Version 2007.03.19

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

### Chapter 21

Emilito ended my transition period right then; attacking me for having misread his thoughts.

From then on he dropped his whimsical air of a prankster and became a most demanding taskmaster.

There were no more lengthy explanations of the double or other aspects of sorcery, hence no more solace stemming from intellectual understanding.

There was only work; pragmatic and demanding.

Every day for months from morning until night, I would be steeped in activity until, exhausted, I went to sleep in the tree house.

Besides continuing to practice kung fu and working in the garden, I was put in charge of cooking lunch and dinner.

Emilito showed me how to light the stove; and how to prepare some simple dishes- a thing that my mother had tried to do but had failed completely.

Because I had other duties, I would usually put all the ingredients into one pot on the stove to cook, then come back later when it was time to eat.

After several weeks of making the same stew, I got a perfect blend of flavors.

Emilito said that I turned out to be, if not a fairly good cook, at least one whose food is edible. I took this as a compliment, because nothing I had made in my entire life, from poundcake to meatloaf, had been edible.

We ate our meals in total silence; a silence that he would break if he wanted to tell me something.

But, if I wanted to converse, he would tap his stomach to remind me of his delicate digestion.

Most of my time was still devoted to recapitulating.

Emilito had instructed me to go over the same events and people I had recapitulated before, except that this time I was to do it in the tree house.

Hoisting myself up to the tree house every day made me lose my initial fear of heights.

I relished being outdoors, especially in the late afternoons; the time I set aside for this particular task.

Under Clara's supervision, I had recapitulated in a dark cave. The mood of that recapitulation was heavy, earthy, somber and often terrifying.

My recapitulation under Emilito's guidance in the tree house was dominated by a new mood. It was light, airy, transparent.

I remembered things with an unprecedented clarity. With my added energy, or the influence of being off the ground, I was able to remember infinitely more detail.

Everything was more vivid and pronounced, and less charged with the self-pity, moroseness, fear or regret that had characterized my previous recapitulation.

Clara had asked me to write on the ground the names of each person I had encountered in my life, then erase it with my hand after I had breathed in the memories associated with that person.

Emilito, on the other hand, had me write the names of people on dry leaves and then light a match to them after I had finished breathing in everything I had recollected about them.

He had given me a special device to incinerate the leaves.

It was a twelve-inch metal cube with neatly perforated, round, small holes on all sides. Half of one side of the box was fitted with a glass, like a tiny window. There was a sharp pin in the center of the underside of the lid. On the side with the window, there was a lever that slid in and out where one could fasten a match and strike it from the outside against a rough surface inside the box after the lid was closed.

"In order to avoid starting a blaze," Emilito explained, "you have to pierce the dry leaf with the pin on the lid so when you close the lid, it will be suspended in the middle of the box. Then look inside the box through its little glass window and, using the handle, strike your match and place it under the leaf and watch it burn to cinders."

As I gazed at the flames consuming each leaf, I was to draw in the energy of the fire with my eyes; always being careful not to inhale the smoke.

He instructed me to put the ashes from the leaves into a metal urn and the used matches into a paper sack.

Each of the matchsticks represented the husk of the person whose name had been written on the dry leaf that had been disintegrated by that particular match.

When the urn was full, I was to empty it from the top of the tree, letting the wind scatter the ashes in all directions.

I was instructed to lower the burnt matchsticks in a paper bag on a separate rope; and Emilito, handling the bag with a pair of tongs, would put it in a special basket he always used for that purpose.

He was careful never to touch the matches or the bag. My best guess was that he buried them somewhere in the hills, or perhaps tossed them in the stream to let the water disintegrate them.

Disposing of the matches, he had assured me, was the final act in the process of breaking the ties with the world.

After about three months of recapitulating in the afternoons, Emilito abruptly changed my work schedule.

"I'm tired of eating your boring stew," he said one morning as he hoisted up some food he had prepared for me.

I was overjoyed, not only because I might have extra time to spend in the tree house, but because I genuinely liked eating food cooked by someone else.

The first time I tasted his cooking, I had the total certainty that Clara had never cooked the food she had served me.

The real cook had always been Emilito. He made things with a special zest that always made whatever he cooked a delight to eat.

Every morning around seven, Emilito would be standing at the foot of the tree ready to hoist up some food he had packed in a basket.

