The Toltec Art of Life and Death. Barbara Emrys

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СКАЧАТЬ She considered it a good habit to agree with anything stated piously. As she kissed her own thumb, she noticed the disappearance of morning sunlight, and found herself seated on a pew within a chapel murky with smoke. “Are we now in church?” she asked, disoriented.

      “Ah!” cried don Leonardo. “You go too far, señora!”

      Lala glared at him, her eyes burning. Sarita looked from one to the other in surprise. “What are you doing, you two?” Her eyes wandered to the pews. “This place has nothing to do with my son, or with his memories.”

      “Indeed, it does,” answered Lala, happy to draw attention away from don Leonardo. Just then, they saw a priest walking toward the front of the chapel. He walked past them, unseeing, and continued to the first pew, where Sara, the young mother and wife, was sitting quietly. Nearby, her four boys moved from bench to bench in a silent game of tag.

      “Ah!” exclaimed Sarita. “There am I, with my boys!”

      “Remember this?” asked Lala. “When the good priest told you your thirteenth child would make a difference in the world?”

      “Yes. Yes, I do. He said Miguel would be an important messenger.”

      “Was that before or after he judged him a sinner?” asked Leonardo.

      The redhead ignored him, leaning closer to Sarita. “And what is a messenger, but the servant of knowledge?”

      “An authentic human,” said don Leonardo flatly. “Such is a great messenger.”

      The woman gave him another angry look, but Sarita was talking, apparently reminiscing, and their attention was drawn back to her.

      “I remember when he grew old enough to feel his own power,” she was saying, “a power that had already become evident to me. He was a boy of ten then, older than he is here. I had been talking to him one day about greed and selfishness, and how we hurt ourselves when we disrespect others. When I was finished talking, he looked at me with all the seriousness of a worried mouse. ‘Do you think me selfish, Mamá?’ he asked. What could I do but laugh? ‘Yes, sweet one,’ I teased. ‘You are as selfish as your mother is supremely generous.’ It was a hasty joke, I admit, but he paid no attention. He was lost in thought, sorting truth from subtle lie.”

      Don Leonardo sat beside her and took her hand, hoping to encourage the memories.

      “He smiled at me,” Sarita went on, “and it was a gracious smile, a smile that was conscious and careful. I had the impulse to touch Miguel protectively, but this particular smile told me not to. It told me that he was now old enough to grasp the truth with his own small hands. If he was selfish, he would find the remedy. It reminded me of something I had always known, even without the counsel of the priest: that humanity would one day long for his words, for the touch of his eyes, his hands, and his irresistible smile. The smile he gave me on that particular day told me that I was becoming a stranger to him. The tender bond that held us was weakening.”

      “It was strong then, my girl,” her father assured her, “as it is now.”

      Lala turned away impatiently, wishing the priest would speak to the young Sara, that he would say something about the excellence of minds, not this nonsense about emotional bonds. What was the purpose of this particular memory, except to remind them of the power of words?

      “The point is—” she began, addressing father and daughter again.

      “She sees the point, señora,” stated Leonardo.

      “My love will bring him back,” Sarita said softly. “Our bond, which cannot be undone, must now be respected. His legacy must be—”

      Lala grabbed her chance. “His legacy exists in the minds of everyone he has touched! He is memory. He is thought, and his words echo through the ages.”

      Don Leonardo heard Lala’s voice ascend into the high dome of the chapel, and he refrained from comment. He squeezed Sarita’s hand supportively before rising to his feet. It was Sarita’s challenge, not his, to resist the persuasions of that voice.

      “Indeed,” the old man mumbled loud enough to be heard, “there is definitely someplace I’m supposed to be. Good day to you, ladies,” he said, smiling, “until the next time.” He tipped his hat and marched up the aisle, toward the light that beckoned beyond the chapel doors.

      “Papá!”

      And he was gone.

      Sarita looked back, confused. “Now what? I need his help.”

      “You need me,” said Lala. “We already established that. We will follow the same path of esoteric knowledge your son followed. We will follow his most remarkable thoughts, and in that way—”

      “Thought is knowledge, Miguel would say,” Sarita interrupted. “Memory is knowledge, he would say.” She looked at the other woman, so beautiful and so certain, illuminated by the light of a hundred prayer candles. “Religion is knowledge, my son would say.”

      “And see how wonderful that is!” replied her companion, indicating the chapel, now filled with kneeling worshippers, many of whom were weeping silently.

      “None of it is the truth, my son would say.”

      “Your son will be back with you soon enough to speak for himself. Come, old one, and we will find the precise day his words showed him to be a leader.”

      Sarita stood up, crossed herself again, and followed the beautiful woman into a soft cloud of incense.

      Don Leonardo was now exactly where he was supposed to be. He was watching one of his grandsons walk up the path to his house. He was a handsome boy of twenty—not the youngest of his grandchildren, but Sara’s youngest, and that was enough to make Leonardo smile. He loved his daughter and had always seen exceptional things in her. She could have succumbed to the monotonies of human life and old habits, but she had maintained her singular authority. She would soon be recognized as a woman of power by her family and her community.

      This boy, too, was not like the others. Leonardo knew this, but could not yet say why. All Sara’s sons were quick, bright, and full of ambition to succeed. He remembered the morning of Miguel’s birth and wondered if the answer to his uniqueness lay there, but too much importance was given to family stories like that—too much was made of auspicious signs and star alignments. The answer was in each present moment, like this one. At this moment, Leonardo was watching his grandson arrive and he perceived everything. He noticed the boy’s stride, the confident way he held himself, the light in his eyes. Yes, the eyes told much. And the smile. What a smile! It seemed to invite the world to play. Come into my dream, it said, and prepare to have fun!

      This boy was different, certainly. It was time for Leonardo to see if that difference could be put into exceptional practice. It was time to take this boy out of the sleepy warmth of his convictions and into the icy air of awareness.

      Don Leonardo stepped off the porch and opened his arms to embrace Miguel, the last of Sarita’s thirteen children.

      I remember that СКАЧАТЬ