Version 2007.03.17

## “The Sorcerers' Crossing: A Woman's Journey” - ©1992 by Taisha Abelar

### Chapter 10

Clara sat on the rattan armchair at the edge of the patio, brushing her shiny black hair.

Then she arranged it with her fingers until everything was in place.

When she had finished grooming herself, she brought her left palm to her forehead and stroked it in a circular fashion.

Then she moved her hand over the top of her head and down the back of her neck, after which she flicked her wrists and fingers in the air.

She repeated this stroking and flicking sequence several more times.

I was fascinated watching her movements.

There was nothing careless or haphazard about them. She performed them with intense concentration, as if she were engaged in a most important task.

"What are you doing?" I asked, breaking the silence. "Are you giving yourself some sort of a facial massage?"

Clara glanced over at me, sitting on the matching armchair, imitating her movements.

She said, "This circular stroking prevents wrinkles from forming on the forehead.

"It may appear like a facial massage to you, but it isn't.

"These are sorcery passes; movements of the hand that are designed to gather energy for a specific purpose."

"What specific purpose is that?" I asked, flicking my wrists the way she had done.

"The purpose of these sorcery passes is to keep one looking youthful by preventing wrinkles from forming," she said:

"The purpose has been decided beforehand, not by me or by you, but by power itself."

I had to admit that whatever Clara was doing certainly worked.

She had lovely skin that set off her green eyes and dark hair. I had always believed that her youthful appearance was the consequence of her Indian genes. I never suspected that she deliberately cultivated it by means of specific movements.

"Whenever energy gathers, as in the case of these sorcery passes, we call it power," Clara continued:

"Remember this, Taisha, power is when energy gathers, either by itself or under someone's command.

"You're going to hear much more about power, not just from me but from the others, too.

"They're expected back any time now."

Although Clara constantly referred to her relatives, I had by now given up all hope of ever meeting them.

Her reference to power was an additional matter. I had never understood what she meant by power.

"I'm going to show you some sorcery passes that you must perform every day of your life from now on," she announced.

I let out a sigh of complaint.

There were so many things that she told me to do every day of my life: the breathing, the recapitulation, the kung fu exercises, the long walks.

If I lined up back to back everything she told me to do, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day for even half of them.

"For heaven's sake, don't take me so literally," Clara said, seeing my pained expression:

"I'm cramming all I can into your peewee brain because I want you to know about all these things.

"Knowledge assists in gathering energy; therefore knowledge is power.

"To make sorcery work, we must know what we're doing when we intend the result- not the purpose, mind you, but the result of the sorcery act.

"If we intended the purpose of our sorcery actions, we would be creating sorcery; and you and I don't have that much power."

"I don't think I'm following you, Clara," I said, moving my chair closer. "For what don't we have enough power?"

"I mean that even between the two of us, we can't gather the overwhelming energy it would take to create a new purpose.

"But, individually we can certainly gather enough energy to intend the result of these sorcery passes: no wrinkles for us.

"This is all we can do since the passes' purpose- to keep us young and youthful looking- is already set."

"Is it like the recapitulation whose end result had been intended beforehand by the ancient sorcerers?" I asked.

"Exactly," Clara said. "The intent of all sorcery acts has already been set.

"All we have to do is hook our awareness to it."

She moved her chair across from me so that our knees were barely touching.

Then she vigorously rubbed each thumb on the palm of the opposite hand and placed them on the bridge of her nose.

She moved them outward with light, even strokes over her eyebrows to the temples.

"This pass will keep furrows from developing between your eyebrows," she explained.

After quickly rubbing together her index fingers, like two sticks starting a fire, she brought them vertically to each side of her nose and gently moved them sideways over her cheeks several times.

"That's to clear the sinus cavities," she said, deliberately constricting her nasal passages. "Instead of picking your nose, do this movement."

I didn't appreciate her reference to my picking my nose, but I tried the movement, and it did clear my sinuses as she had said.

