaks. After carefully selecting a suitable place I sat down to rest at the edge of a barren rocky area. I felt very warm and peaceful there. I tried to pour out some food from my gourd, but it was empty. I drank some water. It was warm and stale. I thought that I had nothing else to do but to return to don Juan's house and began to wonder whether or not I should start on my way back right away. I lay down on my stomach and rested my head on my arm. I felt uneasy and changed positions various times until I found myself facing the west. The sun was already low. My eyes were tired. I looked down at the ground and caught sight of a large black beetle. It came out from behind a small rock, pushing a ball of dung twice its size. I followed its movements for a long time. The insect seemed unconcerned with my presence and kept on pushing its load over rocks, roots, depressions, and protuberances on the ground. For all I knew, the beetle was not aware that I was there. The thought occurred to me that I could not possibly be sure that the insect was not aware of me; that thought triggered a series of rational evaluations about the nature of the insect's world as opposed to mine. The beetle and I were in the same world and obviously the world was not the same for both of us. I became immersed in watching it and marveled at the gigantic strength it needed to carry its load over rocks and down crevices.

I observed the insect for a long time and then I became aware of the silence around me. Only the wind hissed between the branches and leaves of the chaparral. I looked up, turned to my left in a quick and involuntary fashion, and caught a glimpse of a faint shadow or a flicker on a rock a few feet away. At first I paid no attention to it but then I realized that that flicker had been to my left. I turned again suddenly and was able to clearly perceive a shadow on the rock. I had the weird sensation that the shadow instantly slid down to the ground and the soil absorbed it as a blotter dries an ink blotch. A chill ran down my back. The thought crossed my mind that death was watching me and the beetle.

I looked for the insect again but I could not find it. I thought that it must have arrived at its destination and then had dropped its load into a hole in the ground. I put my face against a smooth rock.

The beetle emerged from a deep hole and stopped a few inches away from my face. It seemed to look at me and for a moment I felt that it became aware of my presence, perhaps as I was aware of the presence of my death. I experienced a shiver. The beetle and I were not that different after all. Death, like a shadow, was stalking both of us from behind the boulder. I had an extraordinary moment of elation. The beetle and I were on a par. Neither of us was better than the other. Our death made us equal.

My elation and joy were so overwhelming that I began to weep. Don Juan was right. He had always been right. I was living in a most mysterious world and, like everyone else, I was a most mysterious being, and yet I was no more important than a beetle. I wiped my eyes and as I rubbed them with the back of my hand I saw a man, or something which had the shape of a man. It was to my right about fifty yards away. I sat up straight and strained to see. The sun was almost on the horizon and its yellowish glow prevented me from getting a clear view. I heard a peculiar roar at that moment. It was like the sound of a distant jet plane. As I focused my attention on it, the roar increased to a prolonged sharp metallic whizzing and then it softened until it was a mesmerizing, melodious sound. The melody was like the vibration of an electrical current. The image that came to my mind was that two electrified spheres were coming together, or two square blocks of electrified metal were rubbing against each other and then coming to rest with a thump when they were perfectly leveled with each other. I again strained to see if I could distinguish the person that seemed to be hiding from me, but I could only detect a dark shape against the bushes. I shielded my eyes by placing my hands above them. The brilliancy of the sunlight changed at that moment and then I realized that what I was seeing was only an optical illusion, a play of shadows and foliage.

