Читать книгу The Toltec Art of Life and Death - Barbara Emrys, Don Miguel Ruiz, don Miguel Ruiz Jr. - Страница 11

My conception was an event Sarita often talked about. My birth was a little unusual, and things became even stranger from then on.

I was born into an unusual family, one whose ancestry could be traced to the Eagle Knight lineage of ancient Aztec people. Those designated to be Eagle Knights were respected as wise men and advisors to their communities. Like our communities today, theirs were comprised of politicians, soldiers, farmers, and artisans. When I use the word “artisan” in relation to these ancient people, I also mean artists of life, or toltecas, as they are called in our storytelling. A reality based on words wisely spoken and beliefs playfully chosen was their form of art. Among the wisest, there were individuals who fought against the poisonous fear that so often comes from human thinking.

I didn’t always know what I could become, or might become, while I lived in this human body. It is true that there were spiritual warriors existing even in my immediate family. At the time of my birth, my mother was already a known curandera, and to her healing practices she applied many of the sacred rituals that she’d learned from my grandfather, don Leonardo. His father, my great-grandfather, was called Eziquio. Although “trickster” was the word most often used in describing him, both with humor and with a little fear, don Eziquio was seen as a living legend by the adults around him. To children like me, he was the shadow, the specter, and the all-seeing eye. We weren’t sure what mischief he had made in his life, or what sorcery he might still be capable of making, but we children spoke of him in cautious whispers, just in case. His name, like the names of all ancient shamans, was breathed with wonder and reverence.

Even as a young man, I couldn’t have dreamed that words like “shaman” and “trickster” would someday apply to me. I wanted a respectable life as a medical professional, contributing what I could to the overall health of humanity. Never did I imagine becoming the one my mother had predicted I would become, or that I would be serving humanity in the way she had described.

Like all her stories about me, the story of my conception was always told in mythological terms. Most of her accounts sounded that way: the stories she told about our ancestors were as reverential as those told about saints and angels. I never really believed my own story the way she told it to everyone, but in time I became aware that she saw it as her story. My conception and birth, my immersion into the world-dream, and my return to her, to the ancient beliefs and practices—all of it was about her. And in very important ways, she was right. It was about her. Her stories were expressions of faith—faith in herself. Seeing how she lived her life with this kind of faith was the greatest of all lessons for me. It appeared that she gave credit to God the Father, and that she yielded to the will of the Blessed Virgin. It appeared that she was constantly begging the saints to support her cause. It appeared that way because it was necessary to appear that way—but her power over people, and over the events in her own dream, came directly from the faith she had in herself. That faith gave life to her story. That faith gave life to the sick. And it was that faith which gave life to me.

Sarita recognized the couple immediately. The woman in throes of ecstatic lovemaking was herself as a younger woman, before Miguel was born. This woman was naked and full of passion. This version of Sarita was mounted on her husband’s lap, moaning with pleasure. Both their bodies shone with the sweat of sexual exertion. The old woman watched them, her eyes swimming with tears as she mouthed her husband’s name and smiled in recollection.

“José Luis,” she said, speaking out loud this time. “Mi amor . . . mi cariño.”

Standing near the bed was the mysterious Lala, much as she had appeared by the tree. She stood silently at the edges of the dim candlelight for a few moments, regarding the couple without emotion. Indeed, she scarcely showed interest in what she was seeing, so when she spoke to the old woman in the corner, she sounded much like a tour guide at the botanical gardens, pointing out common flora.

“She has a good body for a woman of fifty,” Lala stated flatly.

“Forty-two,” Sarita corrected. “And look at him! I had forgotten . . .” She sighed and looked away as the vision grew uncomfortable.

“He was a child,” said the younger woman.

“He was well into his twenties,” Sarita responded defensively.

“And when you married him?”

“He was well into his teens. Far into his teens.”

“And you, a mature woman and mother of nine. Nine.”

“He was so much in love . . .”