"The next pass is to keep the cheeks from sagging," she said.

She briskly rubbed her palms together, and with long, firm strokes, she slid them up each cheek to her temples.

She repeated this movement six or seven times, always using slow, even, upward strokes.

I noticed her face was flushed, but she didn't stop yet.

She placed the inner edge of her hand with her thumb folded over her palm above her upper lip, and rubbed back and forth with a vigorous sawlike motion.

She explained that the spot where the nose and upper lip join, when briskly rubbed, stimulates energy to flow in mild, even bursts.

But if greater bursts of energy were needed, they could be obtained by pricking the point at the center of the upper gum underneath the upper lip and below the nose septum.

"If you get drowsy in the cave while recapitulating, rub this point briskly, and it will temporarily revive you," she said.

I rubbed my upper lip and felt my nose and ears clear.

I also experienced a slight numbing sensation on the roof of my palate.

It lasted for a few seconds but took my breath away.

It left me with the sensation that I was just about to uncover something that was veiled.

Next, Clara moved her index fingers sideways under her chin, again using a quick back-and-forth sawlike motion.

She explained that stimulating the point under the chin produces a calm alertness.

She added that we can also activate this point by resting the chin on a low table while sitting on the floor.

Following her suggestion, I moved my cushion to the floor and sat on it, and rested my chin on a wooden crate that was just level with my face.

By leaning forward, I put a slight pressure on that chin point Clara had indicated.

After a few moments, I felt my body settle down: A prickling sensation rose up my back, entered my head, and my breathing became deeper and more rhythmic.

"Another way to awake the center under the chin," Clara continued, "is by lying on the stomach with the hands in fists, one on top of the other, under the chin."

She recommended that when doing the exercise with the fists, we should tense them to create pressure under the chin and then relax them to release the pressure.

Tensing and relaxing the fists, she said, produces a pulsating movement that sends small bursts of energy to a vital center directly connected with the base of the tongue.

She stressed that this exercise should be done cautiously, otherwise one might develop a sore throat.

I went to sit in the rattan chair again.

"This group of sorcery passes I've shown you," Clara continued, "must be practiced daily until they cease to be massage-like movements and become what they really are: sorcery passes.

"Watch me!" she ordered.

I saw her repeat the movements she had shown me, except that this time she was making her fingers and hands dance.

Her hands seemed at times to penetrate deeply into the skin of her face.

At other times, her hands passed over it lightly; as if gliding on the skin's surface; and moving so rapidly that they seemed to disappear.

Watching her exquisite movements kept me mesmerized.

"This way of stroking was never in your inventory," she laughed when she had finished:

"This is sorcery. It requires an intent different from the intent of the daily world.

"With all the tension that rises to the face, we certainly need a different intent if we are going to relax the muscles and tone the centers located there."

Clara said that all our emotions leave traces on our face more than on any other part of our body.

Therefore we have to release accumulated stress using the sorcery passes and their accompanying intent.

She stared at me for a moment and remarked, "I see from the tension in your face that you've been pondering over your recapitulation.

"Be sure to do your passes before going to bed tonight to remove those creases in your forehead."

I admitted that I had been worrying about my recapitulation.

"The problem is that you are spending too much time in the cave," Clara said with a wink. "I don't want you turning into a bat-girl.

"By now I think you've gathered enough energy to start learning other things."

She jumped out of the chair as if released by a spring.

It was so incongruous to see such a powerful woman jumping up so agilely that I had to laugh.

I myself got up more slowly, as if I were twice her size.

She looked at me and shook her head. "You're too stiff," she noted. "You need to do some special physical exercise to open your vital centers."

We went to the rack where the coats and boots were kept outside the back door of the house.

She handed me a wide-rimmed straw hat and led me to a clearing a short distance from the kitchen annex.

The sun shone brightly and it was an unusually warm day.

Clara told me to put on the hat.

She pointed to an area surrounded by a wire fence where the ground had been dug in furrows and lined with small plants in neat parallel rows.

