One afternoon while recapitulating in the cave, I fell asleep.
Upon awakening, I found a pair of beautifully polished crystals lying on the ground next to me.
For a while I deliberated whether or not to touch them because they looked quite ominous.
They were about five inches long and perfectly translucent. Their tips had been fashioned into a sharp point, and they seemed to shine with a light of their own.
When I saw Clara walking toward the cave, I carefully slid the crystals onto my palm and crawled out the cave to show them to her. "Yes, they are exquisite." She nodded as if she recognized them.
"Where did they come from?" I asked.
"They were left here for you by someone who's watching you very closely," she said, putting down a bundle she was carrying.
"I didn't see anyone leave them."
"That person came while you were dozing off.
"I warned you not to fall asleep during your recapitulation."
"Who came while I was dozing? One of your relatives?" I asked excitedly.
I laid the fragile crystals down on a pile of leaves and put on my shoes: Clara had advised me never to wear shoes while recapitulating because, by constricting the feet, they impede the circulation of energy.
"If I told you who left the crystals, it wouldn't make any sense to you or it might even frighten you," she said.
"Try me. After seeing your shadow move, I don't think anything can frighten me."
"All right, if you insist," she said, untying her bundle. "The person who's watching you is a master sorcerer, with very few equals on this earth."
"You mean a real sorcerer? One who does evil things?"
"I mean a real sorcerer, but not one who does evil things.
"He is a being who shapes and molds perception the way you might paint a picture with your brushes.
"But that doesn't mean that he is arbitrary. When he manipulates perception with his intent, his behavior is impeccable."
Clara compared him to the Chinese master painters who were said to have painted dragons so lifelike that when they put in the pupils as the finishing touch, the dragons flew right off the wall or the screen on which they had been painted.
In the low tone of a meaningful disclosure, Clara said that when a consummate sorcerer is ready to leave the world, all he has to do is manipulate perception, intend a door, step through it and disappear.
The deep passion, expressed in her voice, made me uneasy.
I sat down on a large flat rock, and holding the crystals, I tried to fathom who the master sorcerer might be.
Since the day I arrived, I hadn't talked to anyone but Clara and Manfred, simply because there was no one else around.
There wasn't any sign of the caretaker Clara had mentioned, either.
I was about to remind her that she and Manfred were the only beings I had seen since my arrival, when I recalled that there had been one other person I had seen; a man who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere one morning when I was sketching some trees near the cave.
He was squatting in a clearing about a hundred feet from where I was.
The cold was making me shiver and also made me focus my attention on his green windbreaker. He had on beige trousers and the typical wide-brimmed straw hat of northern Mexico.
I couldn't see his features because he wore his hat tilted over his face, but he seemed muscular and limber.
He was facing sideways. I could see him fold his arms across his chest.
Then he turned his back to me and, to my utter amazement, brought his hands all the way around his back where he touched his fingertips. Then he stood up and walked away, disappearing into the bushes.
I quickly sketched his squatting posture, then put down my drawing pad and tried to imitate what he had done; but no matter how I stretched my arms and contorted my shoulders, I couldn't touch my fingers behind my back.
I continued squatting with my arms wrapped around me. In a moment, I had stopped shivering and felt warm and comfortable in spite of the cold.
When I told clara about the man, she remarked, "So you've already seen him."
"Is he the master sorcerer?"
Clara nodded, and reached into her bundle to hand me a tamale she had brought for my meal.
"He's very limber," she said. "It's nothing for him to dislodge his shoulder joints then ease them into place again.
"If you continue your recapitulation and store enough energy, he may teach you his art.
"The time you saw him, he just showed you how to fight the cold with a specific posture: squatting with the arms wrapped around the chest."
"Is that some form of yoga?"
Clara shrugged. "Perhaps your paths will cross again and he'll answer that question himself.
"In the meantime, I'm sure these crystals will help you to clarify things inside you."
"What exactly do you mean by that. Clara?"
Ignoring my question, she asked, "What aspect of your life were you recapitulating before you fell asleep?"
I told Clara that I had been remembering how I hated to do chores at home.
It seemed to take me forever to wash the dishes. What made it worse was that all the while I could see my brothers playing ball outside the kitchen window.
I envied them for not having to do housework and loathed my mother for making me do It. I felt like smashing all her precious plates, but of course I couldn't.
"How do you feel now, recapitulating all this?"
"I feel like smacking all of them, my mother included. I can't bring myself to forgive her."
