Version 2007.03.16

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

### Chapter 4

"Did you sleep well?" Clara asked me as I entered the kitchen.

She was about to sit down at the table to eat.

I noticed there was a place set for me, although she hadn't told me the night before at what time breakfast would be.

"I slept like a bear," I said truthfully.

She asked me to join her and dished some spicy shredded meat onto my plate.

I told her that waking up in an unknown bed had always been a difficult moment for me.

My father had changed jobs often and the family had to move to wherever there was a position available.

I dreaded the morning jolt of awakening disoriented in a new house, but that dread hadn't materialized this time.

The feeling I had upon awakening was that the room and the bed had always been mine.

Clara listened intently and nodded. "That's because you are in harmony with the person to whom the room belongs," she said.

"Whose room is it?" I asked, curious.

"You'll find out some day," she said, placing a hefty portion of rice next to the meat on my plate.

She handed me a fork. "Eat up. You'll need all your strength today."

She didn't let me talk until I had finished everything on my plate.

"What are we going to do?" I asked as she put the dishes away.

"Not we," she corrected me. "You will be going to a cave to begin your recapitulation."

"My what, Clara?"

"I told you last night that everything and everyone in this house has a reason for being here, including you."

"Why am I here, Clara?"

"Your reason for being here has to be explained to you in stages," she said:

"On the simplest level, you're here because you like it here regardless of what you may think.

"A second, and more complex, reason is that you're here to learn and practice a fascinating exercise called the recapitulation."

"What is this exercise? What does it consist of?"

"I'm going to tell you about it when we get to the cave."

"Why can't you tell me now?"

"Bear with me, Taisha.

"I can't answer all your questions at this point, because you don't have enough energy yet to handle the answers.

"Later on, you yourself will realize why it's so difficult to explain certain things.

"Put on your hiking boots, and let's go now."

We left the house and climbed the low hills toward the east, following the same trail we had taken the previous night.

After a short hike, I spotted the flat clearing on high ground that I had intended to revisit.

Without waiting for Clara to take the initiative, I headed toward it because I was eager to find out if I could see the house during the daytime.

I peered down into a bowl-like depression squeezed between hills and covered with green foliage, but although it was clear and sunny, I couldn't see any signs of the buildings.

One thing was evident; there were more huge trees than I remembered seeing at night.

"Surely you can recognize the outhouse," Clara said. "It's that reddish spot by that clump of mesquite trees."

I jumped inadvertently because I had been so absorbed gazing into the valley that I hadn't heard Clara come up behind me.

To help direct my attention, she pointed to a particular section of the greenness below.

I thought of telling her out of politeness that I was seeing it; the way I always agreed with people, but I didn't want to start my day by humoring her.

I kept silent. Besides, there was something so exquisite in that hidden valley that it took my breath away.

I stared at it so totally absorbed that I became drowsy: Leaning against a boulder, I let whatever was in the valley carry me away.

"And it did transport me. I felt that I was at a picnic ground where a party was going full force. I heard the laughter of people ...

My reverie ended when Clara lifted me to my feet by my armpits.

"My goodness, Taisha!" she exclaimed. "You're stranger than I thought. For a moment there, I thought I'd lost you."

I wanted to tell her what I dreamt because I was certain that I had dozed off for an instant. But she didn't seem interested and started walking away. ^

Clara had a firm and purposeful stride, as if she knew exactly where she was going.

I, on the other hand, walked aimlessly behind her trying to keep up without stumbling.

We walked in total silence.

After a good half hour, we were by a particular formation of rocks I was certain we had passed earlier.

"Weren't we here before?" I asked, breaking the silence.

She nodded. "We're going in circles," she admitted. "Something is stalking you and if we don't lose it, it will follow us to the cave."

I turned around to see if someone was behind us.

I could distinguish only the shrubs and the twisted branches of trees.

I hurried to catch up with Clara and tripped over a stump.

Startled, I shrieked as I fell forward.

With incredible speed, Clara caught me by the arm and broke my fall by placing her leg in front of me.

"You're not very good at walking, are you," she commented.

I told her I had never been a good outdoor person; that I grew up believing hiking and camping were for country folks; unsophisticated backwoods people, but not for educated urbanites.

Walking in the foothills of the mountains was not an experience I found enjoyable. And except for the view of her property, scenery that others would find breathtaking left me indifferent.

"Just as well," Clara said. "You're not here to look at the scenery. You have to keep your mind on the trail. And watch out for snakes."

Whether there were snakes in the area or not, her admonition certainly kept my attention on the ground.