After eating breakfast in the tree house, I usually went back to my recapitulation, which, once I had been freed from the dread of uncovering something unpleasant, was now more than ever like an exciting adventure of examination and insight.

The more of my past I breathed in, the lighter and freer I felt.

As I broke off old, past links, I began forming new ones.

In this instance, my new links were with the unique being that was guiding me.

Emilito, although stern and determined to make sure that I kept my nose to the grindstone, was in essence as light as a feather.

At first, I was surprised that both he and Clara had claimed that I was like them. But upon a deeper examination, I had to agree that I was as ponderous as Clara and as flighty, if not as insane, as Emilito.

Once I became accustomed to his oddity, I found no difference between Emilito and Clara, or the nagual, or even Manfred.

My feelings for them overlapped so that I began to feel affection for Emilito and very naturally one day I began to rejoice in calling him Emilito.

The first time we met, Emilito had said to me that his name was Emilito- the Spanish diminutive for Emilio.

It had seemed ridiculous to me to call a mature man 'little Emilio,' so I did it reluctantly.

But as I got to know him better, I couldn't conceive of addressing him in any other way.

Whenever I thought about the four of them, they merged in my mind.

But, I could never merge them with Nelida.

She was special to me and I held her forever apart and above everyone else even though I had seen her only once in the real world.

I felt that the day I had focused my eyes on her, the bond that already existed between us became formalized. That single encounter in the daily world awareness, no matter how fleeting, had been enough to make that bond indestructible and everlasting.

One day after we had our lunch in the kitchen, Emilito handed me a package.

As I held it against me, I knew it was from Nelida.

I tried to find a return address on it but there was none.

Attached to the package was a cartoon drawing of a woman puckering up her lips to kiss.

Inside, written in Nelida's handwriting, were these words.

'Kiss the tree.'

I ripped open the package and found a pair of soft leather ankle-high shoes that laced up the front. The soles were fitted with rubber cleats.

I held them up for Emilito to see. I couldn't conceive what they were used for.

"Those are your tree-climbing shoes," Emilito said, nodding in recognition:

"Nelida knew you have an affinity for trees in spite of your fear of falling.

"The cleats are made of rubber so you won't damage the tree bark."

The arrival of the package seemed to be the signal for Emilito to give me detailed instructions on tree climbing.

So far, I had only used the harness to hoist myself up to the tree house; although sometimes I dozed off or slept in the harness as if I were lying strapped in a hammock.

I had never actually climbed the tree except for one very low branch from which I had hung while propping my feet on another branch.

"Now is the time to find out what you're made of," he said in a no-nonsense tone. "Your new task won't be difficult, but if you don't give it your total concentration, it could prove to be fatal.

"You need to apply all your newly stored energy to learn what I have to show you."

He told me to wait for him by the grove of tall trees in front of the house.

Moments later, Emilito met me, carrying a long flat box.

He opened it and took out several safety belts and lengths of soft rock-climbing rope.

He strapped a belt to my waist and affixed another, longer belt to it by means of safety hooks used in mountaineering.

Putting a similar belt around himself, he showed me how to climb a tree by hooking the longer belt around the tree trunk and using it as a support to move up along the trunk.

He climbed with swift and precise movements.

Along the way, he looped ropes on the branches to secure his position.

The end result was a web of ropes that allowed him to move safely around the tree from one side to the other.

He came down as agilely as he had climbed up.

"Be sure all the ropes and knots are secure," he said. "You can't have any major mistakes here.

"Little mistakes are correctable: Big ones are fatal."

"My goodness, am I supposed to do what you just did?" I asked, really astonished.

It wasn't that I was any longer afraid of heights.

I simply didn't feel I had the patience to tie all the hooks and ropes in place. It had taken me quite a while just to get used to going up and down the tree in the harness.

Emilito nodded and laughed cheerfully.

"This is a real challenge," he admitted, "but once you get the hang of it, I'm sure you will agree it's worth it.

"You'll see what I mean."

He handed me a length of rope and he patiently showed me how to tie and untie knots.

He showed me how to use pieces of rubber hose with my climbing rope pulled through them in order not to bruise the tree bark when I looped a rope around a branch to set up a new rope line to climb.

