“Being in Dreaming: An Initiation into the Sorcerers' World” - ©1991 by Florinda Donner

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Chapter 11

I turned off the light and lay very still in my hammock, lulled by the noises of the house, strange creaking sounds and the trickling of water from an earthenware filter standing outside my door.

Abruptly, I sat up as the unmistakable sound of footsteps echoed along the corridor. "Who could it be at this hour?" I thought.

I tiptoed across the room and pressed my ear against the door.

The footsteps were heavy. My heart beat fast and loud as the steps came closer. They stopped in front of my door.

The knock was urgent, and although I was expecting it, it nonetheless startled me. I jumped back, knocking over a chair.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Florinda asked, stepping into the room. She left the door half open, and the light from the corridor shone inside.

"I thought you would be happy to hear the sound of my steps," she said mockingly, smiling at me. "I didn't want to sneak up on you."

She straightened up the chair, and draped a pair of khaki pants and a shirt over the backrest.

"Compliments of the caretaker. He says you can keep them."

"Keep them?" I repeated, eyeing the garments suspiciously. They looked clean and ironed. "What's wrong with my jeans?"

"You'll be more comfortable in these pants during the long drive to Los Angeles," Florinda said.

"But I don't want to leave!" I cried out in alarm. "I'm staying here until Isidore Baltazar returns."

Florinda laughed, then seeing that I was about to weep, she said, "Isidore Baltazar is back, but you're welcome to stay longer if you wish."

"Oh, no, I don't," I blurted out.

The anxiety I had felt for the past two days was all but forgotten. So were all the questions I had wanted to ask Florinda.

All I could think of was that Isidore Baltazar was back. "Can I see him now?" I asked.

"I'm afraid you can't." Florinda stopped me from leaving the room.

For a moment her statement didn't register. I stared at her uncomprehendingly, and she repeated that it wasn't possible to see the new nagual tonight.

"Why not?" I asked, bewildered. "I'm sure he would want to see me."

"I'm sure he would," she readily agreed. "But he is sound asleep, and you can't wake him up."

It was such a fierce refusal that all I could do was stare at her, speechless.

Florinda looked at the floor for a long time, then gazed up at me.

Her expression was sad. For an instant I believed she would relent and take me to see Isidore Baltazar.

Instead, she repeated with sharp finality, "I'm afraid you can't see him tonight."

Hastily, as if afraid she might still change her mind, she embraced and kissed me, and then left the room.

She switched off the light outside, then turned from the shadows of the corridor to look at me and said, "Go to sleep now."

Tossing and turning, I lay awake for hours.

Close to dawn I finally got up and put on the clothes Florinda had brought me.

They fit me well, except for the pants, which I had to cinch in at the waist with a piece of string- I had no belt with me.

Shoes in hand, I stole down the corridor past the caretaker's room to the back entrance. Mindful of the creaking hinges, I opened the door carefully and only a crack.

It was still dark outside, yet a soft, radiant blue was spreading across the eastern sky.

I ran to the arched doorway built into the wall, stopping momentarily by the two trees outside it that guarded the path.

The air was heavy with the fragrance of orange blossoms.

Whatever lingering doubts I might have had about crossing the chaparral were dispelled as I dicovered that fresh ashes had been strewn on the ground.

Without another thought I dashed to the other house.

The door was ajar, but I didn't go in right away.

I crouched beneath the window and waited for some kind of a sound.

I didn't have to wait long before I heard a loud snoring.

I listened for a while and went inside. Guided by that distinct snoring sound, I went directly to the room at the back of the house.

In the darkness I could hardly make out the sleeping form on the straw mat, yet I had no doubt that it was Isidore Baltazar.

Fearing that he might be startled if I were to wake him too suddenly, I returned to the front room and sat on the couch.

I was so excited I could not sit still. I was beside myself with joy thinking that any moment now he would wake up.

Twice I tiptoed back into the room and looked at him. He had turned in his sleep and was no longer snoring.

I must have dozed off on the couch. I sensed through my fitful sleep that someone stood in the room.

I half roused to murmur, "I'm waiting for Isidore Baltazar to wake up," but I knew I had made no sound.