As we continued walking, I became increasingly out of breath. The boots Clara had equipped me with were like lead weights on my feet. I had a hard time lifting my thighs to put one foot in front of the other.

"Is this nature walk really necessary?" I finally asked.

Clara stopped in her tracks and faced me. "Before we can talk about anything meaningful, you'll have to be at least aware of your elaborate entourage," she said. "I'm doing my best to help you do just that."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "What entourage?" My habitual moodiness had gotten hold of me again.

"I'm referring to your barrage of habitual feelings and thoughts; your personal history," Clara explained:

"Everything that makes you into what you think you are; a unique and special person."

"What's wrong with my habitual feelings and thoughts?" I asked. Her incomprehensible assertions were definitely annoying me.

"Those habitual feelings and thoughts are the source of all our troubles," she declared.

The more she spoke in riddles, the greater became my frustration.

At that moment, I could have kicked myself for succumbing to this woman's invitation to spend some time with her.

It was a delayed reaction. Fears that had been kindling inside me now flared up full force.

I imagined that she might be a psychopath who at any moment might pull out a knife and kill me.

On second thought, having been trained in martial arts as she obviously had been, she wouldn't need a knife.

One kick from her muscular leg could have been the end of me. I was no match for her. She was older than I, but infinitely more powerful.

I saw myself ending up as just another statistic; a missing person never heard from again. I deliberately slowed down my pace to increase the distance between us.

"Don't get into such a morbid frame of mind," Clara said, definitely intruding into my thoughts:

"By bringing you here, all I wanted to do was to help prepare you to face life with a little more grace.

"But it seems that all I succeeded in doing is to start a landslide of ugly suspicions and fears."

I felt genuinely embarrassed for having had such morbid thoughts.

It was bewildering how she had been so absolutely right about my suspicions and fears, and how she had with one stroke soothed my internal turmoil.

I wished it would have been possible for me to apologize and reveal to her what was going through my mind, but I wasn't prepared to do that: It would have put me at even more of a disadvantage.

"You have a strange power to soothe the mind, Clara," I said instead. "Did you learn to do this in the Orient?"

"It's no great feat," she admitted, "not because your mind is easy to soothe, but because all of us are alike.

"To know you in detail, all I have to do is to know myself.

"And this, I promise you, I do.

"Now, let's keep on walking. I want to reach the cave before you collapse completely."

"Tell me again, Clara, what are we going to do in that cave?" I asked, unwilling to start walking again.

"I'm going to teach you unimaginable things."

"What unimaginable things?"

"You'll know soon," she said, looking at me with wide eyes.

I craved more information, but before I could engage her in conversation, she was already halfway up the next slope.

I dragged my feet and followed her for another quarter of a mile or so until we finally sat down by a stream.

There, the foliage of the trees' was so dense I could no longer see the sky.

I took off the boots. I had a blister on my heel.

Clara picked up a hard-pointed stick and poked my feet in between the big and the second toe.

Something like a mild current of electricity shot up my calves and ran along my inner thighs.

Then she made me kneel on all fours and, taking each foot at a time, turned my soles up and poked me at the point just below the protuberance of my big toe. I yelled with pain.

"That wasn't so bad," she said in the tone of someone accustomed to treating sick people:

"Classical Chinese doctors used to apply that technique to jolt and revive the weak, or to create a state of unique attention.

"But today such classical knowledge is dying out."

"Why is that, Clara?"

"Because the emphasis on materialism has led man to move away from esoteric pursuits."

"Is that what you meant when you told me in the desert that the line to the past was severed?"

"Yes. A great upheaval always brings about deep changes in the energy formation of things; changes that are not always for the better."

She ordered me to place my feet into the stream and feel the smooth rocks along the bottom.

The water was ice cold and made me shiver involuntarily.

"Move your feet at the ankles in a clockwise circle," she suggested. "Let the running water draw away your fatigue."

After a few minutes of circling my ankles, I felt refreshed but my feet were nearly frozen.

"Now try to feel all your tension flow down to your feet, then throw it out with a sideward snap of your ankles," Clara said. "This way you'll also get rid of the coldness."

I continued flicking the water with my feet until they were numb. "I don't think this is working, Clara," I said, pulling my feet out.

"That's because you're not directing the tension away from you," she said, "Flowing water takes away tiredness, coldness, illness and every other unwanted thing.

"But in order for this to happen, you must intend it, otherwise, you can flick your feet until the stream runs dry with no results."

She added that if one did the exercise in bed, one would have to use the imagination to visualize a running stream.

