Version 2007.06.28

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

### Chapter 20

HTML EDITOR:

"The important point is to know that we are limited because our physical body controls our awareness.

"But if we can turn it around so that our double controls our awareness, we can do practically anything we can imagine."

END HTML EDITOR

My third night in the tree house was like camping out.

I simply slipped into the sleeping bag, fell into a sound sleep and woke up at dawn.

Lowering myself down was easier too. I had gotten the knack of moving the ropes and pulleys without straining my back and shoulders.

"This is the last day of your transition phase," Emilito announced after we had eaten breakfast. "You have much work to do. But you're fairly industrious, so it won't be too difficult."

"What do you mean by a transition phase?"

"Yours is a six-day transition from the last time you talked to Clara till now.

"Don't forget, you have spent six nights in the tree; three during which you were unconscious; the other three nights you were aware.

"Sorcerers always count events in sets of threes."

"Do I also have to do things in sets of threes?" I asked.

"Certainly," he said, "You're Nelida's heir, aren't you? You're the continuation of her line."

He gave me a sly grin and added. "But for now you have to do whatever I do. Remember, for however long it takes, I'm your guide."

Hearing Emilito say that made me swallow hard.

Whereas I had felt a twitch of pride whenever Nelida included me with her in any of her statements, I didn't like it one bit when the caretaker joined me with him.

Noticing my discomfort, he assured me that forces beyond anyone's control had placed us together to fulfill a specific task.

Therefore, we had to abide by the rule because that was the way things were done in his sorcery tradition.

"Clara prepared your physical side by teaching you to recapitulate, and by loosening your gates with the sorcery passes," he explained:

"My job is to help solidify your double, and then teach it 'stalking.'"

He assured me that no one else could teach me how to stalk with the double except himself.

"Can you explain what stalking with the double is?" I asked.

"Of course I can, but it would not be wise to talk about it because stalking means doing, not talking about doing.

"Besides, you already know what it means since you have done it."

"Where and when have I done it?"

"The first night you slept in the tree house," Emilito said, "when you were about to die of fright.

"On that occasion your reason was at a loss as to how to handle the situation, so circumstances forced you to depend on your double.

"It was your double that came to your rescue. It flowed out of the gates that your fear had thrown wide open. I call that stalking with the double.

"The nagual and Nelida are the masters of the double and they'll give you the finishing touches," he went on, "provided I do the rough work.

"So it's up to me to get you ready for them, just like it was up to Clara to get you ready for me.

"And unless I get you ready, they won't be able to do anything at all with you."

"Why couldn't Clara continue being my teacher?" I asked, taking a sip of water.

He peered at me, then he blinked like a bird. "It's the rule to have two ushers," Emilito said. "Every one of us had two ushers, including myself.

"But, my final teacher was a nagual. That is also the rule."

Emilito explained that the nagual Julian Grau was not only his teacher, but the teacher of each of the sixteen members of the household.

The nagual Julian, together with his own teacher- another nagual by the name of Elias Abelar- had found each of the members one by one; and helped them on their way to freedom.

"Why is it that the names Grau and Abelar keep on recurring?"

"Those are power names," Emilio explained:

"Every generation of sorcerers uses them, with each nagual's name following an alternate-generation rule.

"That means that John Michael Abelar inherited the name from Ellas Abelar; but the new nagual, the one that will come after John Michael Abelar, will inherit the name Grau from Julian Grau. That's the rule for the naguals."

"Why did Nelida say that I am an Abelar?"

"Because you are just like her, and the rule says that you will inherit her last name or her first name; or, if you wish, you can inherit both names. She herself inherited both names from her predecessor."

"Who decided on that rule and why have it in the first place?" I asked.

"The rule is a code by which sorcerers live to keep from becoming arbitrary or whimsical.

"They have to adhere to the precepts set up for them because the precepts were made by the spirit itself.

"This is what I was told and I have no reason to doubt it."

Emilito said that his other teacher was a woman named Talia. He described her as the most exquisite woman anyone could ever imagine existing on this earth.

