The Second Ring of Power (23 page)

"The Nagual told me that as long as one clings to the human form,
one can only reflect that
form, and since the allies feed
directly onto our life-force in the middle of the stomach, they usually make us
sick, and then we see them as heavy, ugly creatures."

"Is there something that we can do to protect ourselves, or to
change the shape of those
creatures?"

"What all of you have to do is lose your human forms."

"What do you mean?"

My question did not seem to have any meaning for her. She stared at me
blankly as if waiting for me to clarify what I had just said. She closed her
eyes for a moment.

"You don't know about the human mold and the human form, do
you?" she asked. I stared at her.

"I've just seen that you know nothing about them," she said
and smiled.

"You are absolutely right," I said.

"The Nagual told me that the human form is a force," she
said. "And the human mold is. . .
well. . . a
mold. He said that everything has a particular mold. Plants have molds, animals
have
molds, worms have molds. Are you sure the Nagual never
showed you the human mold?"

I told her that he had sketched the concept, but in a very brief manner,
once when he had tried
to explain something about a dream I
had had. In the dream in question I had seen a man who
seemed to be
concealing himself in the darkness of a narrow gully. To find him there scared
me. I
looked at him for a moment and then the man stepped
forward and made himself visible to me.
He was naked
and his body glowed. He seemed to be delicate, almost frail. I liked his eyes.
They
were friendly and profound. I thought that they were
very kind. But then he stepped back into the
darkness of the
gully and his eyes became like two mirrors, like the eyes of a ferocious
animal.

Don Juan said that I had encountered the human mold in
"dreaming." He explained that
sorcerers have
the avenue of their "dreaming" to lead them to the mold, and that the
mold of men
was definitely an entity, an entity which could be seen
by some of us at certain times when we are
imbued with
power, and by all of us for sure at the moment of our death. He described the
mold
as being the source, the origin of man, since, without
the mold to group together the force of life, there was no way for that force
to assemble itself into the shape of man.

He interpreted my dream as a brief and extraordinarily simplistic
glance at the mold. He said
that my dream had restated the fact
that I was a simpleminded and very earthy man.

La Gorda laughed and said that she would have said the same thing
herself. To see the mold as an average naked man and then as an animal had been
indeed a very simplistic view of the mold.

"Perhaps it was just a stupid, ordinary dream," I said, trying
to defend myself.

"No," she said with a large grin. "You see, the human
mold glows and it is always found in
water holes and narrow
gullies."

"Why in gullies and water holes?" I asked.

"It feeds on water. Without water there is no mold," she
replied. "I know that the Nagual took
you to water
holes regularly in hopes of showing yon the mold. But your emptiness prevented
you
from
seeing
anything. The same thing happened to
me. He used to make me lie naked on a
rock in the very center of a
particular dried-up water hole, but all I did was to feel the presence of
something
that scared me out of my wits."

"Why does emptiness prevent one from seeing the mold?"

"The Nagual said that everything in the world is a force, a pull
or a push. In order for us to be
pushed or pulled we need to be like a
sail, like a kite in the wind. But if we have a hole in the
middle
of our luminosity, the force goes through it and never acts upon us.

"The Nagual told me that Genaro liked you very much and tried to
make you aware of the hole
in your middle. He used to fly his
sombrero as a kite to tease you; he even pulled you from that
hole
until you had diarrhea, but you never caught on to what he was doing."

"Why didn't they tell me as plainly as you have told me?"

"They did, but you didn't notice their words."

I found her statement impossible to believe. To accept that they had
told me about it and I had not acknowledged it was unthinkable.

"Did you ever see the mold, Gorda?" I asked.

"Sure, when I became complete again. I went to that particular
water hole one day by myself
and there it was. It was a radiant,
luminous being. I could not look at it. It blinded me. But being
in
its presence was enough. I felt happy and strong. And nothing else mattered,
nothing. Just
being there was all I wanted. The Nagual said that
sometimes if we have enough personal power we can catch a glimpse of the mold
even though we are not sorcerers; when that happens we say
that
we have seen God. He said that if we call it God it is the truth. The mold is
God.

"I had a dreadful time understanding the Nagual, because I was a
very religious woman. I had
nothing else in the world but my
religion. So to hear the Nagual say the things he used to say
made
me shiver. But then I became complete and the forces of the world began to pull
me, and I
knew that the Nagual was right. The mold is God. What do
you think?"

"The day I see it I'll tell you, Gorda," I said.

She laughed, and said that the Nagual used to make fun of me, saying
that the day I would see
the mold I would probably become a
Franciscan friar, because in the depths of me I was a
religious soul.

"Was the mold you saw a man or a woman?" I asked.

"Neither. It was simply a luminous human. The Nagual said that I
could have asked something for myself. That a warrior cannot let that chance
pass. But I could not think of anything to ask for.
It was better
that way. I have the most beautiful memory of it. The Nagual said that a
warrior with
enough power can
see
the mold many, many times.
What a great fortune that must be!"

"But if the human mold is what puts us together, what is the human
form?"