I made a conscious effort to sit up.

I swayed dizzily before I could focus my eyes on the man standing beside me. It was Mariano Aureliano.

"Is Isidore Baltazar still asleep?" I asked him.

The old nagual gazed at me for a long time.

Wondering whether I was dreaming, I boldly reached for his hand, only to drop it abruptly. It burnt as if it were on fire.

He raised his brows, seemingly surprised by my actions.

"You won't be able to see Isidore Baltazar until the morning," he spoke slowly, as if it cost him a great effort to enunciate the words.

Before I had a chance to say that it was almost morning; that I would wait for Isidore Baltazar on the couch, I felt Mariano Aureliano's burning hand on my back, pushing me across the threshold.

"Go back to your hammock."

There was a sudden rush of wind.

I turned around to protest, but Mariano Aureliano was no longer there.

The wind reverberated in my head like a deep gong. The sound grew softer and softer until it was but a bare vibration.

I opened my mouth to prolong the last faint echoes.

It was midmorning when I awoke in my hammock, wearing the clothes Florinda had brought me.

Automatically, almost without thought, I went outside and across the clearing to the little house.

The door was locked.

I knocked repeatedly and I called out, but there was no answer.

I tried to force the windows open but they too were locked.

I was so shaken I was on the verge of tears.

I ran down the hill to the small clearing beside the road, the only spot where a car could be parked. Isidore Baltazar's van was not there.

I walked along the dirt road for quite some time, looking for fresh tire tracks. There were none.

More confused than ever, I returned to the house.

Knowing that it would be useless to look for the women in their rooms, I stood in the middle of the inside patio and yelled for Florinda at the top of my voice.

There was no sound, except for the echo of my own voice settling around me.

No matter how many times I reviewed what Florinda had said, I couldn't come up with a satisfying explaination.

The only thing I could be sure of was that Florinda had come to my room in the middle of the night to bring me the clothes I was wearing. Her visit and her statement that Isidore Baltazar was back must have triggered a vivid dream in me.

To stop myself from speculating why I was alone in the house- not even the caretaker seemed to be about- I began to mop the floors.

Cleaning always had a soothing effect on me. I was done with all the rooms including the kitchen when I heard the distinct sound of a Volkswagen engine.

I ran down the hill and flung myself at Isidore Baltazar even before he got out of the van, almost jerking him to the ground.

"I still can't get over it," he laughed, putting his arms around me in a tight embrace. "You were the one the nagual told me so much about. Do you know that I nearly passed out when they greeted you?"

He didn't wait for my comment but hugged me again, and laughing, lifted me off the ground.

Then, as if some restraint had broken free within him, he began to talk nonstop.

He said that he had known about me for a year. The nagual had told him that he was entrusting a weird girl to him.

The nagual had described that girl metaphorically as 'twelve o'clock in the morning of a clear day which is neither windy nor calm, neither cold nor hot, but alternates between all those, driving one nuts.'

Isidore Baltazar confessed that being the pompous ass that he was, he knew instantaneously that the nagual was referring to his girlfriend.

"Who is your girlfriend?" I cut him short.

He made a sharp movement with his hand, positively displeased by my words.

"This is not a story of facts," he snapped. "This is a story of ideas; so you would see how idiotic I am."

His annoyance quickly gave way to a brilliant smile. "I actually believed I could find out for myself who that girl was." He paused for an instant, then added softly, "I've even involved a married woman with children in my search."

He heaved a deep sigh then grinned and said, "The moral of my story is that in the sorcerers' world one has to cancel out the ego or it is curtains for us; for in that world, there is no way for average persons like ourselves to predict anything."

Then, seeing that I was weeping, he held me off at arm's length and gazed at me anxiously. "What is the matter, nibelunga?"

"Nothing really," I laughed in between my sobs, drying my tears. "I don't have an abstract mentality that can worry about the world of abstract stories," I added cynically.

In as hard a tone as I could muster, I added, "I worry about the here and now. You've got no idea what I've been through in this house."

"Of course, I have a very good idea," he retorted with deliberate harshness. "I've been at it for years."

He regarded me with an inquisitor's eye and asked, "What I want to know is, why didn't you tell me you had been with them already?"