"I think Nelida is the most exquisite being," I blurted out, but stopped myself from saying more: Otherwise I would have sounded just like Emilito; totally overcome with absolute devotion.

Emilito leaned across the kitchen table and with the air of a conspirator about to reveal a secret said, "I agree with you.

"But wait until Nelida really gets hold of you: Then you'll love her as if there's no tomorrow."

His words didn't surprise me for he had correctly assessed something I already felt: I loved Nellda as if I had known her forever; as if she were the mother I never really had.

I told him that she was to me the kindest, most beautiful and impeccable being I had ever encountered; this in spite of the fact that until a few days ago I didn't even know she existed.

"But of course you knew her," Emilito protested. "Every one of us came to see you, and Nelida saw you more often than anyone.

"When you came here with Clara, Nelida had taught you endless things already."

I asked uneasily, "What do you think she's taught me?"

He scratched the top of his head for a moment, then said, "She taught you, for example, to call your double for advice."

"You say that I did that during my first night in the tree house, but I don't know what I did."

"Of course you do. You have always done it.

"What about your technique of relaxing and looking at the southern horizon to ask for advice?"

The moment he said this, something cleared in my mind.

I had completely forgotten about some dreams I had had over the years in which a beautiful, mysterious lady used to talk to me and leave gifts for me on my bedside table.

Once I dreamt that she left an opal ring and another time a gold bracelet with a tiny heart charm.

Sometimes she would sit on the edge of my bed and tell me things that upon awakening I would begin to do like gazing at the southern horizon; or wearing certain colors; or even styling my hair a certain way that was more becoming.

When I felt sad or alone, she would soothe and comfort me and whisper sweet nothings in my ear.

The thing I remember most vividly was that she told me that she loved me for what I was. She used those exact words, "I love you for what you are."

Then she would rub my back where I was tense or stroke my head and tousle my hair.

I realized that it was because of her that I didn't want my mother to touch me. I didn't want anyone to touch me except that lady.

When I woke up after any of these dreams, my feeling was that nothing in the world mattered as long as that lady held me in her heart.

I always thought that those were my fantasy dreams.

Having gone to Catholic schools, I even thought perhaps she was the Blessed Virgin or one of the saints that kept on appearing to me. I had been taught that all good things come from them.

At one time, I even thought she was my fairy godmother, but never in my wildest imagination did I think that such a being really existed.

"That was not the Virgin or a saint, you idiot," Emilito laughed. "That was our Nelida.

"And she really did give you those jewels. You'll find them in the box under the platform in the tree house.

"They were given to her by her predecessor. Now she passes them on to you."

"You mean that opal ring really exists?" I gasped.

Emilito nodded. "Go see for yourself. Nelida told me to tell you-"

Before he could finish his statement, I ran out of the kitchen to the front of the house.

With record speed, I hoisted myself up to the tree house.

There, in a silk box hidden under the platform, were exquisite jewels. I recognized the opal ring that had red fire in it and the gold charm bracelet; and there were other rings, a gold watch, and a diamond necklace.

I took out the gold bracelet with the heart and put it on, and for the first time since Clara left, I found my eyes filled with tears.

They were not tears of self-pity or sadness, but of sheer joy and elation because now I knew beyond a doubt that the beautiful lady had not been merely a dream.

I called out Nelida's name and thanked her at the top of my voice for all her favors.

I promised to change, to be different and do whatever Emilito told me, anything, as long as I could see and talk to her again.

When I let myself down I found Emilito standing by the door in the kitchen.

I showed him the bracelet and rings and asked him how it was possible for me to have seen the same jewels years ago in my dreams.

"Sorcerers are extremely mysterious beings," Emilito said, "because most of the time they act from the energy of their double.

"Nelida is a great stalker. She stalks in dreams.

"Her power is so unique that she can not only transport herself, but bring things with her.

"That's how she could visit you, and that's why her name is Abelar.

"Abelar to us means stalker, and Grau means dreamer. All the sorcerers in this house are either dreamers or stalkers."