“He was in love with an idea, as we both know,” Lala said, looking past the couple in the bed to meet Sarita’s eyes. “He was spellbound. The poor boy had no chance.”

“Ideas are everything,” Sarita mused quietly.

“I’m glad you agree.” A silky smile touched Lala’s full lips. This excursion, so sudden and so suspect, seemed already to be going her way. Ordinarily, she was loath to participate in matters like this. The scene before her was an unsavory one—primal, and sticky with the promise of life—but it was a necessary introduction to a dream that she would one day own and control.

The young man making love suddenly cried out with pleasure, and as he did, his wife screamed, arching her back and stretching her arms to the ceiling. She screamed again.

“What?” shouted her husband. “What did I do?”

“The light! Did you see the light? It came out of nowhere and stabbed me in the belly! My body burns with it!” Sara, the younger apparition of Mother Sarita, brought her hands down and hugged the man tightly to her.

“Mi amor, there is nothing to fear from light,” he whispered.

“God has touched me. There will be a child.”

Laughing out loud, José Luis took his wife by the buttocks and threw her back onto the bed. “It doesn’t take a celestial light to tell us that.”

“Yes, there will be another, and he will be—”

“The thirteenth?” he guessed, mocking her. They had already added three sons to Sara’s swarm of children.

“Yes, yes! He will be the thirteenth. Don’t laugh—there is divine power at work here! Thirteen!” she emphasized importantly. “Stop laughing!”

Sarita listened to the couple talking, listened to the bed creaking softly, and remembered. “Yes, this was the beginning for Miguel,” she said, almost to herself, “but there was so much that came before.”

“We are here to visit the events of your son’s life, not the life of the woman named Sara,” the other woman responded dispassionately. Her face showed no expression as she watched the couple on the bed.

“We have no business visiting this!” Sarita snapped, rising to the single tiny window, open to the cool air. Outside, night cradled the world in its massive arms. A few random stars pricked the blackness, and the silence was broken by the yap of a dog—once, twice, and then no more. Sarita let herself feel the loneliness of silence. The love José Luis had offered her was bold, committed, and constant. She longed for the sounds of it again, the big sensations of it. She could recall how generously he had loved her, but she could not remember giving love in the same way. Too often she had repaid his devotion with condescension. He was a respectful husband and a helpmate, in her work and in the raising of their children, but what had she been to him?

Lala nodded her approval. “That’s right, look away. There are things at work here that exist in defiance of knowledge, making this moment distasteful. We had to return to the beginning, and I suppose this is a beginning of sorts.” She glanced at Sarita, delight flashing in her eyes. “But as for me,” she said, “I prefer beginnings like this one!”

Sarita turned back to the little room and was amazed to see that it no longer contained a bed, a candle, and two lovers. It was now a kitchen, flooded with morning sunshine. And there she was, standing by a wood-burning stove as a younger woman again. She wasn’t pregnant, which surprised her. When was this, then?

A radio played music, and she was singing as she prepared the day’s meal. The screams and giggles of children could be heard from the tiny yard outside the kitchen door. The sound of traffic blared from the street, as the old Sarita watched the scene, her mouth open in wonder. A toddler played near his mother’s feet, alternately sitting with his tiny paint-chipped soldiers and standing, balancing himself, and then taking a few steps closer to the stove. His mother yelled something to the other children through an open window, and then turned to smile with pride at the child, who was hardly more than a baby.

“My sweet boy,” she crooned. “How clever you are! How strong and beautiful and clever!”

Encouraged by the tone of her words, the child took another step, then another. A boy of five or six ran into the house, knocking over a chair as he swiped a tortilla from the counter. “Hey!” he called as he kept running. “The monkey is walking again!” With that, a cheer rose from the yard. The toddler recognized the sound of it and beamed with excitement. These were the same wonderful sounds of laughter that rose up every time he stood, every time he fell, and every time he babbled incoherently. When his family laughed, he laughed. A lifetime of laughter wouldn’t be enough for him. With that kind of reward in view, he steadied himself, lifted his tiny arms, and reached his mother with two more trembling steps. Once there, he clung to her strong legs with breathless satisfaction, burying his face in the folds of her skirt.