I moved my eyes away and I saw a coyote calmly trotting across the field. The coyote was around the spot where I thought I had seen the man. It moved about fifty yards in a southerly direction and then it stopped, turned, and began walking towards me. I yelled a couple of times to scare it away, but it kept on coming. I had a moment of apprehension. I thought that it might be rabid and I even considered gathering some rocks to defend myself in case of an attack. When the animal was ten or fifteen feet away I noticed that it was not agitated in any way; on the contrary, it seemed calm and unafraid. It slowed down its gait, coming to a halt barely four or five feet from me. We looked at each other, and then the coyote came even closer. Its brown eyes were friendly and clear. I sat down on the rocks and the coyote stood almost touching me. I was dumbfounded. I had never seen a wild coyote that close, and the only thing that occurred to me at that moment was to talk to it. I began as one would talk to a friendly dog. And then I thought that the coyote "talked" back to me. I had the absolute certainty that it had said something. I felt confused but I did not have time to ponder upon my feelings, because the coyote "talked" again. It was not that the animal was voicing words the way I am accustomed to hearing words being voiced by human beings, it was rather a "feeling" that it was talking. But it was not like a feeling that one has when a pet seems to communicate with its master either. The coyote actually said something; it relayed a thought and that communication came out in something quite similar to a sentence. I had said, "How are you, little coyote?" and I thought I had heard the animal respond, "I'm all right, and you?" Then the coyote repeated the sentence and I jumped to my feet. The animal did not make a single movement. It was not even startled by my sudden jump. Its eyes were still friendly and clear. It lay down on its stomach and tilted its head and asked, "Why are you afraid?" I sat down facing it and I carried on the weirdest conversation I had ever had. Finally it asked me what I was doing there and I said I had come there to "stop the world." The coyote said, "Que bueno!" and then I realized that it was a bilingual coyote. The nouns and verbs of its sentences were in English, but the conjunctions and exclamations were in Spanish. The thought crossed my mind that I was in the presence of a Chicano coyote. I began to laugh at the absurdity of it all and I laughed so hard that I became almost hysterical. Then the full weight of the impossibility of what was happening struck me and my mind wobbled. The coyote stood up and our eyes met. I stared fixedly into them. I felt they were pulling me and suddenly the animal became iridescent; it began to glow. It was as if my mind were replaying the memory of another event that had taken place ten years before, when under the influence of peyote I witnessed the metamorphosis of an ordinary dog into an unforgettable iridescent being. It was as though the coyote had triggered the recollection, and the memory of that previous event was summoned and became superimposed on the coyote's shape; the coyote was a fluid, liquid, luminous being. Its luminosity was dazzling. I wanted to cover my eyes with my hands to protect them, but I could not move. The luminous being touched me in some undefined part of myself and my body experienced such an exquisite indescribable warmth and well-being that it was as if the touch had made me explode. I became transfixed. I could not feel my feet, or my legs, or any part of my body, yet something was sustaining me erect.

I have no idea how long I stayed in that position. In the meantime, the luminous coyote and the hilltop where I stood melted away. I had no thoughts or feelings. Everything had been turned off and I was floating freely.

Suddenly I felt that my body had been struck and then it became enveloped by something that kindled me. I became aware then that the sun was shining on me. I could vaguely distinguish a distant range of mountains towards the west. The sun was almost over the horizon. I was looking directly into it and then I saw the "lines of the world." I actually perceived the most extraordinary profusion of fluorescent white lines which crisscrossed everything around me. For a moment I thought that I was perhaps experiencing sunlight as it was being refracted by my eyelashes. I blinked and looked again. The lines were constant and were superimposed on or were coming through everything in the surroundings. I turned around and examined an extraordinarily new world. The lines were visible and steady even if I looked away from the sun.

I stayed on the hilltop in a state of ecstasy for what appeared to be an endless time, yet the whole event may have lasted only a few minutes, perhaps only as long as the sun shone before it reached the horizon, but to me it seemed an endless time. I felt something warm and soothing oozing out of the world and out of my own body. I knew I had discovered a secret. It was so simple. I experienced an unknown flood of feelings. Never in my life had I had such a divine euphoria, such peace, such an encompassing grasp, and yet I could not put the discovered secret into words, or even into thoughts, but my body knew it.

Then I either fell asleep or I fainted. When I again became aware of myself I was lying on the rocks. I stood up. The world was as I had always seen it. It was getting dark and. I automatically started on my way back to my car.