"What's the difference, Emilito?"

"Stalkers plan and act out their plans. They connive and invent, and change things whether they are awake or in dreams.

"Dreamers move onward without any plan or thought. They jump into the reality of the world or into the reality of dreams."

"All this is incomprehensible to me, Emilito," I said, examining the opal ring in the light.

"I'm guiding you so it will become comprehensible," Emilito replied. "And to help me guide you, you must do what I tell you.

"Everything I will say, do, or recommend that you do is either the exact replica of what my two teachers told me or it is something patterned on what they said."

He leaned closer to me. "You may not believe this," he whispered, "but you and I are basically alike."

"In what way, Emilito?"

"We are both a bit insane," he said with a most serious face. "Pay close attention and remember this. In order for you and me to be sane, we have to work like demons at balancing, not the body or the mind, but the double."

I saw no point in arguing or agreeing with him, but as I sat down at the kitchen table again, I asked him, "How can we be sure that we're balancing the double?"

"By opening our gates," he replied. "The first gate is in the sole of the foot, at the base of the big toe."

He reached under the table and grabbed my left foot and in one incredibly swift maneuver, he removed my shoe and sock.

Then using his index finger and thumb as a vise, he pressed the round protuberance of my big toe at the sole of my foot and the toe joint at the top of my foot.

The sharp pain and the surprise made me scream. I yanked my foot away so forcefully that I bumped my knee on the underside of the table.

I stood up and yelled, "What the hell do you think you're doing!"

He ignored my angry outburst and said, "I'm pointing out the gates to you according to the rule, so pay close attention."

He stood up and moved around to my side.

"The second gate is the area that includes the calves and the inner part of the knee," he said bending over and stroking my legs.

"The third is at the sexual organs and tailbone."

Before I could move away, he slid his warm hands into my crotch and lifted me up a bit as he gave me a firm squeeze.

I fought him off but he grabbed my lower back.

"The fourth and the most important is in the area of the kidneys," he said.

Unconcerned with my vexation, he pushed me down on the bench again.

He moved his hands up my back. I cringed, but for Nelida's sake I let him.

"The fifth point is in between the shoulder blades," he said.

"The sixth is at the base of the skull, and the seventh is at the crown of the head."

To isolate the last point, his knuckles descended hard on the very top of my head.

He moved back to his side of the table and sat down. "If our first or second centers are open, we transmit a certain kind of force that people may find intolerable," he went on:

"On the other hand, if the third and fourth gates are not as closed as they are supposed to be, we transmit a certain force that people will find most appealing."

I knew for a fact that the caretaker's lower centers were wide open because I found him as obnoxious and intolerable as anyone could be.

Half jokingly and partly out of guilt for feeling the way I did toward him, I admitted that people didn't take to me easily. I had always thought it was a lack of social grace for which I felt I had to compensate by being extra accommodating.

"It's only natural," he said, agreeing. "You have had the gates in your feet and calves partially open all your life.

"Another consequence of those lower centers being open is that you have trouble walking."

"Wait just a moment," I said, "there's nothing wrong with the way I walk. I practice martial arts. Clara told me that I move smoothly and gracefully."

At that he burst out laughing. "You can practice whatever you please," he retorted, "you still drag your feet when you walk. You have an old man's shuffle."

Emilito was worse than Clara. At least she had the grace to laugh with me, not at me. He had absolutely no sympathy for my feelings. He picked on me the way older children pick on younger, weaker ones who have no defenses.

"You're not offended, are you?" he asked, peering at me.

"Me, offended? Of course not." I was seething.

"Good. Clara assured me that you have rid yourself of most of your self-pity and self-importance through your recapitulation.

"Recapitulating your life, especially your sex life, has loosened some of your gates even more.

"The cracking sound you hear at the back of your neck is the moment when your right and left sides have separated.

"This leaves a gap directly in the middle of your body where the energy rises to the neck; the place where the sound is heard. Hearing that pop means that your double is about to become aware."