“He is a champion!” his mother shrieked, and a roar went up outside. She laughed, the boy laughed, and the universe rocked with pleasure.

“There, you see?” said his mother, caressing his little face. “Strong, beautiful, and clever. The whole world knows it!”

Watching the scene, Sarita spoke with fondness. “Yes, these are the days when Miguelito first began to walk. He was leaving infancy and starting his life as a child.” She let out a long sigh. “Like his brothers, who took so much pleasure in tormenting him, he would develop a strong talent for trouble.” She smiled as the memories rushed toward her and the light in the room began to flicker.

“Stop!” Lala said, interrupting her recollection. “My dear, this is not just the beginning of tedious boyhood that we are witnessing. Listen!”

They looked back at mother and child, as baby Miguel reached a small hand toward the stove, then pulled it back at the shocking recognition of heat. Sensing danger, his eyes widened in surprise.

“Ay! No!” he heard his mother shout. “No! No, no, no!”

Looking up at his mother, the boy repeated the sound. “No!” he mimicked with serious precision. “No!” The response from his mother was immediate and theatrical. Pulling him into her arms, she ran from the house, shouting to everyone that the little genius had spoken his first word.

“That! Did you hear?” shouted Lala with animation. “That is the beginning!”

“Of what?” asked Sarita. “Yes-no? Hot-cold? Mamá-papá? The beginning of words, you mean?”

“The Word,” Lala stated, almost reverently. “See how it goes? One word leading to another, and another, until you build a universe of perception.” Looking into the old woman’s eyes, she said, “This moment is the beginning of knowledge and the universe it will create. This,” she added wistfully, “is the moment of my birth.”

Her birth? Sarita marveled to herself. The creature from the other tree yields to the laws of birth and death like the rest of us? In any language, it is a simple thing to recognize that a burning stove will cause pain. No! is essential to a baby’s education. She regarded the other woman with interest, noting the pride in her expression. Who was she, to be proud of another woman’s child?

“Never forget it,” intoned Lala as she sat down at the table. “If you wish to retrieve your beloved son, follow the words.”

“Nonsense!” boomed a voice from the doorway. The two women looked up, startled, and saw an old man hovering just outside, standing in full sunlight. He was not tall, but he held himself with dignity, lending him the look of a much taller man. His hair was a delicate white, but there was nothing else about him that seemed delicate. He was lean, sinewy, and quite handsome in a cream-colored suit that spoke of another time.

“Papá!” Sarita exclaimed.

“Papá?” the gentleman repeated in surprise. “How could I be father to this honorable abuela?” He tipped his hat graciously.

“Yes, it is true that I am now a grandmother and great-grandmother,” Sarita said, moving toward him, “and that you are long since dead and buried! Still, this is a joyful reunion!” She hugged him and pulled him into the room.

“What world have I blundered into,” he asked good-naturedly, “where my children are great-grandparents and withered memories have blossomed anew?”

Sarita was unable to answer. Seeing her confusion, he thought it best to take charge. He led Sarita to the wooden table and seated himself next to her.

“Who is it we must retrieve?”

“My youngest. You remember Miguel,” said his daughter, placing a frail hand on his. “He is slipping away from us. He has suffered a heart attack, one that would seem fatal to any whose talents were less than ours.”

“If this is true, it won’t be words that bring him back. It will be the irrefutable force of life.” He glanced at her companion, now sitting regally at the head of the table. Assuming the person to be a gentleman like himself, he nodded deferentially before turning back to Sarita. Then, with a jolt, he looked again. No, Sarita’s friend was nothing like him. In fact, she was a woman—strikingly beautiful, with eyes like burning coals. She smiled at him, and her eyes glowed brighter.