Don Juan was alone in the house when I arrived the next morning. I asked him about don Genaro and he said that he was somewhere in the vicinity, running an errand. I immediately began to narrate to him the extraordinary experiences I had had. He listened with obvious interest.

"You have simply stopped the world," he commented after I had finished my account.

We remained silent for a moment and then don Juan said that I had to thank don Genaro for helping me. He seemed to be unusually pleased with me. He patted my back repeatedly and chuckled.

"But it is inconceivable that a coyote could talk," I said.

"It wasn't talk," don Juan replied.

"What was it then?"

"Your body understood for the first time. But you failed to recognize that it was not a coyote to begin with and that it certainly was not talking the way you and I talk."

"But the coyote really talked, don Juan!"

"Now look who is talking like an idiot. After all these years of learning you should know better. Yesterday you stopped the world and you might have even seen. A magical being told you something and your body was capable of understanding it because the world had collapsed."

"The world was like it is today, don Juan."

"No, it wasn't. Today the coyotes do not tell you anything, and you cannot see the lines of the world. Yesterday you did all that simply because something had stopped in you."

"What was the thing that stopped in me?"

"What stopped inside you yesterday was what people have been telling you the world is like. You see, people tell us from the time we are born that the world is such and such and so and so, and naturally we have no choice but to see the world the way people have been telling us it is."

We looked at each other.

"Yesterday the world became as sorcerers tell you it is," he went on. "In that world coyotes talk and so do deer, as I once told you, and so do rattlesnakes and trees and all other living beings. But what I want you to learn is seeing. Perhaps you know now that seeing happens only when one sneaks between the worlds, the world of ordinary people and the world of sorcerers. You are now smack in the middle point between the two. Yesterday you believed the coyote talked to you. Any sorcerer who doesn't see would believe the same, but one who sees knows that to believe that is to be pinned down in the realm of sorcerers. By the same token, not to believe that coyotes talk is to be pinned down in the realm of ordinary men."

"Do you mean, don Juan, that neither the world of ordinary men nor the world of sorcerers is real?"

"They are real worlds. They could act upon you. For example, you could have asked that coyote about anything you wanted to know and it would have been compelled to give you an answer. The only sad part is that coyotes are not reliable. They are tricksters. It is your fate not to have a dependable animal companion."

Don Juan explained that the coyote was going to be my companion for life and that in the world of sorcerers to have a coyote friend was not a desirable state of affairs. He said that it would have been ideal for me to have talked to a rattlesnake, since they were stupendous companions.

"If I were you," he added, "I would never trust a coyote.. But you are different and you may even become a coyote sorcerer."

"What is a coyote sorcerer?"

"One who draws a lot of things from his coyote brothers."

I wanted to keep on asking questions but he made a gesture to stop me.

"You have seen the lines of the world," he said. "You have seen a luminous being. You are now almost ready to meet the ally. Of course you know that the man you saw in the bushes was the ally. You heard its roar like the sound of a jet plane. He'll be waiting for you at the edge of a plain, a plain I will take you to myself."

We were quiet for a long time. Don Juan had his hands clasped over his stomach. His thumbs moved almost imperceptibly.

"Genaro will also have to go with us to that valley," he said all of a sudden. "He is the one who has helped you to stop the world."

Don Juan looked at me with piercing eyes.

"I will tell you one more thing," he said and laughed. "It really does matter now. Genaro never moved your car from the world of ordinary men the other day. He simply forced you to look at the world like sorcerers do, and your car was not in that world. Genaro wanted to soften your certainty. His clowning told your body about the absurdity of trying to understand everything. And when he flew his kite you almost saw. You found your car and you were in both worlds. The reason we nearly split our guts laughing was because you really thought you were driving us back from where you thought you had found your car."

"But how did he force me to see the world as sorcerers do?"