"Who cleared the ground and put in all the plants?" I asked, surprised because I hadn't noticed Clara working there. "It looks like a huge project. Did you do it yourself?"

"No. Someone else came and did it for me."

"But when? I've been here every day and didn't see anyone."

"That's no mystery," Clara said. "The person who worked on this vegetable garden came when you were at the cave."

Her explanation didn't satisfy me.

The garden was so well organized that it looked like it had taken more than one person to lay it out.

Before I could probe her further, Clara announced, "From now on you'll take care of this garden. Consider it your new task."

I tried not to show my disappointment at being given yet another task that required daily attention.

I had thought that by physical exercise Clara had meant that we were going to practice a new martial art form; preferably one using a classical Chinese weapon like the broadsword or long pole.

Seeing my downcast look, Clara assured me that cultivating a garden would be good for me.

It would give me the physical activity and exposure to the sun that I needed for health and well-being.

She also pointed out that for more than six months I had been doing nothing but focusing on incidents of my life. Caring for something outside of myself would prevent me from becoming more self-centered.

It shocked me to realize that half a year had passed. To me, it seemed like only yesterday that I had come to Clara's house and my life had changed so drastically that nothing remained the same.

"Most people only know how to care for themselves," Clara said, jolting me out of my train of thought. "Although not very well at that.

"Because of this overwhelming emphasis, the self becomes distorted; full of outrageous demands."

We walked to a wooden gate; the entrance to the garden.

"Working in this garden will give you a special kind of energy that you can't get from recapitulating or breathing or practicing kung fu," Clara said.

"What kind of energy is that?"

"The energy of the earth," she replied.

Her eyes were as green as the new plants.

She added, "The energy of the earth complements the energy of the sun. Perhaps you'll feel it entering through your hands as you work the soil.

"Or it may start to flow into your legs as you squat on the ground."

I had never worked in a garden before and wasn't sure what to do.

I asked her to outline my duties.

She peered at me for a moment as if wondering if she had picked the right person for the task.

"The ground is still moist from yesterday's rain," she said, stooping down to touch the soil. "But when it's dry, you'll have to carry buckets of water from the stream; or if you're very clever, you can devise an irrigation system."

"I might just do that," I said confidently. "I'll construct an electric water pump like one I saw in a house in the country; and connect it to the dynamo.

"Then I wouldn't have to lug the buckets of water up the hill."

"It doesn't matter how you do it as long as the plants get watered.

"Also, you'll have to feed the plants every two weeks from that pile of compost at the end of the garden. And make sure that all the weeds are pulled. Around here they spread like wildfire. And keep the gate closed so no rabbits can get in."

"No problem," I assured her half-heartedly.

"Good. You can begin now."

She pointed to a bucket and told me to fill it with compost and mix it into the soil around each plant. When I returned with the bucket full of what I hoped wasn't night soil, [* night soil- human excreta used as fertilizer] she gave me a digging tool with which to loosen the earth.

For a while she watched as I worked, cautioning me not to dig too closely to the tender plants.

As I concentrated on the task, I felt a sense of well-being, and a strange peace surround me.

The dirt was cool and soft in my fingers.

For the first time since I had been in Clara's house, I felt truly at ease, safe and protected,

"The energy of the earth is nurturing," she remarked, as if noticing my change of mood:

"You're empty enough from your recapitulation that some of it is already creeping into your body.

"You feel at ease because you know that the earth is the mother of all things."

She swept her hands over the rows of plants. "Everything comes from the earth.

"The earth sustains and nourishes us; and when we die, our bodies return to it."

She paused for a moment then added, "Unless of course, we succeed in the great crossing."

"You mean there's a chance that we won't die?" I asked. "Really, Clara, aren't you exaggerating?"

"We all have a chance for freedom," she said softly, "but it's up to each one of us to seize it and turn it into an actuality."

She explained that by storing energy, we can dissolve our preconceptions about the world and the body; thus making room in our warehouse for other possibilities.