“This is Lala,” his daughter said.

“La Diosa,” corrected the woman. She could wield no power over the dead, she knew. They were beyond temptation, beyond her reach; but with this one, as with them all, there had once been a time. . . .

“Beautiful, as always, señora,” don Leonardo said with a bow. Then he felt a slow wave of realization. Could it be that his daughter was not fully aware of the nature of this affair? Until he was sure, he would play the game with sincerity. “Did you start at the beginning, ladies?” he asked.

“Well,” shrugged Sarita. “It was a beginning of sorts. We began before Miguel was born—at his conception, in fact—but we found the scene to be unsavory.”

“And unrevealing,” added her companion.

“Show me!” the man said; and as he said it, the morning sunlight was extinguished.

Without warning, the three of them were standing by that earlier bed, in the dark little room with a tiny window where two lovers laughed and sighed.

“If you please,” uttered Lala, retreating to a dark corner of the room. “I will not witness this vulgarity again.”

“Don Leonardo,” his daughter objected, her body heaving from the effort. “We’ve seen this before.”

“Have you?” he said, smiling broadly. “Have you really seen this?”

The nude woman was sitting astride her husband, enjoying the pleasure of their union. Suddenly, she shouted in ecstasy as she had done before, her arms in the air and her head thrown back.

“There. Did you see that?” said the old gentleman.

“Yes,” she said, turning away to look out the open window. “And I felt it. I remember the moment well.”

“And?”

“And . . . I felt the burning light as Miguel came into being.” A star flared in the blackness, and Sarita became distracted. “How amazing,” she whispered, clutching the window frame as she leaned her face into the cool night air.

“Yes! Your body felt it happen. A message was delivered, and creation began in you. Again! Little Miguel won the race. He was one among the tens of millions of spermatozoa to try—and he succeeded!”

“Are you here to make tasteless jokes? I have neither the time—”

“We are witnessing the making of a soul!”

In spite of herself, Sarita looked back into the room. “Soul? The poor and sinful soul?”

“No such thing! A soul is the epoxy that binds a universe—a matter of basic physics,” he proclaimed. “Here you see a universe being born out of the cataclysmic division of two cells!” He paused to take a breath, pleased with himself.

“A boy’s body is beginning,” she mused.

“A body that will grow into manhood. The soul will see to that.”

“And what of God?”

“Yes,” said Lala from the shadows. “Tell us what you know of God.”

“It is all God,” answered Leonardo with a glance into the shadows. He pointed dramatically to the bed. “Is this not God in action?”

“No, tell me,” Lala said, over the moans of the two lovers. “Tell me of God.”

“We have had our promenade already, señora. I have nothing more to say about God. I am witnessing God.”

“Do we take this memory with us?” asked Sarita, impatient to go.

“No,” Lala flared.

“Yes, indeed!” said the man. “Let it be the first of many such events—events that describe the life of my grandson!”

“And the next event?” pressed the old woman, grabbing her bag.

“I have an idea,” said Leonardo with a glint of inspiration in his eyes. Over Lala’s grumbles of protest, the room seemed to spin, turning bright and then dark with each revolution. The sound of a woman moaning continued, becoming sharper and more urgent as another room lit up, this one with fluorescent lamps and shiny metallic objects.

“A hospital?” muttered Sarita, leaning against a glistening wall. “I need to sit down again.” As her father pulled up a metal stool for her, the moaning stopped. They looked at the scene in front of them. It was not the death of her son she was witnessing now, but the moment of his arrival.

“Why the silence?” asked Leonardo. “Has he emerged? Has he been born?”

“He has,” said Sarita, remembering. The conversation in the room had stopped with the mother’s last push. All that remained were a few anxious whispers, as a nurse fussed over the newborn, coaching him to take a breath. The doctor busied himself with Sara, who lay still on the bed, pale as death and too exhausted to listen for the sounds of her infant son.