"I was with him. We both know that world. Once one knows that world all one needs to bring it about is to use that extra ring of power I have told you sorcerers have. Genaro can do that as easily as snapping his fingers. He kept you busy turning over rocks in order to distract your thoughts and allow your body to see."

I told him that the events of the last three days had done some irreparable damage to my idea of the world. I said that during the ten years I had been associated with him I had never been so moved, not even during the times I had ingested psychotropic plants.

"Power plants are only an aid," don Juan said. "The real thing is when the body realizes that it can see. Only then is one capable of knowing that the world we look at every day is only a description. My intent has been to show you that. Unfortunately you have very little time left before the ally tackles you."

"Does the ally have to tackle me?"

"There is no way to avoid it. In order to see one must learn the way sorcerers look at the world and thus the ally has to be summoned, and once that is done it comes."

"Couldn't you have taught me to see without summoning the ally?"

"No. In order to see one must learn to look at the world in some other fashion, and the only other fashion I know is the way of a sorcerer."
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Re: Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan, by Carlos Ca

Postby admin » Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:42 am

Chapter 20: JOURNEY TO IXTLAN

Don Genaro returned around noon and at don Juan's suggestion the three of us drove down to the range of mountains where I had been the day before. We hiked on the same trail I had taken but instead of stopping in the high plateau, as I had done, we kept on climbing until we reached the top of the lower range of mountains, then we began to descend into a flat valley.

We stopped to rest on top of a high hill. Don Genaro picked the spot. I automatically sat down, as I have always done in their company, with don Juan to my right and don Genaro to my left, making a triangle.

The desert chaparral had acquired an exquisite moist sheen. It was brilliantly green after a short spring shower.

"Genaro is going to tell you something," don Juan said to me all of a sudden. "He is going to tell you the story of his first encounter with his ally. Isn't that so, Genaro?"

There was a tone of coaxing in don Juan's voice. Don Genaro looked at me and contracted his lips until his mouth looked like a round hole. He curled his tongue against his palate and opened and closed his mouth as if he were having spasms.

Don Juan looked at him and laughed loudly. I did not know what to make out of it.

"What's he doing?" I asked don Juan.

"He's a hen!" he said.

"A hen?"

"Look, look at his mouth. That's the hen's ass and it is about to lay an egg."

The spasms of don Genaro's mouth seemed to increase. He had a strange, crazy look in his eyes. His mouth opened up as if the spasms were dilating the round hole. He made a croaking sound in his throat, folded his arms over his chest with his hands bent inward, and then unceremoniously spat out some phlegm.

"Damn it! It wasn't an egg," he said with a concerned look on his face.

The posture of his body and the expression on his face were so ludicrous that I could not help laughing.

"Now that Genaro almost laid an egg maybe he will tell you about his first encounter with his ally," don Juan insisted.

"Maybe," don Genaro said, uninterested.

I pleaded with him to tell me.

Don Genaro stood up, stretched his arms and back. His bones made a cracking sound. Then he sat down again.

"I was young when I first tackled my ally," he finally said. "I remember that it was in the early afternoon. I had been in the fields since daybreak and I was returning to my house. Suddenly, from behind a bush, the ally came out and blocked my way. He had been waiting for me and was inviting me to wrestle him. I began to turn around in order to leave him alone but the thought came to my mind that I was strong enough to tackle him. I was afraid though. A chill ran up my spine and my neck became stiff as a board. By the way, that is always the sign that you're ready, I mean, when your neck gets hard."

He opened up his shirt and showed me his back. He stiffened the muscles of his neck, back, and arms. I noticed the superb quality of his musculature. It was as if the memory of the encounter had activated every muscle in his torso.

"In such a situation," he continued, "you must always close your mouth."

He turned to don Juan and said, "Isn't that so'!"

"Yes," don Juan said calmly. "The jolt that one gets from grabbing an ally is so great that one might bite off one's tongue or knock one's teeth out. One's body must be straight and well-grounded, and the feet must grab the ground."

