The Toltec Art of Life and Death. Barbara Emrys

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СКАЧАТЬ if it means following instructions?”

      Sarita could feel her heart beat faster. “My angel, in this peculiar world, you are the teacher,” she said. “I will gladly take your instructions.”

      Okay, now who was teasing whom? Miguel thought wryly. Even a dying man had to laugh. And he was surely dying . . . the process had begun. He could see that Sarita had come to him as an impassioned force of life; and in a dream made of memory and waning desires, only life could stop that process.

      “Not my instructions, Madre,” he said, his smile brimming with love. “In my peculiar world, the outcome makes no difference. In someone else’s world it is everything.” He looked past her, to something in the distance.

      “What do you—” she began. “Someone else?”

      Sarita’s eyes followed his gaze to a point along the far horizon. “What is this?” she asked. “Another tree?”

      Far from this gleaming place they occupied, on another hill in a similar landscape, loomed an enormous tree. She hadn’t noticed it until this moment. It was in every way the same as this one, the one that held her son on its noble branches. It was . . .

      “A copy,” he informed her.

      “And who sits there? A copy of my son?”

      “An impostor of another kind. The one who lives in that tree knows the science of illusion. Speak to that one, Mother.”

      Sarita looked across desolation to the tree in the distance. It was obscured by shadow, but radiant with color, as this one was. Nothing moved, however. Its leaves did not flutter, and nothing shone. Shadows did not play with flickering rays of light. There seemed to be no living thing among its branches. She was mesmerized. It took a deliberate act of will to look away and return her attention to her son, there in his Tree of Life, where he sat silhouetted against the brilliant colors of Earth.

      “It is not more illusion I want. It is Miguel.”

      “Your journey begins there, Sarita,” Miguel advised, taking another glance at the tree in the distance. Everything perceived was reflection, illusion. She would now have the chance to make her choices based on that awareness. “If you must know how to bring back your son, there lies your first instruction. As always, believe nothing you hear, but listen.”

      He plucked another apple from the branch above him and began polishing it on the hem of his hospital gown. He took a hearty bite, and as he began to chew, sweet juice streaming down his chin, he lifted his eyes to the black sky and grinned with profound delight at the vision of a planet blazing with dreams. His mother would prove herself adept, he had no doubt. Her awareness would grow with every challenge. She would put her considerable wisdom to use and consult the ancestors, as she always had. She would deal with the one who rules the world of reflections—a world he had left far behind—and, for a while at least, she would forget the pain that springs from a mother’s intolerable fear. He winked at her cheerfully and readied himself to follow life, wherever it led.

      Sarita smiled back, confident now as she felt the power of her intent moving time and circumstance forward. She must stay in her son’s dream, no matter what. Here, she could persuade him. Here, he would feel the force of her will. In her mind, she had made her case well, and for now he was conceding. He was pointing the way to a solution, however dubious it appeared to her; and this was progress. She would indulge him, of course. She would try things his way . . . until his way became her way.

      Sarita set her eyes on the horizon. No one could face what lay ahead but her, however many hours her family might spend on music and prayer. She turned from Miguel without another word, picking up her empty bag, and began walking again, this time toward whatever lurked in the shade of the great tree in the distance.

      There was no wind. In this still landscape, canopied by a storm-threatened sky, there was no sound. She wondered why she could no longer hear the relentless roll-and-rock that seemed to play continuously in her son’s head. Roll-and-rock? Rock-and-roll? Whatever, it was gone now. She was alone, for now. She swung her nylon bag lightly, in a gesture of defiance against doubt. Soon this strange escapade would be over. Soon she would have her son again—alive, and in her embrace.

      

      With my mother on her way, I can rest again, feel the infinite light, and listen to the music. I hear the songs of my youth even now, even through the haze of this dream. I hear their beat, demanding my complete attention. I hear their lyrics, the messages that describe pain and a solution to pain at the same time. I hear truth running just above the melody and somewhere beneath the words, always discreet, but always present. I belong to the music and to the life that beats within it.

      It’s been a long journey through existence, a journey that started sometime before I could appreciate music—in fact, before hearing connected me to the physical world—and before I was aware of the struggles of men and women. It started before I knew anything of matter. My actual memories might have begun at the birth of my body, my initial attempts to breathe, and the sounds of my mother’s anguished cries. From there came the eventful ride from infancy to manhood, from student to master. I have traveled from pure potential to the thrill of physical being to a road-weary ending. I have gone from endless nights of lovemaking to this quiet night, with death whispering within and around me. It’s been a good life, a life of giving and receiving love without condition and beyond justification.

      Love needs no justification; it is simply what we are. Men and women rarely allow themselves to feel the force of this. They know love only as a fallen symbol—a symbol meant to represent life, but one that has become corrupted by the many distortions of meaning. With the corruption of that one word, all symbols fall into confusion. Symbols grow into beliefs, and beliefs grow into petty tyrants that demand human suffering. All of this began with the fall of the first word: love.

      There were many loves in my life, of course. There were always women eager to be touched, hungry to love and be loved. There were always women searching to see the truth of themselves in my eyes. In my life, I’ve loved them all. They had different faces, different names, but to me there was only one—only the fallen one, caught in a web of distortions and looking for a way back to truth. She seeks a path back to heaven even now, all the while believing the lies that keep her in hell.

      Of course, she is all of us. She is Knowledge; and I can say now, without shame, that there was a time when she was Miguel. I had a good relationship with knowledge from the beginning. From my first breath, I was eager to learn the ways of sounds, symbols, and scribbled lines on paper. Like any healthy infant, I saw and heard everything. I felt in ways that adults around me had forgotten to feel. Sensation washed through me night and day, but clearly, sensation needed someone who could give testimony to its wonders. According to what I observed of the adult world around me, sensation needed a storyteller.

      Feeling the flush of excitement that came with my first uttered word, and the thrill of seeing how it sent happiness racing through my parents and our friends, I was hooked. How quickly I became a devotee of words! How rapidly I used words to create a caricature of a little boy! Amazing, too, how words became the endless testimonial that is thought. In a very short time I grew exactly like those storytellers who populated my little-boy world. I happily collected assumptions and opinions, and the reward for my efforts was an incontestable identity. I knew myself well. Everyone else who knew me, knew me well, СКАЧАТЬ