"What should I do when I hear it?"

"To know what to do isn't that important because there's very little we can do," he said. "We can either remain seated with our eyes shut, or we can get up and move about.

"The important point is to know that we are limited because our physical body controls our awareness.

"But if we can turn it around so that our double controls our awareness, we can do practically anything we can imagine."

He stood up and came toward me. "Now, you are not going to trick me into talking about things the way you did Clara and Nelida," he said:

"You can only learn about the double by doing. I'm talking to you only because your transition phase hasn't ended yet."

He took me by the arm and without another word, he practically dragged me to the back of the house.

There he positioned me under a tree, with the top of my head a few inches below a low, thick branch.

He said that he was going to see if I could project out my double again, this time in full awareness, with the help of the tree.

I seriously doubted I would be able to project out anything, and I told him so.

He insisted that if I intended it, my double would push out from inside me and expand beyond the boundaries of my physical body.

"What am I supposed to do, exactly?" I asked, hoping he would show me a procedure that was part of the sorcerers' rule.

He told me to close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing.

As I relaxed, I was to intend a force to flow upward until I could touch the top branches with a feeling that came out of the gate in the crown of my head.

He said that this was going to be fairly easy for me because I was going to use my friend the tree for support.

The tree's energy, he explained, would form a matrix for my awareness to expand.

After a time of concentrating on my breath, I felt a vibrating energy rising up my back, trying to push out of the top of my head.

Then something opened inside me.

Every time I inhaled, a line elongated to the top of the tree. When I exhaled, the line was pulled down into my body again.

The feeling of reaching the top of the tree became stronger with my every breath until I truly believed that my body expanded, becoming as tall and voluminous as the tree.

At one point, a profound affection and empathy for the tree enveloped me. It was at that same moment that something surged up my back and out my head, and I found myself viewing the world from the top branches.

This sensation lasted only an instant, for it was disrupted by the caretaker's voice commanding me to come down and flow inside my body again.

I felt something like a waterfall; an effervescence flowing downward entering the top of my head and filling my body with a familiar warmth.

"You don't want to stay mixed with the tree too long," he told me when I opened my eyes.

I had an overwhelming desire to embrace the tree, but the caretaker pulled me by the arm to a large boulder some distance away, where we sat down.

He pointed out that aided by an outside force, in this case uniting my awareness with the tree, one can easily make the double expand.

However, because it's easy, we run the risk of staying merged with the tree too long in which case we might sap the tree of the vital energy it needs to maintain itself in a strong and healthy state; or we might leave some of our own energy behind by becoming emotionally attached to the tree.

"One can merge with anything," he explained:

"If whatever or whomever you merge with is strong, your energy will be enhanced as it was whenever you merged with the magician, Manfred.

"But if it is sick or weak, stay away.

"In any case, you must do the exercise sparingly because like everything else, it is a double-edged sword. Outside energy is always different from our own, often antagonistic to it."

I listened attentively to what the caretaker said.

One thing stood out from everything else, and I asked, "Tell me, Emilito, why did you call Manfred a magician?"

"That's our way of acknowledging his uniqueness.

"Manfred to us can not be anything else but a magician.

"He's more than a sorcerer. He would be a sorcerer if he had lived among his kind. He lives among human beings; and human sorcerers at that. And he is par with them.

"Only a consummate magician could accomplish that feat."

I asked him if I would ever see Manfred again.

The caretaker crossed his index finger over his lips in such an exaggerated fashion that I kept quiet and didn't press him for an answer.

He picked up a twig and drew an oval shape on the soft ground.

Then he added a horizontal line that transected it midway.

Pointing to the two partitions he explained that the double is divided into a lower and an upper section which correspond roughly in the physical body to the abdomen and chest cavities.

Two different currents of energy circulate in these two sections.

In the lower one circulates the original energy we had while still in the womb.

In the upper section circulates the thought energy which enters the body at birth with the first breath.

He said that thought energy is enhanced by experience and rises upward into the head.

The original energy sinks down into the genital area.