Don Genaro stood up and showed me the proper position: his body slightly bent at the knees, his arms hanging at his sides with the fingers curled gently. He seemed relaxed and yet firmly set on the ground. He remained in that position for an instant, and when I thought he was going to sit down he suddenly lunged forward in one stupendous leap, as if he had springs attached to his heels. His movement was so sudden that I fell down on my back; but as I fell I had the clear impression that don Genaro had grabbed a man, or something which had the shape of a man.

I sat up again. Don Genaro was still maintaining a tremendous tension all over his body, then he relaxed his muscles abruptly and went back to where he had been sitting before and sat down.

"Carlos just saw your ally right now," don Juan remarked casually, "but he's still weak and fell down."

"Did you?" don Genaro asked in a naive tone and enlarged his nostrils.

Don Juan assured him that I had "seen" it.

Don Genaro leaped forward again with such a force that I fell on my side. He executed his jump so fast that I really could not tell how he had sprung to his feet from a sitting position in order to lunge forward.

Both of them laughed loudly and then don Genaro changed his laughter into a howling indistinguishable from a coyote's.

"Don't think that you have to jump as well as Genaro in order to grab your ally," don Juan said in a cautioning tone. "Genaro jumps so well because he has his ally to help him. All you have to do is to be firmly grounded in order to sustain the impact. You have to stand just like Genaro did before he jumped, then you have to leap forward and grab the ally."

"He's got to kiss his medallion first," don Genaro interjected.

Don Juan, with feigned severity, said that I had no medallions.

"What about his notebooks?" don Genaro insisted. "He's got to do something with his notebooks--put them down somewhere before he jumps, or maybe he'll use his notebooks to beat the ally."

"I'll be damned!" don Juan said with seemingly genuine surprise. "I have never thought of that. I bet it'll be the first time an ally is beaten down to the ground with notebooks."

When don Juan's laughter and don Genaro's coyote howling subsided we were all in a very fine mood.

"What happened when you grabbed your ally, don Genaro?" I asked.

"It was a powerful jolt," don Genaro said after a moment's hesitation. He seemed to have been putting his thoughts in order.

"Never would I have imagined it was going to be like that," he went on. "It was something, something, something ... like nothing I can tell. After I grabbed it we began to spin. The ally made me twirl, but I didn't let go. We spun through the air with such speed and force that I couldn't see any more. Everything was foggy. The spinning went on, and on, and on. Suddenly I felt that I was standing on the ground again. I looked at myself. The ally had not killed me. I was in one piece. I was myself! I knew then that I had succeeded. At long last I had an ally. I jumped up and down with delight. What a feeling! What a feeling it was!

"Then I looked around to find out where I was. The surroundings were unknown to me. I thought that the ally must have taken me through the air and dumped me somewhere very far from the place where we started to spin. I oriented myself. I thought that my home must be towards the east, so I began to walk in that direction. It was still early. The encounter with the ally had not taken too long. Very soon I found a trail and then I saw a bunch of men and women coming towards me. They were Indians. I thought they were Mazatec Indians. They surrounded me and asked me where I was going. 'I'm going home to Ixtlan,' I said to them. 'Are you lost?' someone asked. 'I am,' I said. 'Why?' 'Because lxtlan is not that way. Ixtlan is in the opposite direction. We ourselves are going there,' someone else said. 'Join us!' they all said. 'We have food!'"

Don Genaro stopped talking and looked at me as if he were waiting for me to ask a question.

"Well, what happened?" I asked. "Did you join them?"

"No.I didn't," he said. "Because they were not real. I knew it right away, the minute they came to me. There was something in their voices, in their friendliness that gave them away, especially when they asked me to join them. So I ran away. They called me and begged me to come back. Their pleas became haunting, but I kept on running away from them."

"Who were they?" I asked.