A chance not to die was one of these possibilities.

She said that the best explanation of this extravagant alternative was offered by the sages of ancient China.

They claimed that it is feasible for one's personal awareness, or te, to link up knowingly with the all-encompassing awareness or Tao.

Then when death comes, one's individual awareness is not dispersed as in ordinary dying, but expands and unites with the greater whole.

She added that the recapitulation in the setting of a cocoon-like cave had enabled me to gather and store energy.

Now I needed to use that energy to strengthen my bond with the abstract force called the spirit.

"That's why you have to cultivate the garden and absorb its energy, and also the energy of the sun," she said:

"The sun bestows its energy on the earth and causes things to grow. If you allow the sun's light to enter your body, your energy, too, will flourish."

Clara told me to wash my hands in a bucket of water, and to sit on a log by a clearing outside the fenced garden because she was going to show me how to begin to direct my attention to the sun.

She said that I should always wear a wide-rimmed hat in order to shield my head and face.

She also warned me never to do any of the breathing passes she was about to show me for more than a few minutes at a time.

"Why are they called breathing passes?" I asked.

"Because the preset intent of these passes is to pass energy from the breath to the area where we place our attention.

It could be an organ in our body or an energy channel; or even a thought, or a memory as in the case of the recapitulation.

"What is important is that energy is transmitted, thus fulfilling the intent established beforehand.

"The result is sheer magic because it appears as if it had sprung out of nowhere.

"That's why we call these movements and breaths sorcery passes."

Clara instructed me to face the sun with my eyes closed, and then take a deep breath through my mouth, and pull the sun's warmth and light into my stomach.

I was to hold it there for as long as I could, then swallow, and finally, exhale any air that was left.

"Pretend you're a sunflower," she teased. "Always keep your face toward the sun when you breathe.

"The light of the sun charges the breath with power, so be sure to take big gulps of air, and completely fill your lungs. Do this three times."

She explained that in this exercise, the energy of the sun automatically spreads throughout the entire body.

Yet, we could deliberately send the sun's healing rays to any area by touching the spot where we want the energy to go; or by simply using the mind to direct energy to it.

"Actually, when you have practiced this breath long enough, you don't need to use your hands anymore," she went on. "You can just visualize the sun's rays oozing directly into a specific part of your body."

She suggested that I do the same three breaths, but this time breathing through my nose and visualizing the light flowing down into my back; thus energizing the channels along my spine.

That way, the sun's rays would flood my entire body.

"If you want to bypass breathing through the nose or mouth altogether," Clara said, "you can breathe directly with your stomach or your chest or your back.

"You can even bring the energy up the body through the soles of your feet."

She told me to concentrate on my lower abdomen on the spot just below my navel, and breathe in a relaxed fashion until I could feel a bond forming between my body and the sun.

As I inhaled under her guidance, I could feel the inside of my stomach becoming warmer and filled with light.

After a while, Clara told me to practice breathing with other areas.

She touched the spot on my forehead between my eyes. When I concentrated my attention there, my head became flushed with a yellow glow.

Clara recommended that I absorb as much of the sun's vitality as I could by holding my breath; then rolling my eyes in a clockwise direction before exhaling.

I did as she instructed and the yellow glow intensified.

"Now stand up and try breathing with your back," she said, and helped me to take off my jacket.

I turned my back to the sun and tried to place my attention on the various centers she pointed out with a touch.

One was between my shoulder blades, another was at the nape of my neck.

As I breathed, visualizing the sun on my back, I felt a warmth move up and down my spine, then rush to my head.

I became so dizzy that I nearly lost my balance.

"That's enough for today," Clara said, handing me my jacket.

I sat down feeling giddy, as if I were happily drunk.

Clara said, "The light of the sun is pure power. After all, it's the most intensely gathered energy there is."

She said that an invisible line of energy flows out directly from the top of the head, upward to the realm of not-being; or it can flow from the realm of not-being down into us via an opening at the very center of the top of the head.