Usually in life these two energies become separated in the double, causing weaknesses and unbalance in the physical body.

He drew another line, this time down the center of the elliptical shape, dividing it lengthwise into two, which, he stated, corresponds to the right and left sides of the body.

These two sides also have two specific patterns of energy circulation.

In the right side, energy circulates up on the frontal part of the double, and down on the back of it.

On the left side, energy circulates down on the frontal part of the double, and up on the back.

He explained that the error many people make when trying to seek the double is to apply to it the rules of the physical body; seeking to train it, for example, as if it were made of muscle and bone.

He assured me that there is no way to condition the double through physical exercises.

"The easiest way to resolve this problem is to separate the two," the caretaker explained:

"Only when they are undeniably separate can awareness flow from one to the other.

"That is what sorcerers do so that they can dispense with the nonsense of rituals, incantations and elaborate breathing techniques that are supposed to unify them."

"But what about the breaths and sorcery passes that Clara taught me? Are they nonsense too?"

"No. She taught you only things that would help you separate your body and your double. Therefore, the breaths and sorcery passes are all useful for our purpose."

He said that perhaps our greatest human fallacy is to believe that our health and well-being is in the realm of the body when, in essence, the control of our lives is in the realm of the double.

This fallacy stems from the fact that the body controls our awareness.

He added that ordinarily our awareness is placed on the energy that circulates in the right side of the double, which results in our ability to think and reason and be effective in dealing with ideas and people.

Sometimes accidentally, but more often due to training, awareness can shift to the energy that circulates in the left side of the double which results in behavior not so conducive to intellectual pursuits or dealing with people.

"When awareness is turned steadily to the left side of the double, the double is fleshed out and emerges.

Then we are capable of performing inconceivable feats.

This shouldn't be surprising because the double is our energy source. The physical body is merely the receptacle where that energy has been placed."

I asked him if there are some people who can focus their awareness on either side of the double at will.

He nodded. "Sorcerers can do that," he replied:

"The day you can do that, you'll be a sorceress yourself."

He said that some people can shift their awareness to the right or the left side of the double after they have successfully completed the abstract flight simply by manipulating the flow of their breath.

Such people can practice sorcery or martial arts as readily as they can manipulate intricate academic constructs.

He emphasized, however, that because of the mystery and power inherent on the left; our urge to turn awareness steadily to the left it is a trap infinitely more deadly than the attractions of the world of everyday life.

"The real hope for us lies in the center," he said, touching my forehead and the center of my chest, "because in the wall that divides the two sides of the double is a hidden door that opens into a third, thin, secret compartment.

"Only when this door opens can one experience true freedom."

He grabbed my arm and pulled me off the rock. "Your transition time is nearly up," he said, hurrying me back into the house. "No more time for explanations. We'll leave the transition phase behind us with one hell of a bang. Come, let's go to my room."

I stopped dead in my tracks.

I was no longer merely ill at ease, I felt threatened.

No matter how eccentric Emilito might be; and no matter how much he talked about the ethereal double, he was still a male, and the memory of his hand grasping my private parts in the kitchen was much too vivid.

I knew that it hadn't been an impersonal touch merely for the purpose of demonstration, either: I had clearly sensed his lust when he touched me.

The caretaker peered at me with cold eyes. "What the hell do you mean that you sensed my lust when I touched you?"

I could only stare back at him with my mouth gaping. He had voiced my thought verbatim.

A surge of shame went through me, accompanied by a cold shiver that spread over my entire body.

I blurted out some lame apologies. I told him that I used to fantasize that I was so beautiful that all men found me irresistible.

"To recapitulate means to burn all that," he said. "You haven't done a thorough job.

"This, no doubt, is the reason you cracked while attempting the sorcerers' crossing."

He turned around and walked away from the house.

He said, "It's not time yet to show you what I had in mind.

"No. You need to do much more work to clean up your act. Much more.

"And from now on, you'll have to be twice as careful, too; you will have to run twice as hard because you can not afford any more slip-ups."