"I was about to, but I didn't feel it was important," I mumbled in confusion.

Then my voice acquired a firm and steady ring as words poured involuntarily out of me. "It turns out that meeting them was the only important thing I have ever done."

To hide my surprise, I immediately began to complain that I had been left in the house all by myself.

"I didn't have a chance to let you know that I was off to the mountains with the nagual," he whispered with a sudden irrepressible smile.

"I forgot all about that," I assured him. "I'm talking about today.

"This morning when I awoke, I expected you to be here. I was certain you had spent the night in the little house, sleeping on a straw mat. When I couldn't find you, I panicked."

Seeing his puzzled face, I told him of Florinda's midnight visit, of my subsequent dream, and of finding myself alone in the house upon awakening this morning.

I sounded incoherent. My thoughts and words were all mixed up. However, I couldn't stop talking.

"There are so many things I cannot accept," I said, finally putting an end to my diatribe. "Yet I cannot refute them either."

Isidore Baltazar didn't say a word. He kept staring at me as if expecting me to continue, his eyebrows raised in an inquiring, mocking arch.

His face was thin and drawn and the color of smoke. His skin exuded a strange coolness and a faint scent of earth, as if he had spent his days underground in a cave.

All thought of my turmoil vanished as I gazed into his ominous left eye, with its terrible, merciless gaze.

At that moment it no longer mattered what was the authentic truth and what was the illusion- the dream within a dream.

I laughed out loud, feeling as light as the wind. I could feel an unbearable weight being lifted off my shoulders as I kept staring into his wizard's eye.

I recognized it. Florinda, Mariano Aureliano, Esperanza, and the caretaker all had such an eye. Preordained for all time to be without feeling; without emotion, that eye mirrors emptiness.

Then, as if it had revealed enough, an inside lid- as in a lizard's eye- shut over the left pupil.

Before I had a chance to comment on his wizard's eye, Isidore Baltazar closed both eyes for an instant.

When he opened them again they were exactly alike, dark and shiny with laughter, the wizard's eye but an illusion.

He put one arm around my shoulders and walked with me up the hill.

"Get your things," he said just before reaching the house. "I'll wait for you in the car."

I thought it odd that he wouldn't come in with me, but at the time I didn't think of asking him why.

Only as I was gathering my few belongings did it occur to me that perhaps he was afraid of the women.

That possibility then made me laugh out loud; for I suddenly knew with a certainty that astonished me that the only thing Baltazar was not afraid of was women.

I was still laughing when I reached the van at the bottom of the hill.

I opened my mouth to explain to Isidore Baltazar the cause of my mirth, when a strange, fierce emotion flooded me; a stab so strong I couldn't speak.

What I felt wasn't sexual passion. Neither was it platonic affection. It wasn't the feeling I felt for my parents or brothers or friends.

I simply loved Isidore Baltazar with a love that was untainted by any expectation, doubts, or dread.

As if I had spoken out loud, Isidore Baltazar embraced me so fiercely I could hardly breathe.

We drove off very slowly.

I craned my neck out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the caretaker amidst the fruit trees.

"It feels odd to leave like this," I mused, slumping back in my seat. "In a way Florinda said goodbye to me last night. But I wish I could have thanked Esperanza and the caretaker."

The dirt road wound around the hill, and as we reached a sharp bend, the back of the little house came into view.

Isidore Baltazar stopped the car and turned off the engine. He pointed to the frail old man sitting on a crate in front of the house.

I wanted to get out of the car and run up the hill, but he held me back.

"Just wave at him," he whispered.

The caretaker rose from the crate. The wind made his loose jacket and pants flap against his limbs, as if they were wings.

He laughed out loud, then bent backwards, and seemingly with the wind's momentum did a double back flip.

For a moment he appeared to be suspended high in the air.

He never landed on the ground but vanished, as if the wind had sucked him away.

Where did he go?" I whispered in awe.

"To the other side," Isidore Baltazar giggled with childlike delight. "That was his way of saying good-bye to you."

He set the car in motion again.

As if he were baiting me, he glanced at me mockingly from time to time. "What is it that's troubling you, nibelunga?" he finally asked.