"People," don Genaro replied cuttingly. "Except that they were not real."

"They were like apparitions," don Juan explained. "Like phantoms."

"After walking a while," don Genaro went on, "I became more confident. I knew that IxtIan was in the direction I was going. And then I saw two men coming down the trail towards me. They also seemed to be Mazatec Indians. They had a donkey loaded with firewood.. They went by me and mumbled, 'Good afternoon.'

"'Good afternoon!' I said and kept on walking." They did not pay any attention to me and went their way. I slowed down my gait and casually turned around to look at them. They were walking away unconcerned with me. They seemed to be real. I ran after them and yelled, 'Wait, wait!'

"They held their donkey and stood on either side of the animal, as if they were protecting the load.

"'I am lost in these mountains,' I said to them. 'Which way is Ixtlan?' They pointed in the direction they were going. 'You're very far,' one of them said. 'It is on the other side of those mountains. It'll take you four or five days to get there.' Then they turned around and kept on walking. I felt that those were real Indians and I begged them to let me join them.

"We walked together for a while and then one of them got his bundle of food and offered me some. I froze on the spot. There was something terribly strange in the way he offered me his food. My body felt frightened, so I jumped back and began to run away. They both said that I would die in the mountains if I did not go with them and tried to coax me to join them. Their pleas were also very haunting, but I ran away from them with all my might.

"I kept on walking. I knew then that I was on the right way to IxtIan and that those phantoms were trying to lure me out of my way.

"I encountered eight of them; they must have known that my determination was unshakable. They stood by the road and looked at me with pleading eyes. Most of them even displayed food and other goods that they were supposed to be selling, like innocent merchants by the side of the road. I did not stop nor did I look at them.

"By late afternoon I came to a valley that I seemed to recognize. It was somehow familiar. I thought I had been there before, but if that was so I was actually south of lxtlan. I began to look for landmarks to properly orient myself and correct my route when I saw a little Indian boy tending some goats. He was perhaps seven years old and was dressed the way I had been when I was his age. In fact, he reminded me of myself tending my father's two goats.

"I watched him for some time; the boy was talking to himself, the same way I used to, then he would talk to his goats. From what I knew about tending goats he was really good at it. He was thorough and careful. He didn't pamper his goats, but he wasn't cruel to them either.

"I decided to call him. When I talked to him in a loud voice he jumped up and ran away to a ledge and peeked at me from behind some rocks. He seemed to be ready to run for his life. I liked him, He seemed to be afraid and yet he still found time to herd his goats out of my sight.

"I talked to him for a long time; I said that I was lost and that I did not know my way to Ixtlan. I asked the name of the place where we were and he said it was the place I had thought it was. That made me very happy. I realized I was no longer lost and pondered on the power that my ally had in order to transport my whole body that far in less time than it takes to bat an eyelash.

"I thanked the boy and began to walk away. He casually came out of his hiding place and herded his goats into an almost unnoticeable trail. The trail seemed to lead down into the valley. I called the boy and he did not run away. I walked towards him and he jumped into the bushes when I came too close. I commended him on being so cautious and began to ask him some questions.

"'Where does this trail lead?' I asked. 'Down,' he said. 'Where do you live?' 'Down there,' 'Are there lots of houses down there?' 'No, just one.' 'Where are the other houses?' The boy pointed towards the other side of the valley with indifference, the way boys his age do. Then he began to go down the trail with his goats.

"'Wait,' I said to the boy. 'I'm very tired and hungry. Take me to your folks.'

"'I have no folks,' the little boy said and that jolted me. I don't know why but his voice made me hesitate. The boy, noticing my hesitation, stopped and turned to me. 'There's nobody at my house,' he said. 'My uncle is gone and his wife went to the fields. There is plenty of food. Plenty. Come with me.'