"If you like, you can call it the life line that links us to a greater awareness," she said. "The sun, if used properly, charges this line and causes it to spring into action.

"That's why the crown of the head must always be protected."

Clara said that before we returned to the house, she was going to show me another powerful sorcery pass; one involving a series of body movements.

She said that it had to be executed in one single motion, with strength, precision and grace; but without straining.

"I can't urge you enough to practice all the passes I've shown you," she said. "They are the indispensable companions of the recapitulation.

"This one did wonders for me. Watch me closely. See if you can see my double."

"Your what?" I said, panicking.

I was afraid I would miss something crucial, or not know what to make of it even if I saw it.

"Watch my double," she repeated, enunciating the words carefully. "It's like a double exposure.

"You have enough energy to intend with me the result of this sorcery pass."

"But tell me again, Clara, what is the result?"

"The double: The ethereal body: The counterpart of the physical body, which by now you must know, or at least suspect, is not merely a projection of the mind."

She moved to an area of level ground, and stood with her feet together and her arms at her sides.

"Clara, wait. I'm sure I don't have enough energy to see what you're referring to, because I can't even understand it conceptually."

"It doesn't matter if you understand it conceptually.

"Just watch closely. Maybe I have enough power for both of us to intend my double."

In the most agile movement I had yet seen her perform, she brought her arms over her head, with her palms touching in a gesture of prayer.

Then she arched backward, forming an elegant bow with her arms stretched out behind her, almost to the ground.

She flipped her body laterally to the left so that instantly she ended up bending forward almost touching the ground; and before I could even open my mouth in surprise, she had flipped back and her body was gracefully arched backward.

She flipped back and forth two more times, as if to give me a chance to see her inconceivably fast and graceful movements; or perhaps a chance to see her double.

At one point in her movement, I saw her as a hazy shape, just as if she were a life-size photograph that had been double exposed.

For a fraction of an instant, there were two Claras moving, one a millisecond behind the other.

I was completely perplexed by what I saw, which when I thought about it, I could explain as being an optical illusion created by her speed.

But at a bodily level, I knew that my eyes had seen something inconceivable.

I had had enough energy to suspend my common sense expectations, and allow another possibility to enter in.

Clara stopped her exquisite acrobatics and came and stood beside me, not even out of breath.

She explained that this sorcery pass enables the body to unite with its double in the realm of not-being; a realm whose entrance hovers above the head and slightly behind it.

"By bending backward with the arms outstretched, we create a bridge," Clara said. "And since the body and the double are like two ends of a rainbow, we can intend them to join."

"Is there any specific time when I should practice this pass?" I asked.

"This is a sorcery pass of the twilight," she said. "But you have to have lots of energy, and be extremely calm in order to do it.

"The twilight helps you to become calm and gives you an added boost of energy. That's why the end of the day is the best time to practice it."

"Should I try it now?" I asked.

When she looked at me doubtfully, I assured her that I had studied gymnastics as a child and was eager to try it.

"The question is not whether, you have studied gymnastics as a child, but how calm you are now," Clara replied.

I said that I was as calm as I could be.

Clara laughed in disbelief, but told me to go ahead and try it.

She said she would watch over me to make sure I didn't break anything by twisting too forcefully.

I planted my feet on the ground, bent my knees and began slowly executing my best backbend.

But, when I got past a certain point, gravity took over and I fell clumsily to the ground.

"You're the farthest thing from being calm," Clara concluded amiably as she helped me up. "What's bothering you, Taisha?"

Rather than revealing to Clara what was on my mind, I asked if I could try the movement again.

But, the second time I had more trouble than before.

I was sure my mental and emotional concerns had made me lose my balance.

I knew that the demands of the self, as Clara had said, were really outrageous. They took all my attention.

I saw no solution except to confess to Clara what was on my mind.

I told her what bothered me the most was that I seemed to have reached a standstill in my recapitulation.

"What is causing it?" Clara asked.