"What exactly do you mean by 'intend it'?" I asked, drying my feet with the sleeves of the jacket. After a vigorous rubbing, they finally warmed up.

"Intent is the power that upholds the universe," she said. "It is the force that gives focus to everything. It makes the world happen."

I couldn't believe that I was listening to her every word.

Some major change had definitely taken place, transforming my habitual bored indifference into a most unusual alertness.

It wasn't that I understood what Clara was saying, because I didn't. What struck me was the fact that I could listen to her without fretting or becoming distracted. '

"Can you describe this force more clearly?" I asked.

"There's really no way to talk about it, except metaphorically," she said.

She brushed the ground with the sole of her shoe, sweeping dry leaves aside. "Underneath the dry leaves is the ground; the enormous earth. Intent is the principle underneath everything."

Clara put her cupped hands in the water, and splashed her face.

I again marveled that her skin had no wrinkles. This time I commented on her youthful appearance.

"The way I look is a matter of keeping my inner being in balance with the surroundings," she said, shaking the water off her hands. "Everything we do hinges on that balance.

We can be young and vibrant like this stream, or old and ominous like the lava mountains in Arizona. It's up to us."

I surprised myself by asking her, as if I believed what she was saying, if there was a way I could gain that balance.

She nodded. "You most certainly can," she said. "And you will, by practicing the unique exercise I'm going to teach you: the recapitulation."

"I can't wait to practice it," I said excitedly, putting on my boots.

Then for no explicable reason, I became so agitated that I jumped up and said, "Shouldn't we be on our way again?"

"We've already arrived," Clara announced, and pointed to a small cave on the side of a hill.

As I gazed at it, my excitement drained out of me.

There was something ominous and foreboding about the gaping hole; but inviting, too. I had a definite urge to explore it, yet at the same time I was afraid of what I might find inside.

I suspected we were somewhere in the proximity of her house; a thought I found comforting.

Clara informed me that this was a place of power, a spot the ancient geomancers from China, the practitioners of feng-shui, would have undoubtedly picked as a temple site.

"Here, the elements of water, wood and air are in perfect harmony," she said. "Here, energy circulates in abundance.

"You'll see what I mean when you get inside the cave.

"You must use the energy of this unique spot to purify yourself."

"Are you saying that I have to stay here?"

"Didn't you know that in the ancient Orient, monks and scholars used to retreat to caves?" she asked. "Being surrounded by the earth helped them to meditate."

She urged me to crawl inside the cave.

Daringly, I eased myself in, putting all thoughts of bats and spiders out of my mind.

It was dark and cool, and there was room for only one person.

Clara told me to sit cross-legged, leaning my back against the wall.

I hesitated, not wanting to dirty my jacket, but once I leaned back, I was relieved to be able to rest.

Even though the ceiling was close to my head and the ground pressed hard against my tailbone, it wasn't claustrophobic.

A mild, almost imperceptible current of air circulated in the cave.

I felt invigorated, just as Clara had said I would. I was about to take off my jacket and sit on it when Clara, squatting at the mouth of the cave, spoke.

"The apex of the special art I want to teach you," she began, "is called the abstract flight, and the means to achieve it we call the recapitulation."

She reached inside the cave and touched the left and right sides of my forehead. "Awareness must shift from here to here," she said:

"As children, we can easily do this, but once the seal of the body has been broken through wasteful excesses, only a special manipulation of awareness, right living, and celibacy can restore the energy that has drained out; energy needed to make the shift."

I definitely understood everything she said.

I even felt that awareness was like a current of energy that could go from one side of the forehead to the other, and I visualized the gap in between the two points as a vast space; a void that impedes the crossing.

I listened intently as she continued talking. "The body must be tremendously strong," she said, "so that awareness can be keen and fluid in order to jump from one side of the abyss to the other in the blink of an eye."

As she voiced her statements, something extraordinary happened.

I became absolutely certain that I would be staying with Clara in Mexico.

What I wanted to feel was that I would be returning to Arizona in a few days; but what I actually felt was that I would not be going back.

I also knew that my realization was not merely the acceptance of what Clara had had in mind from the start; but that I was powerless to resist her intentions because the force that was maneuvering me was not hers alone.

"From now on, you have to lead a life in which awareness has top priority," she said, as if she knew I had made the tacit commitment of remaining with her:

"You must avoid anything that is weakening and harmful to your body or your mind.

"Also, it is essential, for the time being, to break all physical and emotional ties with the world."

"Why is that so important?"

"Because before anything else, you must acquire unity."