"I almost felt sad. The boy was also a phantom. The tone of his voice and his eagerness had betrayed him. The phantoms were out there to get me but I wasn't afraid. I was still numb from my encounter with the ally. I wanted to get mad at the ally or at the phantoms but somehow I couldn't get angry like I used to, so I gave up trying. Then I wanted to get sad, because I had liked that little boy, but I couldn't, so I gave up on that too.

"Suddenly I realized that I had an ally and that there was nothing that the phantoms could do to me. I followed the boy down the trail. Other phantoms lurched out swiftly and tried to make me trip over the precipices, but my will was stronger than they were. They must have sensed that, because they stopped pestering me. After a while they simply stood by my path; from time to time some of them would leap towards me but I stopped them with my will. And then they quit bothering me altogether ."

Don Genaro remained quiet for a long time.

Don Juan looked at me.

"What happened after that, don Genaro?" I asked.

"I kept on walking," he said factually.

It seemed that he had finished his tale and there was nothing he wanted to add.

I asked him why was the fact that they offered him food a clue to their being phantoms.

He did not answer. I probed further and asked whether it was a custom among Mazatec Indians to deny that they had any food, or to be heavily concerned with matters of food.

He said that the tone of their voices, their eagerness to lure him out, and the manner in which the phantoms talked about food were the clues--and that he knew that because his ally was helping him. He asserted that by himself alone he would have never noticed those peculiarities.

"Were those phantoms allies, don Genaro?" I asked.

"No. They were people."

"People? But you said they were phantoms."

"I said that they were no longer real. After my encounter with the ally nothing was real any more.".

We were quiet for a long time.

"What was the final outcome of that experience, don Genaro?" 1 asked.

"Final outcome?"

"I mean, when and how did you finally reach Ixtlan?"

Both of them broke into laughter at once.

"So that's the final outcome for you," don Juan remarked. "Let's put it this way then. There was no final outcome to Genaro's journey. There will never be any final outcome. Genaro is still on his way to Ixtlan!"

Don Genaro glanced at me with piercing eyes and then turned his head to look into the distance, towards the south.

"I will never reach Ixtlan," he said.

His voice was firm but soft, almost a murmur.

"Yet in my feelings ... in my feelings sometimes I think I'm just one step from reaching it. Yet I never will. In my journey I don't even find the familiar landmarks I used to know. Nothing is any longer the same."

Don Juan and don Genaro looked at each other. There was something so sad about their look.

"In my journey to Ixtlan I find only phantom travelers," he said softly.

I looked at don Juan. I had not understood what don Genaro had meant.

"Everyone Genaro finds on his way to Ixtlan is only an ephemeral being," don Juan explained. "Take you, for instance. You are a phantom. Your feelings and your eagerness are those of people. That's why he says that he encounters only phantom travelers on his journey to Ixtlan."

I suddenly realized that don Genaro's journey was a metaphor.

"Your journey to Ixtlan is not real then," I said.

"It is real!" don Genaro interjected. "The travelers are not real."

He pointed to don Juan with a nod of his head and said emphatically, "This is the only one who is real. The world is real only when I am with this one."

Don Juan smiled.

"Genaro was telling his story to you," don Juan said, "because yesterday you stopped the world, and he thinks that you also saw, but you are such a fool that you don't know it yourself. I keep on telling him that you are weird, and that sooner or later you will see. At any rate, in your next meeting with the ally, if there is a next time for you, you will have to wrestle with it and tame it. If you survive the shock, which I'm sure you will, since you're strong and have been living like a warrior, you will find yourself alive in an unknown land. Then, as is natural to all of us, the first thing you will want to do is to start on your way back to Los Angeles. But there is no way to go back to Los Angeles. What you left there is lost forever. By then, of course, you will be a sorcerer, but that's no help; at a time like that what's important to all of us is the fact that everything we love or hate or wish for has been left behind. Yet the feelings in a man do not die or change, and the sorcerer starts on his way back home knowing that he will never reach it, knowing that no power on earth, not even his death, will deliver him to the place, the things, the people he loved. That's what Genaro told you."