I admitted that it had to do with my family. "I know now without a doubt that they dislike me," I said sadly:

"Not that I didn't suspect it all along, because I did; and I used to get into rages about it.

"But, now that I have reviewed my past, I can't get angry the way I used to, so, I don't know what to do."

Clara eyed me critically, moving her head backward to size me up.

"What is there to do?" she asked. "You've done the work and found out that they disliked you.

"That's good! I don't see the problem."

Her cavalier tone annoyed me.

I expected if not sympathy, at least understanding and an intelligent comment.

"The problem," I said emphatically, on the verge of tears, "is that I'm stuck.

"I know that I need to go deeper than I have, but I can't.

"All I can think is that they disliked me, whereas I loved them."

"Walt, wait. Didn't you tell me that you hated them? I distinctly remember..."

"Yes, I did say that, but at the time I said it I didn't know what I was saying.

"I really loved them; my brothers too. Later I learned to despise them, but that was much later. Not as a child. As a child I wanted them to pay attention to me and play with me."

"I think I see what you mean," Clara said, nodding. "Let's sit down and discuss this."

We sat down again on the log.

"As I see it, your problem stems from a promise you made as a child.

"You did make a promise as a child, didn't you, Taisha?" she asked, looking at me squarely in the eye.

"I don't recall making any promises," I said sincerely.

In a friendly tone, Clara suggested that perhaps I didn't recall because I had been very young when I made it, or because it was more of a feeling than a promise actually stated in so many words.

Clara explained that as children, we often make vows and then become bound by those vows even though we can no longer remember making them.

"Such impulsive pledges can cost us our freedom," Clara said:

"Sometimes we are bound by preposterous childish devotion, or pledges of undying, eternal love."

She said that there are moments in everyone's life, especially in early childhood, when we have wanted something so badly that we automatically fixed our total intent on it, which, once fixed, remains in place until we fulfill our desire.

She elaborated by saying that vows, oaths and promises bind our intent; so that from then on, our actions, feelings and thoughts are consistently directed toward fulfilling or maintaining those commitments regardless of whether or not we remember having made them.

She advised me to review, during the recapitulation, all the promises I had ever made in my lifetime, especially the ones made in haste or ignorance or faulty judgement.

Unless I deliberately retrieved my intent from those promises, she advised, intent would never rise freely to be expressed in the present.^

I tried to think about what she was saying, but my mind was a mass of confusion.

Suddenly I remembered a scene from my very early childhood.

I must have been six.

I wanted to be cuddled by my mother but she pushed me away, saying that I was too old for cuddling, and told me to go clean up my room.

Yet the youngest of my brothers, who was four years older than I and was my mother's favorite, was always cuddled by her.

I swore then that I would never love or get close to any of them ever again.

From that day on, I seemed to have kept my promise by always remaining estranged from them.

"If it's true that they didn't love you," Clara said, "it was your fate not to be loved by your family.

"Accept it! Besides, what possible difference could it make now whether they loved you or not?"

It still made a difference, but I didn't tell Clara that.

Clara went on, "I too had a problem very much like yours.

"I had always been aware of being a friendless, fat, miserable girl.

"But through recapitulating I found out that my mother had deliberately fattened me up since the day I was born.

She reasoned that a fat, homely girl would never leave home; and she wanted me there as her servant for life."

I was horrified. This was the first time Clara had revealed anything about her past to me.

"I went to my teacher, who was definitely the greatest teacher one can ever have, for advice about this problem," she went on:

"He said to me, 'Clara, I feel for you, but you are wasting your time because then was then: now is now.

"Now there is only time for freedom.

"You see, I sincerely felt that my mother had ruined me for life: I was fat and couldn't stop eating.

"It took me a long time to get the meaning of 'Then was then: now is now.'

"And now there is only time for freedom."

Clara was silent for a moment as if to let the impact of her words settle on me.

"You have only time to fight for freedom, Taisha," she said, giving me a nudge. "Now is now."