"You know who he is, don't you?" I said accusingly. "He isn't the caretaker, is he?"

Isidore Baltazar frowned slightly, then after a long silence he reminded me that, for me, the nagual Juan Matus was Mariano Aureliano.

He assured me that there must be a good reason that I knew him under that name. "I'm sure there is an equally sound justification for the old man not to reveal his name to you."

I argued that, since I knew who Mariano Aureliano was, I didn't see the purpose of the old man's pretension.

"And," I stressed smugly, "I do know who the caretaker is."

I glanced sideways to see Isidore Baltazar's reaction. His face revealed nothing.

"Like all the people in the sorcerers' world, the caretaker is a sorcerer," he said. "But you don't know who he is."

He turned to me briefly, then fixed his attention again on the road. "After all these years, I don't know who any of them really is, including the nagual Juan Matus.

"As long as I am with him, I think I know who he is. The moment his back is turned, however, I am at a loss."

Almost dreamily, Isidore Baltazar went on to say that in the world of everyday life, our subjective states are shared by all our fellow men.

For this reason, we know at all times what our fellow men would do under given circumstances.

"You're wrong, you're deadly wrong," I shouted. "Not to know what our fellow men would do under given circumstances is what's exciting about life.

"That's one of the few exciting things left. Don't tell me you want to do away with it."

"We don't know what our fellow men would exactly do," he explained patiently, "but we could write down a list of possibilities which would hold true; a very long list, I grant you, yet a finite list.

"In order to write down this list, we don't have to ask our fellow men for their preferences. All we have to do is place ourselves in their position and write down the possibilities pertinent to us. They'll be true to everybody, because we share them. Our subjective states are shared by all of us."

He said that our subjective knowledge of the world is known to us as common sense.

It might be slightly different from group to group, from culture to culture, yet in spite of all these differences, common sense is sufficiently homogeneous to warrant the statement that the everyday world is an intersubjective world.

"With sorcerers, however, the common sense we are accustomed to is no longer in operation," he stressed. "They have another kind of common sense, because they have other kinds of subjective states."

"You mean that they are like beings from another planet?" I asked.

Isidore Baltazar laughed. "Yes. They are like beings from another planet."

"Is that why they are so secretive?"

"I don't think secretive is the right term," he remarked thoughtfully:

"They deal differently with the everyday world. Their behavior appears secretive to us because we don't share the same meaning.

"And since we don't have any standards to measure what is common sense to them, we opt for believing that their behavior is secretive."

"They do whatever we do: they sleep, they cook their meals, they read," I interjected. "Yet I could never catch them in the act. Believe me, they are secretive."

Smiling, he shook his head. "You saw what they wished you to see," he insisted. "And yet they weren't hiding anything from you. You couldn't see. That's all."

I was about to contradict him, but I didn't want him to dislike me.

It wasn't so much that he was right, for I didn't really understand what he was talking about; rather, I felt that all my snooping around had not given me a clue as to who these people were or what they did. Sighing, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the backrest.

As we drove, I told him again of my dream; how real it was to have seen him asleep, snoring on the straw mat. I told him of my conversation with Mariano Aureliano; the heat on his hand.

The more I spoke, the more I was convinced that it hadn't been a dream at all. I drove myself into such a state of agitation I ended up weeping.

"I don't know what they did to me," I said. "I'm not quite sure whether I'm awake or dreaming even now.

"Florinda kept telling me that I was dreaming-awake."

Isidore Baltazar nodded, then said softly, "The nagual Juan Matus refers to it as heightened awareness."

"Heightened awareness," I repeated.

The words rolled easily off my tongue even though they sounded exactly the opposite of dreaming-awake.

I vaguely remembered hearing them before. Either Florinda or Esperanza had used the term, but I couldn't recall in what connection.

The words were on the verge of suggesting some meaning, albeit vague, but my brain was already too dulled by my unsuccessful attempts to recount my daily activities at the witches' house.

Regardless of how hard I tried, there were certain episodes I could not recall.

I fumbled for words that somehow paled and died away in front on my very eyes, like a vision half seen and half remembered.