“They thought we would both perish that morning,” the old woman recalled.

There was the feel of tragedy in the room. The needs of the mother had become urgent, so the nurse holding the baby was called to help. She laid his lifeless little body on a metal table, an offering to fate.

“I smell fear,” Lala remarked. “Lots of it.” She moved from the far wall and stood at the center of the room, her elegant nose in the air. “Yes, fear . . . mixed with blood.” She backed away, repelled.

“Not to your taste?” the old man goaded.

Lala ignored him and cast her eyes around the room disapprovingly. Blood was everywhere. It covered the bedsheets, the inert mother, the anxious doctor. It had splashed onto the white-tiled floor and smeared the metal surface where the body of the child lay, cold and silent. It smelled, yes. It smelled of copper mines and manure. It smelled of fertile things—secret, undiscovered things. It smelled of life.

“Not to my taste, no,” she conceded. “I prefer my world of named things over the world of oozing, writhing things.”

“Yours is no world at all, my dear.”

“It is exactly the same world you once occupied—but without the detestable mess.”

They regarded each other suspiciously, and the silence in the room grew heavy.

“Father,” Sarita exclaimed. “I can’t bear the horror again! He doesn’t breathe!”

“Wait, hija,” said the old man. “Here it comes . . .”

Don Leonardo stretched his right hand toward the lifeless infant, palm open, and there was movement, then the unmistakable signs of struggle, as the baby’s frail lungs billowed and contracted, sucking in air. With the next gasp came shock, then sound, as the boy announced his existence with a vigorous scream. Half-conscious, his mother cried out and lunged toward the sound, almost tumbling from the bed. The nurse dropped her tray of soiled towels and shrieked in alarm.

“Ah, no. He wasn’t going so easily!” said Leonardo with a laugh. “Nor will he today, my daughter.”

“This is a waste of precious time,” Lala said, raising her voice in a show of authority. “Am I in charge of this expedition or not?”

“Please, yes,” Sarita replied. She collected her nylon bag and rose to meet the woman in the center of the busy room, where doctors and nurses celebrated the miraculous resurrection of mother and child. Sarita had a mission, and very little time. If this mysterious woman had the answers, she must be obeyed.

She nodded to her father, and the three spectral guests walked out of the room, the older woman taking the lead. Leonardo gazed back at the operating room, marveling at the chaotic wonder of it. He thought he saw someone familiar standing by the wall, but before he could get another look, he was pushed abruptly from the room. Lala followed close behind him. She, too, hesitated by the door, and turned.

Miguel Ruiz was clearly visible, standing in the light of an operating lamp. He was a grown man, radiant though dressed in a hospital gown, just as Sarita had last seen him—a man whose recent heart attack had hurled him out of the human play and into a world between two worlds. His gown showed flecks of blood, the blood of his own birth. He bore the stains of humanness that Lala so abhorred. She suspected that he had come here to feel the invitation. He had come to remind himself of the thrill—of the fearless daring a newborn feels as he launches headfirst into the human dream, taking a sharp breath and crying out in delirious exultation. He had come to watch, and to imagine.

Miguel and Lala looked at each other wordlessly. Each recognized the other, as any person might recognize himself in the mirror; but there was something more to the way they regarded one another. In Miguel’s eyes shone the full expression of love, without fear or doubt. In her eyes lay suspicion and the expectation of loss.

It was hard to say in that moment whether either of them could sense an opportunity for union, for laughter, or for the sweet submission to desire. It was hard to imagine how many directions this journey might take. Lala seemed as capricious as any woman, and just as eager to steer the events of the dream her way. Hearing Sarita’s call, she offered Miguel only the slightest of smiles, and then she was gone. Miguel stayed where he was, watching the hospital doors swing shut behind her, and let his imagination carry him gently into another dream . . . a dream of times forgotten and feelings exchanged.