Clara explained that we are convinced that a dualism exists in us; that the mind is the insubstantial part of ourselves, and the body is the concrete part. This division keeps our energy in a state of chaotic separation, and prevents it from coalescing.

"Being divided is our human condition," she admitted. "But our division is not between the mind and the body, but between the body, which houses the mind or the self, and the double, which is the receptacle of our basic energy."

She said that before birth, man's imposed duality doesn't exist, but that from birth on, the two parts are separated by the pull of mankind's intent.

One part turns outward and becomes the physical body; the other, inward and becomes the double.

At death the heavier part, the body, returns to the earth to be absorbed by it, and the light part, the double, becomes free.

But unfortunately, since the double was never perfected, it experiences freedom for only an instant, before it is scattered into the universe.

"If we die without erasing our false dualism of body and mind, we die an ordinary death," she said.

"How else can we die?"

Clara peered at me with one eyebrow raised.

Rather than answer my question, she revealed in a confiding tone that we die because the possibility that we could be transformed hasn't entered our conception.

She stressed that this transformation must be accomplished during our lifetime, and that to succeed in this task is the only true purpose a human being can have.

All other attainments are transient since death dissolves them into nothingness.

"What does this transformation entail?" I asked.

"It entails a total change," she said. "And that is accomplished by the recapitulation: the cornerstone of the art of freedom.

"The art I am going to teach you is called the art of freedom; an art infinitely difficult to practice, but even more difficult to explain."

Clara said that every procedure she was going to teach me, or every task she might ask me to perform, no matter how ordinary it might seem to me, was a step toward fulfilling the ultimate goal of the art of freedom: the abstract flight.

"What I'm going to show you first are simple movements that you must do daily," she continued. "Regard them always as an indispensable part of your life.

"First, I'll show you a breath that has been a secret for generations. This breath mirrors the dual forces of creation and destruction, of light and darkness, of being and not-being."

She told me to move outside of the cave, then directed me, by gentle manipulation, to sit with my spine curved forward and to bring my knees to my chest as high as I could.

While keeping my feet on the ground, I was to wrap my arms around my calves and firmly clasp my hands in front of my knees, or if I wished I could clasp each elbow. She gently eased my head down until my chin touched my chest.

I had to strain the muscles of my arms to keep my knees from pushing out sideways. My chest was constricted and so was my abdomen. My neck made a cracking sound as I tucked my chin in.

"This is a powerful breath," she said. "It may knock you out or put you to sleep.

"If it does, return to the house when you wake up.

"By the way, this cave is just behind the house. Follow the path and you'll be there in two minutes."

Clara instructed me to take short, shallow breaths.

I told her that her request was redundant since that was the only way I could breathe in that position.

She said that even if I only partially released the arm pressure I was creating with my hands, my breath would return to normal.

But this wasn't what she was after. She wanted me to continue the shallow breaths for at least ten minutes.

I stayed in that position for perhaps half an hour, all the while taking shallow breaths as she had instructed.

After the initial cramping in my stomach and legs subsided, the breaths seemed to soften my insides and dissolve them.

Then after an excruciatingly long time, Clara gave me a push that made me roll backward so I was lying on the ground, but she didn't permit me to release the pressure of my arms.

I felt a moment of relief when my back touched the ground, but it was only when she instructed me to unclasp my hands and stretch out my legs that I felt complete release in my abdomen and chest.

The only way of describing what I felt is to say that something inside me had been unlocked by that breath and had been dissolved or released.

As Clara had predicted, I became so drowsy that I crawled back inside the cave and fell asleep.

I must have slept for at least a couple of hours in the cave. And judging from the position I was lying in when I woke up, I hadn't moved a muscle.

I believed that that was probably because there wasn't any room in the cave for me to toss and turn in my sleep, but it could also have been because I was so totally relaxed, I didn't need to move.

I walked back to the house, following Clara's directions.

She was on the patio, sitting in a rattan armchair.

I had the impression that another woman had been sitting there with her, and when she heard me coming, she had quickly gotten up and left.

"Ah, you look much more relaxed now," Clara said. "That breath and posture does wonders for us."

Clara said that if this breath is performed regularly, with calmness and deliberation, it gradually balances our internal energy.

Before I could tell her how invigorated I felt, she asked me to sit down because she wanted to show me one other body maneuver crucial for erasing out false dualism.

She asked me to sit with my back straight and my eyes slightly lowered so that I would be gazing at the tip of my nose.

"This breath should be done without the constraints of clothing," she began. "But rather than having you strip naked in the patio in broad daylight, we'll make an exception.