He showed me how to maneuver my feet to maintain my balance; and how to avoid disturbing birds' nests in the process of climbing.

For the following three months I worked under his constant supervision, confining myself to the lower branches.

I achieved a respectable control of the equipment; enough calluses on my hands so that I no longer needed to wear gloves; and enough maneuverability and balance in my movements so that Emilito let me venture into the higher branches.

I meticulously practiced on them the same maneuvers I had learned on the lower branches; and one day without even trying for it, I reached the top of the tree I was climbing.

Later that day, Emilito presented me with what he told me was his most meaningful gift to me.

It was a set of three green jungle camouflage overalls and matching caps, obviously bought in an army surplus store in the States.

Dressed in jungle fatigues, I lived in the grove of tall trees clustered by the front of the house.

I came down only to go to the bathroom and, occasionally, to have a meal with Emilito.

I climbed any tree I wanted, provided it was high enough.

There were only a few trees I would not climb; the ones that were very old and would find my presence an intrusion, or the really young ones that weren't strong enough to tolerate my ropes and movement.

I preferred youthful, vigorous trees, for they made me happy and optimistic.

Yet, some of the older ones were desirable too, for they had so much more to tell.

The only tree that Emilito allowed me to sleep in overnight was the one with the tree house in it because it was fitted with a lightning rod.

I slept on my platform bed, or secured in the leather harness.

Or, at times I slept strapped in a simple way on a branch of my choosing.

Some of my favorite branches were thick and free from protuberances.

I would lie on one face down.

Resting my head on a small pillow I always brought up with me, I embraced the branch with arms and legs; maintaining a precarious but exhilarating balance.

Of course I always made certain that a rope was tied to my waist and secured to a higher branch, just in case I lost my balance while asleep.

The feeling I had developed for the trees was beyond words.

I had the certainty that I was able to absorb their moods, know their age, their insights and what they sensed.

I could communicate with a tree directly through a sensation that came out from the inside of my body.

Often, communication began with a spilling forth of pure affection almost as intense as what I felt for Manfred; an affection that came out of me always unexpectedly and unsolicited.

Then I could feel the tree's roots descending into the earth.

I knew whether they needed water and which roots were extending toward the underground water source.

I could tell what it felt like to live seeking light, anticipating it, intending it; and what it felt like to feel heat, cold or be ravaged by lightning and storms.

I learned what it was like never to be able to move off one's destined spot; to be silent; to sense through the bark, and the roots; and to intake light through the leaves.

I knew beyond the shadow of doubt that trees feel pain.

And I also knew that once communication is engaged, trees pour themselves out in affection.

As I was seated on a sturdy limb with my back resting on the tree trunk, my recapitulation took on an altogether different mood.

I could remember the minutest details of my life experiences without fear of any coarse emotional involvement.

I would laugh my head off at things that at one time had been deep traumas for me.

I found my obsessions no longer capable of evoking self-pity.

I saw everything from a different perspective; not as the urbanite I had always been, but as the carefree and abandoned tree dweller that I had become.

One night, while we were still eating a rabbit stew I had made, Emilito surprised me by talking to me animatedly.

He asked me to remain seated after dinner because he had something to tell me.

This was so out of the ordinary that I grew excited with anticipation.

The only beings I had talked to for months had been the trees and the birds. I prepared myself for something monumental.

"You've been a tree dweller for over six months now," he began. "It's time to find out what you've done up there.

"Let's go into the house. I have something to show you."

"What do you have to show me, Emilito?" I asked, remembering the time he had wanted to show me something in his room and I had refused to follow him.

The name Emilito suited him to perfection.

He had become a most cherished being to me, just like Manfred.

One of the lofty insights I had received while perched in the high branches of a tree was that Emilito was not human at all.

Whether he had once been a human being and the recapitulation had wiped all that away, I could only speculate.

His nonhumanness was a barrier that impeded anyone from crossing over to him for a subjective exchange.

No average person could ever enter into what Emilito thought, felt or witnessed.

But if Emilito so desired, he could cross over to any of us and share with us our subjective states.

His nonhumanness was something I had sensed from the first time I encountered him at the kitchen door.

Now I was able to be at ease with him; and although I was still separated by that barrier, I could marvel at his achievement.

I asked Emilito again, since he hadn't answered me, what he was going to show me.