"Something sticky, a sticky force that makes us the people we are.
The Nagual told me that the
human form has no form. Like the
allies that he carried in his gourd, it's anything, but in spite of
not
having form, it possesses us during our lives and doesn't leave us until we
die. I've never seen the human form but I have felt it in my body."

She then described a very complex series of sensations that she had had
over a period of years
that culminated in a serious illness,
the climax of which was a bodily state that reminded me of
descriptions
I had read of a massive heart attack. She said that the human form, as the
force that it is, left her body after a serious internal battle that manifested
itself as illness.

"It sounds as if you had a heart attack," I said.

"Maybe I did," she replied, "but one thing I know for
sure. The day I had it, I lost my human
form. I became
so weak that for days I couldn't even get out of my bed. Since that day I
haven't had the energy to be my old self. From time to time I have tried to get
into my old habits, but I
didn't have the strength to enjoy them
the way I used to. Finally I gave up trying."

"What is the point of losing your form?"

"A warrior must drop the human form in order to change, to really
change. Otherwise there is
only talk about change, like in your
case. The Nagual said that it is useless to think or hope that one can change
one's habits. One cannot change one iota as long as one holds on to the human
form.
The Nagual told me that a warrior knows that he cannot change, and yet he makes
it his
business
to try to change, even though he knows that he won't be able to. That's the
only
advantage a warrior has over the
average man. The warrior is never disappointed when he fails to
change."

"But you are still yourself, Gorda, aren't you?"

"No. Not anymore. The only thing that makes you think you are
yourself is the form. Once it
leaves, you are nothing."

"But you still talk and think and feel as you always did, don't
you?"

"Not at all. I'm new."

She laughed and hugged me as if she were consoling a child.

"Only Eligio and I have lost our form," she went on. "It
was our great fortune that we lost it
while the Nagual was among us.
You people will have a horrid time. That is your fate. Whoever
loses
it next will have only me as a companion. I already feel sorry for whoever it
will be."

"What else did you feel, Gorda, when you lost your form, besides
not having enough energy?"

"The Nagual told me that a warrior without form begins to see an
eye. I saw an eye in front of
me every time I closed my eyes. It got
so bad that I couldn't rest anymore; the eye followed me
wherever
I went. I nearly went mad. Finally, I suppose, I became used to it. Now I don't
even
notice it because it has become part of me.

"The formless warrior uses that eye to start
dreaming
. If
you don't have a form, you don't have
to go to sleep to do
dreaming
.
The eye in front of you pulls you every time you want to go."
"Where
exactly is that eye, Gorda?"

She closed her eyes and moved her hand from side to side, right in front
of her eyes, covering the span of her face.

"Sometimes the eye is very small and other times it is
enormous," she went on. "When it's
small your
dreaming
is precise. If it's big your
dreaming
is like flying over the
mountains and not
really seeing much. I haven't done enough
dreaming
yet, but the Nagual told me that that eye is
my trump card.
One day when I become truly formless I won't see the eye anymore; the eye will
become
just like me, nothing, and yet it'll be there like the allies. The Nagual said
that everything
has to be sifted through our human form. When we
have no form, then nothing has form and yet
everything is
present. I couldn't understand what he meant by that, but now I see that he was
absolutely right. The allies are only a presence and so will be the eye.
But at this time that eye is
everything to me. In fact, in having
that eye I should need nothing else in order to call up my
dreaming
,
even when I'm awake. I haven't been able to do that yet. Perhaps I'm like you,
a bit stubborn and lazy."

"How did you do the flying you showed me tonight?"

"The Nagual taught me how to use my body to make lights, because we
are light anyway, so I
make sparks and lights and they in turn
lure the lines of the world. Once I see one, it's easy to
hook
myself to it."

"How do you hook yourself?"

"I grab it."

She made a gesture with her hands. She clawed them and then placed them
together joined at
the wrists, forming a sort of bowl, with the clawed
fingers upright.

"You have to grab the line like a jaguar," she went on,
"and never separate the wrists. If you do, you'll fall down and break your
neck."

She paused and that forced me to look at her, waiting for more of her
revelations.
"You don't believe me, do you?" she asked.

Without giving me time to answer, she squatted and began again to
produce her display of
sparks. I was calm and collected and
could place my undivided attention on her actions. When
she
snapped her fingers open, every fiber of her muscles seemed to tense at once.
That tension
seemed to be focused on the very tips of her fingers and
was projected out like rays of light. The
moisture in her
fingertips was actually a vehicle to carry some sort of energy emanating from
her
body.

"How did you do that, Gorda?" I asked, truly marveling at her.

"I really don't know," she said. "I simply do it. I've
done it lots and lots of times and yet I don't
know how I do
it. When I grab one of those rays I feel that I'm being pulled by something. I
really
don't do anything else except let the lines I've grabbed
pull me. When I want to get back through, I feel that the line doesn't want to
let me free and I get frantic. The Nagual said that that was my worst feature.
I get so frightened that one of these days I'm going to injure my body. But I figure
that one of these days I'll be even more formless and then I won't get
frightened, so as long as I
hold on until that day. I'm all
right."