"Perhaps the crystals will help you rechannel your intent and your trapped energy," Clara said softly.
Driven by a strange urge, I slid the crystals between my index and middle fingers. The crystals fit comfortably, as if they were attached to my hands.
"I see you already know how to hold them," she remarked. "The master sorcerer instructed me that if I saw that you could hold them correctly by yourself, I was to show you one indispensable movement that you can do with these crystals."
"What kind of movement, Clara?"
"A movement of power," she said. "I'll explain more about its origin and purpose later.
"For now, let me just show you how it's done."
She told me to firmly press the crystals between my index and middle fingers.
Helping me from behind, she gently made me extend my arms in front of me at the height of my shoulders, and rotated them in a counterclockwise direction.
She had me begin making large circles that became increasingly smaller until the movement stopped and the crystals became two dots pointed into the distance; their extended imaginary lines converged at a spot on the horizon.
"When you make the circles, be sure to keep your palms facing each other," she corrected me, "and always begin by making large, smooth circles.
"This way you gather energy that you can then focus onto whatever you want to affect regardless of whether it is an object, a thought or a feeling.
"How will pointing the crystals affect them?" I asked.
"To move the crystals and point them the way I showed you takes the energy out of things," she explained. "The effect is like defusing a bomb.
"This is exactly what you want to do at this stage of your training, so never under any circumstance rotate your arms in a clockwise direction while holding the crystals.
I asked, "What would happen if I rotated them in that direction?"
"You would not only make a bomb, but you would light the fuse and cause a gigantic explosion.
"A clockwise movement is for charging things, for gathering energy for any enterprise.
"We'll save that movement for a later occasion; when you are stronger."
"But isn't that what I need now, Clara? To gather energy? I feel so depleted."
"Of course you need to gather energy," she agreed, "but right now you must do it by demolishing your indulgence in absurdities.
"There is plenty of energy you can harness simply by not doing the things you are accustomed to, like complaining, or feeling sorry for yourself, or worrying about things that can't be changed.
"Defusing these concerns will give you a positive, nurturing energy that will help to balance and heal you.
"On the other hand, the energy you would gather by moving the crystals in a clockwise direction is a virulent kind of energy, a devastating blast that you won't be able to withstand at the moment.
"So promise me that you will not under any circumstances attempt to do it."
"I promise, Clara. But it sounds rather tempting."
"The master sorcerer that gave you these crystals is watching your progress," she warned, "so you must not misuse them."
There was a tinge of morbid curiosity in my question as i asked, "Why is this master sorcerer interested in watching me?"
I was uneasy, yet I felt flattered that a man would go to the trouble of observing me, even if it was from a distance.
"He has designs on you," Clara replied casually.
My alarm was instantaneous. I clenched my hand into a fist and jumped up indignantly.
Clara said, annoyed, "Don't be so stupid and leap to the wrong conclusion.
"I assure you, nobody is trying to get in your pants.
"You really do need to recapitulate your sexual encounters in depth, Taisha, so you can get rid of your absurd suspicions."
Her tone, devoid of all feeling, and her vulgar choice of words were somehow sobering.
I sat down again and mumbled an apology.
She put a finger to her lips. "We are not involved in ordinary pursuits," she assured me. The sooner you get that straight, the better.
"When I speak of designs, I mean sublime designs; maneuvers for a daring spirit.
"In spite of what you think, you are very daring.
"Look at where you are now. Every day you sit for hours alone in a cave recapitulating your life away. That takes courage."
I confessed that whenever I thought how I had followed her and was now living in her house as if it were the most natural thing in the world, I became totally alarmed.
"It has always baffled me," she said, "yet I've never asked you outright what made you accompany me so willingly? I would not have done it myself."
"My parents and brothers always told me that I'm crazy," I admitted. "I suppose that must be the reason.
"Some strange emotion is bottled up inside me, and because of it, I always end up doing weird things."
"Such as what, for instance?" Her sparkling eyes urged me to confide in her.
I hesitated. There were dozens of things I could think of, each a traumatic event that stood out as a milestone to mark a moment when my life turned- always for the worse.
I never talked about these catastrophes, although I was painfully aware of them; and during the past months of intensive recapitulating, many of them had become even more poignant and vivid.
Not wanting to go into detail, I said, "Sometimes I do silly things."
"What do you mean by silly things?" Clara asked.
After further prompting on her part, I gave her an example.