"What I have to show is of ultimate importance," he said:

"But how you will see it will depend on you. It will depend on whether you have acquired the silence and balance of the trees."

We hurriedly walked across the dark patio to the house.

I followed him through the hallway to the door of his room.

It made me doubly nervous to see him stand there for a long moment and take deep breaths as if to compose himself for what was to come.

"All right, let's go in," he said, gently tugging the sleeve of my shirt:

"A word of caution.

"Don't stare at anything in the room. Look at whatever you want, but scan the things lightly, using only quick glances."

He opened the door and we entered his extravagant room.

Living in the trees had made me completely forget the first time I had walked into that room the day Clara and Nelida had left.

Now I was again startled by the bizarre objects that filled it.

The first things I saw were four floor lamps; one at the center of each wall.

I couldn't even begin to conceive what kind of lamps they were.

The room and everything in it was illuminated by an eerie, mellow amber light.

I was familiar enough with electrical equipment to know that no standard light bulb, even if it were seen through a lampshade made of the most unusual tissue, could ever give off that kind of light.

I felt Emilito take my arm to help me step over a foot-high fence that parceled a small square area in the southwest corner of the room.

"Welcome to my cave," he said with a grin as we stepped into the partitioned area.

In that square there was a long table half hidden by a black curtain, and a row of four most unusual looking chairs.

Each chair had a high solid oval back that curved around the body; and instead of legs had a seemingly solid round base.

All four chairs were facing the wall.

"Don't stare," Emilito reminded me as he helped me to sit down on one of the chairs.

I noticed that they were made of some sort of plastic material. The round seat was cushioned, although I couldn't tell how.

It was hard as wood, but it had a springiness that gave way when I moved up and down on the seat.

The chair also swiveled as I moved sideways.

The oval back, which seemed to wrap itself around my back, was also cushioned but equally hard.

All the chairs were painted with a vivid cerulean blue.

Emilito sat in the chair next to me.

He swiveled his chair around to face the center of the room, and in an unusually strained voice, he told me to swivel around also.

When I did, I let out a gutteral gasp.

The room I had crossed a moment ago had disappeared.

Instead, I was staring at a vast flat space, illuminated by a peach-colored glow.

The room now extended out into seemingly infinite space right before my very eyes.

The horizon in my view was jet black.

I gasped again for I had a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I felt the floor was moving out from under my feet and I was being pulled into that space.

I no longer felt the swivel chair underneath me, although I was still sitting on it.

I heard Emilito say, "Let's swivel back again."

However, I had no strength to make the chair turn.

He must have done it for me, for I suddenly found myself looking at the corner of the room again.

"Incredible, wouldn't you say?" Emilito asked, smiling.

I was incapable of uttering a single word or asking questions I knew had no answers.

After a minute or two, Emilito made my chair swivel around once more, to give me another eyeful of infinity.

I found the immensity of that space so terrifying that I closed my eyes.

I felt him turning the chair around again.

"Now get off the chair," he said.

Automatically I obeyed him and stood there shaking involuntarily, trying to get my voice back.

He bodily turned me around to make me face the room.

Gripped with fear, I stubbornly or wisely refused to open my eyes.

Emilito gave me a sound rap on the top of my head with his knuckle which made my eyes pop open.

To my relief, the room was not black endless space, but the way it had been when I walked in.

Discarding his admonitions to only look in glances, I stared at every one of those unidentifiable objects.

"Please, Emilito, tell me, what is all this?" I asked.

"I am merely the caretaker," Emilio said. "All this is under my care." He swept his hand over the room:

"But I'll be damned if I know what it is.

"In fact, none of us knows what this is. We inherited it with the house from my teacher, the nagual Julian, and he inherited it from his teacher, the nagual Ellas, who had also inherited it."

"This looks like some sort of backstage prop room," I said, "but this is an illusion, isn't it, Emilito?"

"This is sorcery!

"You can perceive it now, because you've freed enough energy to expand your perception.

"Anyone can perceive it provided they have stored enough energy.

"The tragedy is that most of our energy is trapped in nonsensical concerns.

"The recapitulation is the key.

"It releases that trapped energy and voilà. You see infinity right in front of your eyes."

I laughed when Emilito said 'voilà' because it was so incongruous and unexpected.