It wasn't that I had forgotten anything, but rather, images came to me fragmented, like pieces in a puzzle that didn't quite fit.

This forgetfulness was a physical sensation, as if a fog had settled over certain parts of my brain.

"So dreaming-awake and heightened awareness are the same?" More than a question, it was a statement whose meaning escaped me.

I shifted in my seat and, pulling my legs under me, sat facing Isidoro Baltazar.

The sun outlined his profile. The black curly hair falling over his high forehead, the sculpted cheekbones, the strong nose and chin, and finely chiseled lips gave him a Roman appearance.

"I must be still in heightened awareness," I said, "I never noticed you before."

The car swayed on the road as he threw his head back and laughed. "You are definitely dreaming-awake," he stated, slapping his thigh. "Don't you remember that I'm short, brown, and homely looking?"

I giggled. Not because I agreed with his description but because it was the only thing I remembered him saying in the lecture he gave the day I formally met him.

My merriment was quickly replaced by an odd anxiety. It seemed that months had passed, instead of only two days, since we came to the house of the witches.

"Time passes differently in the sorcerers' world," Isidore Baltazar said as if I had spoken out loud. "And one experiences it differently."

He went on to say that one of the most difficult aspects of his apprenticeship was to deal with sequences of events in terms of time. Often they were all mixed up in his mind; confused images that sank deeper whenever he tried to focus on them.

"Only now, with the nagual's help, do I remember aspects and events of his teachings that took place years ago," he said.

"How does he help you?" I asked. "Does he hypnotize you?"

"He makes me shift levels of awareness," he said. "And when he does, it is not only that I remember past events, but I relive them."

"How does he do that?" I insisted. "I mean, make you shift."

"Until recently I believed that it was accomplished by a sharp pat on my back, between the shoulder blades," he said:

"But now I'm quite certain that his mere presence makes me shift levels of awareness."

"Then he does hypnotize you," I insisted.

He shook his head and said, "Sorcerers are experts at shifting levels of awareness. Some are so adept they can shift the level of awareness of others."

I nodded. Already I had numerous questions, but he gestured for patience.

"Sorcerers," he went on, "make one see that the whole nature of reality is different from what we believe it to be; that is, from what we have been taught it to be.

"Intellectually, we are willing to tease ourselves with the idea that culture predetermines: who we are, how we behave, what we are willing to know, or what we are able to feel.

"But we are not willing to embody this idea; to accept it as a concrete, practical proposition.

...

"Sorcery makes us aware of different realities; different possibilities, not only about the world but also about ourselves, to the extent that we no longer are able to believe in even the most solid assumptions about ourselves and our surroundings."

I was surprised that I could absorb his words so easily, when I didn't really understand them.

"A sorcerer is not only aware of different realities," he went on, "but he uses that knowledge in practicalities.

"Sorcerers know- not only intellectually but also practically- that reality, or the world as we know it, consists only of an agreement extracted out of every one of us.

"That agreement could be made to collapse, since it's only a social phenomenon. And when it collapses, the whole world collapses with it."

Seeing that I couldn't follow his argument, he tried to present it from another angle.

He said that the social world defines perception to us in proportion to its usefulness in guiding us through the complexity of experience in everyday life.

The social world sets limits to what we perceive; sets limits to what we are capable of perceiving.

"To a sorcerer, perception can go beyond these agreed-upon parameters," he stressed. "These parameters are constructed and buttressed by words, by language, by thoughts. That is, by agreement."

"And sorcerers don't agree?" I asked tentatively, in an effort to understand his premise.

"They do agree," he said, beaming at me, "but their agreement is different.

"Sorcerers break the normal agreement, not only intellectually but also physically or practically or whatever one wants to call it.

"Sorcerers collapse the parameters of socially determined perception; and to understand what sorcerers mean by that, one has to become a practitioner.

"That is, one has to be committed. One has to lend the mind as well as the body.

"It has to be a conscious, fearless surrender."

"The body?" I asked suspiciously, immediately wondering what kind of ritual might be involved. "What do they want with my body?"

"Nothing, nibelunga," he laughed.

Then, in a serious yet kind tone, he added that neither my body nor my mind was yet in any condition to follow the arduous path of the sorcerer.