Don Juan's explanation was like a catalyst; the full impact of don Genaro's story hit me suddenly when I began to link the tale to my own life.

"What about the people I love?" I asked don Juan. "What would happen to them?"

"They would all be left behind," he said.

"But is there no way I could retrieve them? Could I rescue them and take them with me?"

"No,' Your ally will spin you, alone, into unknown worlds."

"But I could go back to Los Angeles, couldn't I? I could take the bus or a plane and go there. Los Angeles would still be there, wouldn't it?"

"Sure," don Juan said, laughing. "And so will Manteca and Temecula and Tucson."

"And Tecate," don Genaro added with great seriousness.

"And Piedras Negras and Tranquitas," don Juan said, smiling.

Don Genaro added more names and so did don Juan; and they became involved in enumerating a series of the most hilarious and unbelievable names of cities and towns.

"Spinning with your ally will change your idea of the world," don Juan said, "That idea is everything; and when that changes, the world itself changes."

He reminded me that I had read a poem to him once and wanted me to recite it. He cued me with a few words of it and I recalled having read to him some poems of Juan Ramon Jimenez, The particular one he had in mind was entitled "El Viaje Definitivo" (The Definitive Journey). I recited it.

... and I will leave. But the birds will stay, singing: and my garden will stay, with its green tree, with its water well.

Many afternoons the skies will be blue and placid, and the bells in the belfry will chime, as they are chiming this very afternoon.

The people who have loved me will pass away, and the town will burst anew every year. But my spirit will always wander nostalgic in the same recondite corner of my flowery garden.

"That is the feeling Genaro is talking about," don Juan said. "In order to be a sorcerer a man must be passionate. A passionate man has earthly belongings and things dear to him--if nothing else, just the path where he walks.

"What Genaro told you in his story is precisely that Genaro left his passion in Ixtlan: his home, his people, all the things he cared for. And now he wanders around in his feelings; and sometimes, as he says, he almost reaches Ixtlan. All of us have that in common. For Genaro it is Ixtlan; for you it will be Los Angeles; for me ..."

I did not want don Juan to tell me about himself. He paused as if he had read my mind.

Genaro sighed and paraphrased the first lines of the poem.

"I left. And the birds stayed, singing."

For an instant I sensed a wave of agony and an indescribable loneliness engulfing the three of us. I looked at don Genaro and I knew that, being a passionate man, he must have had so many ties of the heart, so many things he cared for and left behind. I had the clear sensation that at that moment the power of his recollection was about to landslide and that don Genaro was on the verge of weeping.

I hurriedly moved my eyes away. Don Genaro's passion, his supreme loneliness, made me cry.

I looked at don Juan. He was gazing at me.

"Only as a warrior can one survive the path of knowledge," he said. "Because the art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man."

I gazed at the two of them, each in turn. Their eyes were clear and peaceful. They had summoned a wave of overwhelming nostalgia, and when they seemed to be on the verge of exploding into passionate tears, they held back the tidal wave. For an instant I think I saw. I saw the loneliness of man as a gigantic wave which had been frozen in front of me, held back by the invisible wall of a metaphor.

My sadness was so overwhelming that I felt euphoric. I embraced them.

Don Genaro smiled and stood up. Don Juan also stood up and gently put his hand on my shoulder.

"We are going to leave you here," he said. "Do what you think is proper. The ally will be waiting for you at the edge of that plain."

He pointed to a dark valley in the distance.

"If you don't feel that this is your time yet, don't keep your appointment," he went on. "Nothing is gained by forcing the issue. If you want to survive you must be crystal clear and deadly sure of yourself."

Don Juan walked away without looking at me, but don Genaro turned a couple of times and urged me with a wink and a movement of his head to go forward. I looked at them until they disappeared in the distance and then I walked to my car and drove away. I knew that it was not my time, yet.
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