Laughing alleviated some of my tension.

All I couldsay was, "But is all this real, Emilito, or am I dreaming?"

"You are dreaming, but all this is real.

It is so real that it can kill us by disintegrating us."

I couldn't rationally account for what I was seeing, thus there was no way I could either believe or doubt my perception. My dilemma was insurmountable and so was my panic.

Emilito moved closer to me.

He whispered, "Sorcery is more than black cats and naked people dancing in a graveyard at midnight; putting hexes on other people."

"Sorcery is: cold, abstract, impersonal.

"That's why we call the act of perceiving it 'the sorcerers' crossing,' or 'the flight to the abstract.'

"To withstand its awesome pull we have to be strong and determined.

"It is not for the timid or weak-hearted: This is what the nagual Julian used to say."

My interest was so intense that it forced me to listen with unequalled concentration to every word Emilito was saying.

All the while, my eyes were riveted to those objects in the room.

My conclusion was that none of them was real.

Yet, since I was obviously perceiving them, it made me wonder if I too wasn't real; or if I was concocting them.

It was not that they were indescribable, they were simply unrecognizable to my mind.

"Now prepare yourself for the sorcerers' flight," Emilito said:

"Hold on to me for dear life.

Grab my belt if you have to or climb on my back piggyback fashion, but whatever you do, do not let go."

Before I could even ask him what he intended next, he maneuvered my walking around the chair, and made me sit down facing the wall.

Then he swiveled the chair ninety degrees so that I was once again looking at the center of the room; at that terrifying infinite space.

He helped me stand up by holding my waist, and he made me take a few steps into infinity.

I found it almost impossible to walk.

My legs seemed to weigh a ton. I felt Emilito pushing and lifting me up.

Suddenly an immense force sucked me in and I was no longer walking but gliding in space.

Emilito was gliding alongside me.

I remembered his warning and I grabbed onto his belt; in the nick of time too, because just then another surge of energy made me accelerate at top speed.

I yelled at him to stop me.

Quickly he eased me onto his back and I held on for dear life.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but that made no difference.

I saw the same vastness before me whether my eyes were open or closed.

We were soaring in something that wasn't air. It was not over the earth, either.

My greatest fear was that a monumental burst of energy was going to make me lose my hold on Emilito's back.

I fought with all my might to hang on, and maintain my grip and my concentration.

It all ended as abruptly as it had begun.

I was jolted by another blast of energy, and I found myself drenched in perspiration standing by the blue chair.

My body trembled uncontrollably.

I was panting and gasping for air. My hair was over my face, damp and tangled.

Emilito pushed me onto the seat and swiveled me around to face the wall.

"Don't you dare to piss in your pants while sitting on this chair," he warned harshly.

I was beyond bodily functions. I was empty of everything including fear. It all had drained out of me while soaring in that infinite space.

Nodding, Emilito said, "You are able to perceive as I do, but you don't have any control yet in the new world you are perceiving.

"That control comes with a lifetime of discipline and storing power."

"I'll never be able to explain this to myself," I said, and swiveled on my own to face the center of the room; to take another peek at that pinkish infinity.

Now the objects I saw in the room were tiny, like chess pieces on a chess board.

I had to deliberately seek them out to notice them.

On the other hand, the coldness and awesomeness of that space filled my soul with unmitigated terror.

I remembered what Clara had said about the seers that had sought infinity; how they had stared at that immensity, and how it had stared back at them with a cold and unyielding indifference.

Clara never told me that she herself had stared at it, which now I knew she had.

So, what would have been the point of her telling me then? I would only have laughed or found her fanciful.

Now it was my turn to stare at infinity with no hope of comprehending what I was looking at.

Emilito was right: It would take me a lifetime of discipline and of storing power to understand that I'm gazing at the boundless.

"Now let's look at the other side of infinity," Emilito said, and gently made my chair swivel to face the wall.

He ceremoniously lifted the black curtain while I stared vacantly, trying to control my chattering teeth.

Behind the curtain there was a long narrow blue table.

It had no legs, and seemed to be attached to the wall although I could not see any hinges or braces holding it up.

He ordered me, "Prop your forearms on the table, and rest your head on your fists by placing them under your chin the way Clara showed you.

"Put pressure under your chin.