"First, you inhale deeply, bringing in the air as if you were breathing through your vagina. Pull in your stomach and draw the air up along your spine, past the kidneys, to a point between the shoulder blades. Hold the air there for a moment, then raise it even further up to the back of the head, then over the top of your head to the point between your eyebrows."

She said that after holding it there for a moment, I was to exhale through the nose as I mentally guided the air down the front of my body, first to the point just below the navel, and then to my vagina, where the cycle had begun.

I began to practice the breathing exercise.

Clara brought her hand to the base of my spine, then traced a line up my back, over my head, and gently pressed the spot between my eyebrows.

"Try to bring the breath here," she said. "The reason you keep your eyes halfway open is so that you can concentrate on the bridge of your nose as you circulate the air up your back and over your head to this point; and also so you can use your gaze to guide the air down the front of your body, returning it to your sexual organs."

Clara said that circulating the breath in such a fashion creates an impenetrable shield that prevents outside disruptive influences from piercing the body's field of energy: It also keeps vital inner energy from dispersing outwardly.

She stressed that the inhalation and exhalation should be inaudible, and that the breathing exercise could be done while one is standing, sitting or lying down; although in the beginning it is easier to do it while sitting on a cushion or on a chair.

"Now," she said, pulling her chair closer to mine, "let's talk about what we began discussing this morning: the recapitulation."

A shiver went through me.

I told her that although I had no conception of what she was talking about, I knew it was going to be something monumental and I wasn't sure I was prepared to hear it.

She insisted that I was nervous because some part of me sensed that she was about to disclose perhaps the most important technique of self-renewal.

Patiently she explained that the recapitulation is the act of calling back the energy we have already spent in past actions.

To recapitulate entails recalling all the people we have met, all the places we have seen, and all the feelings we have had in our entire lives; starting from the present and going back to the earliest memories; then sweeping them clean, one by one, with the sweeping breath.

I listened, intrigued, although I couldn't help feeling that what she said was more than nonsensical to me.

Before I could make any comments at all, she firmly took my chin in her hands and instructed me to inhale through the nose as she turned my head to the left, and then exhale as she turned it to the right.

Next, I was to turn my head to the left and right in a single movement without breathing. She said that this is a mysterious way of breathing and the key to the recapitulation, because inhaling allows us to pull back energy that we lost; while exhaling permits us to expel foreign, undesirable energy that has accumulated in us through interacting with our fellow men.

"In order to live and interact, we need energy," Clara went on. "Normally, the energy spent in living is gone forever from us.

"Were it not for the recapitulation, we would never have the chance to renew ourselves. Recapitulating our lives and sweeping our past with the sweeping breath work as a unit."

Recalling everyone I had ever known and everything I had ever felt in my life seemed to me an absurd and impossible task. "That can take forever," I said, hoping that a practical remark might block Clara's unreasonable line of thought.

"It certainly can," she agreed. "But I assure you, Talsha, you have everything to gain by doing it, and nothing to lose."

I took a few deep breaths, moving my head from left to right imitating the way she had shown me to breathe in order to placate her, and let her know I had been paying attention.

With a wry smile, she warned me that recapitulating is not an arbitrary or capricious exercise.

"When you recapitulate, try to feel some long stretchy fibers that extend out from your midsection," she explained:

"Then align the turning motion of your head with the movement of these elusive fibers. They are the conduits that will bring back the energy that you've left behind.

"In order to recuperate our strength and unity, we have to release our energy trapped in the world and pull it back to us."

She assured me that while recapitulating, we extend those stretchy fibers of energy across space and time to the persons, places and events we are examining.

The result is that we can return to every moment of our lives and act as if we were actually there.

This possibility sent shivers through me.

Although intellectually I was intrigued by what Clara was saying, I had no intention of returning to my disagreeable past, even if it was only in my mind.

If nothing else, I took pride in having escaped an unbearable life situation. I was not about to go back and mentally relive all the moments I had tried so hard to forget.

Yet Clara seemed to be so utterly serious and sincere in explaining the recapitulation technique to me, that for a moment, I put my objections aside, and concentrated on what she was saying.

I asked her if the order in which one recollects the past matters. She said that the important point is to re-experience the events and feelings in as much detail as possible, and to touch them with the sweeping breath, thereby releasing one's trapped energy.

"Is this exercise part of the Buddhist tradition?" I asked.

"No, it isn't," she replied solemnly. "This is part of another tradition. Someday, soon, you'll find out what that tradition is."