Seeing that I was about to protest, he quickly allowed that there was nothing wrong with either my mind or my body.

"Wait a minute now!" I interjected forcefully.

Isidore Baltazar ignored my interruption and went on to say that the world of sorcerers is a sophisticated world; that it wasn't enough to understand its principles intuitively. One also needed to assimilate them intellectually.

"Contrary to what people believe," he explained, "sorcerers are not practitioners of obscure esoteric rituals, but stand ahead of our times.

"And the mode of our time is reason. We are reasonable men as a whole.

"Sorcerers, however, are men of reason, which is a different matter altogether. Sorcerers have a romance with ideas.

They have cultivated reason to its limits, for they believe that only by fully understanding the intellect can they embody the principles of sorcery without losing sight of their own sobriety and integrity.

"This is where sorcerers differ drastically from us. We have very little sobriety and even less integrity."

He glanced at me briefly and smiled.

I had the unpleasant impression that he knew exactly what I was thinking, or rather, that I couldn't think at all.

I had understood his words, but their meaning had eluded me.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't even know what to ask.

For the first time in my life, I felt utterly stupid.

It didn't make me feel inadequate, though, for I realized that he was right. My interest in intellectual matters had always been shallow and superficial. To have a romance with ideas was a totally alien concept to me.

We were at the U.S. border in Arizona in a few hours, yet the drive was unwarrantedly exhausting.

I wanted to talk, but I didn't know what to say, or rather, I couldn't find the words to express myself.

I felt somehow intimidated by all that had happened. It was a new feeling for me.

Sensing my uncertainty and discomfort, Isidoro Baltazar began to talk.

In a candid manner, he admitted to being baffled by the sorcerers' world even to this day; even after so many years of studying and interacting with them.

"And when I say studying, I really mean studying." He laughed and slapped his thigh to emphasize his statement.

"Only this morning I was clobbered by the sorcerers' world in ways impossible to describe."

He spoke in a tone that was half assertion, half complaint, yet there was such a delighted power in his voice; some wonderful inner strength in him, that I felt uplifted.

He gave me the impression that he could do anything, endure anything, and allow nothing to matter.

I sensed a will in him; an ability to overcome all obstacles.

"Imagine, I really thought I was gone with the nagual for only two days." Laughing, he turned to me and shook me with his free hand.

I had been so absorbed by the sound, the vitality of his voice, that I failed to understand what he was talking about.

I asked him to repeat what he had said. He did, and I still missed what he meant.

"I don't get what's exciting you so much," I finally said, suddenly irritated by my inability to grasp what he was trying to tell me. "You were gone for two days. What of it?"

"What?" His loud exclamation made me jump in my seat, and banged my head on the roof of the van.

He peered straight into my eyes but didn't say a word.

I knew he was not accusing me of anything, yet I felt that he was making fun of my moroseness, my changing moods, or my lack of attention.

He parked the car on the side of the road, turned off the engine, then shifted in his seat to face me.

"And now I want you to tell me all you've experienced." There was a nervous excitement in his voice, a restlessness, a vitality.

He assured me that the sequential order of events didn't mean a thing.

His compelling, engaging smile was so reassuring, I told him at it length all I remembered.

He listened attentively, chuckling from time to time, urging me with a movement of his chin every time I faltered.

"So, all this has happened to you in..." He paused, gazing at me with shining eyes, then casually added, "two days?"

"Yes," I said firmly.

He crossed his arms over his chest in an expansive gesture.

"Well, I have news for you," he said. The merry look in his eyes belied the seriousness of his tone, the set expression of his straight lips. "I've been gone for twelve days. But I thought it was only two.

"I thought you were going to appreciate the irony of it because you had kept a better count of time. You didn't, though. You're just like me. We've lost ten days."

"Ten days," I mumbled, bewildered, then turned to look out the window.

I didn't say a word for the rest of the trip. It wasn't that I didn't believe him. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk.

There was nothing for me to say, even after I bought the L.A. Times in the first newsstand that carried it and corroborated that, indeed, I had lost ten days.

But were they really lost?

I asked myself that question, yet I didn't wish a reply.

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