Hold your head gently and don't become tense. Gentleness is what we need now."

I did as he instructed.

Instantly a small window opened on the black wall, about six inches away from my nose.

Emilito was sitting to my right apparently also looking through another small window.

"Look inside," he said. "What do you see?"

I was looking at the house.

I saw the front door and the dining room on the left side of the house.

I had glanced into dining room briefly as I had passed it with Emilio the first time I used the main entrance.

The room was well lit and filled with people.

They were laughing and conversing in Spanish.

Some of them were helping themselves to food from a sideboard set with an assortment of tempting dishes, beautifully laid out on silver platters.

I saw the nagual.

Then I saw Clara. She was radiant and happy.

Clara was playing the guitar and singing a duet with another woman who could easily have been her sister. The other woman was as large as Clara, but dark complected.

The other woman did not have Clara's fiery green eyes: The other woman's eyes were fiery, but were dark and sinister.

Then I saw Nelida dancing by herself to the hauntingly beautiful tune. She was somehow different from the way I remembered her, although I couldn't pinpoint what the difference was.

For a while I watched them, enchanted as if I had died and gone to heaven.

The scene was: so ethereal, so joyous, so untouched by daily concerns.

But, I was suddenly jolted out of my enjoyment when I saw a second Nelida entering the dining room from a side door.

I couldn't believe my eyes, but there were two of them.

I turned to Emilito and confronted him with a silent question.

He said, "The one that is dancing is Florinda. She and Nelida are exactly alike, except that Nelida is a bit softer looking," he peered at me and winked, "but far more ruthless."

I counted the people in the room. Besides the nagual, there were fourteen people; nine women and five men. There were the two Nelidas; Clara and her dark sister; and five other women who were unknown to me. Three were definitely old, but like Clara, Nelida, the nagual and Emilito, they were of an indeterminate age. The other two women were only a few years older than I, perhaps in their midtwenties.

Four of the five men were older, and looked as fierce as the nagual.

But one of the men was young. He had a dark complexion. He was short and seemed very strong. His hair was black, curly. He gesticulated in an animated way as he talked, and his face was energetic, full of expression.

There was something about him that made him stand out from all the rest.

My heart leaped, and I was instantly drawn to him.

"That one is the new nagual," Emilito said.

As we looked into the room, he explained that every nagual imbues his sorcery with his particular temperament and experience.

The nagual John Michael Abelar, being a Yaqui Indian, had brought to his group the pathos of the Yaquis as a characterizing mark of all their actions.

Their sorcery, he said, was soaked in the somber mood of those Indians.

And all of the sorcerers, myself included, were bound by the rule to familiarize ourselves with the Yaquis; to follow their ups and downs.

"This perspective will prevail for you until the new nagual takes over," he said in my ear:

"Then you will have to soak yourself in his temperament and experience. That is the rule. You will have to go to college. He's lost in academic pursuits."

"When will this take place?" I whispered.

He replied softly, "Whenever all the members of my group together face that infinity in the room behind us, and we allow it to dissolve us."

A cloud of fatigue and desperation was beginning to envelop me.

The strain of trying to understand the inconceivable was too great.

"This room, of which I am the caretaker, is the accumulated intent and range of temperament of all the naguals that preceded John Michael Abelar," he said in my ear:

"There is no way on earth I can explain what this room is.

"To me, just as it is to you. it's incomprehensible."

I moved my eyes away from the dining room with all its ebullient people and looked at Emilito.

I finally understood that Emilito was as solitary as Manfred; a being capable of inconceivable awareness, yet burdened by the solitude that that awareness brings.

I wanted to weep, but my desire to weep was momentary because I realized that sadness is such a base emotion when in its place I could feel awe.

"The new nagual will take care of you," Emilito said, pulling my attention back into the dining room:

"He is your final teacher; the one who will take you to freedom.

"He has many names; one for each of the different facets of sorcery he is involved with.

"For the sorcery of infinity, his name is Dilas Grau.

Someday you will meet him and the others.

You couldn't do it the day you were with Nelida in the left hallway, nor can you do it now here with me.

"But, you will cross over soon.

"They are waiting for you."

A nameless longing took hold of me.

I wanted to slip through that viewing hole into the room to be with them.

There was warmth and affection there.

They were waiting for me.