I told her about an experience I had had not too long before, in Japan, where I had gone to participate in an international karate tournament.
There, in Tokyo's Budokan, I had disgraced myself in front of tens of thousands of people.
"Tens of thousands of people?" she echoed me. "Aren't you exaggerating a bit?"
"Definitely not!" I said. "The Budokan is the largest auditorium in the city and it was packed!"
Recalling the incident, I felt my hands clenching and my neck tensing.
I didn't want to continue. "Isn't it better just to let sleeping dogs lie?" I asked. "Besides, I've already recapitulated my karate experiences."
"It's important that you talk about your experience," Clara insisted:
"Perhaps you didn't visualize it clearly enough or breath it in thoroughly. It still seems to have a hold over you.
"Just look at you, you're breaking out in a nervous sweat."
To appease her, I described how my karate teacher had once let it slip that he thought women were lower than dogs.
To him, women had no place in the world of karate and especially not in tournaments.
That time, in the Budokan, he wanted only his male students to go on stage to perform.
I told him that I hadn't come all the way to Japan just to sit on the sidelines and watch the all male team competing.
He warned me to be more respectful, but instead I became so angry that I did something disastrous.
"What exactly did you do?" Clara inquired.
I told her that I became so enraged, I climbed onto the central platform, grabbed the gong from the master of ceremonies, struck it myself and formally announced my name and the name of the karate routine I was going to demonstrate.
"And did they give you a grand applause?" Clara asked, grinning.
"I flubbed it," I said, near tears:
"In the middle of the long sequence of movements, my mind went blank. I forgot what came next.
All I saw was a sea of faces staring at me in disapproval.
Somehow, I managed to get through the rest of the form and left the stage in a state of shock.
"To take matters into my own hands, and to disrupt the program the way I did was bad enough; but to forget my form in front of thousands of spectators was the ultimate insult to the Karate Federation.
"I brought shame to myself, my teachers and I suppose to women in general."
"What happened afterward?" Clara asked, trying to suppress a chuckle.
"I was expelled from the school, there was talk of revoking my black belt, and I never practiced karate again."
Clara burst out laughing.
I, on the other hand, was so moved by my shameful experience that I began to weep; and on top of that, I was doubly embarrassed for having revealed it to Clara.
Clara shook my shoulders to jolt me. "Do the sweeping breath," she said. "Breathe in now."
I moved my head from right to left, breathing in the energy that was still hopelessly caught in the exhibition hall.
As I brought my head back to the right again, I exhaled all the embarrassment and self-pity that had enveloped me.
I moved my head repeatedly, doing one sweeping breath after the other until all my emotional turmoil was released.
Then I moved my head from right to left and back again without breathing, thereby severing all ties with that particular moment of my past.
When I had finished, Clara scanned my body then nodded.
"You are vulnerable because you feel important," she declared, handing me an embroidered handkerchief to blow my nose:
"All that shame was caused by your misguided sense of personal worth.
"Then by bungling your performance, as you were bound to do, you added more insult to your already injured pride."
Clara was silent for a moment; giving me time to collect myself.
She finally asked, "Why did you quit practicing karate?"
"I just got tired of it and all the hypocrisy," I snapped.
She shook her head and said, "No.
"You quit because no one paid any attention to you after your misadventure; and you didn't get the recognition you thought you deserved."
In all honesty, I had to admit Clara was right.
I had believed I deserved recognition.
Every time I committed one of my wild, impulsive acts, it had been to boost my self-image or to compete with someone in order to prove that I was better.
A sense of sadness and dejection enveloped me. I knew that in spite of all my breathing and recapitulating, there was no hope for me.
"Your inventory is changing very naturally and harmoniously," Clara said, tapping my head lightly. "Don't worry so much.
"Just concentrate on recapitulating, and everything else will take care of itself."
"Perhaps I need to see a therapist," I said. "Although, isn't recapitulating a kind of psychotherapy?"
"Not at all," Clara disagreed. "The people who first devised the recapitulation lived hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago; so you certainly shouldn't think of this ancient renewing process in terms of modern psychoanalysis."
"Why not?" I said. "You have to admit that going back to your childhood memories and the emphasis on the sexual act sounds like what psychoanalysis are interested in, especially the ones with a Freudian twist."
Clara was adamant. She stressed that the recapitulation is a magical act in which intent and the breath play indispensable roles.
"Breathing gathers energy and makes it circulate," she explained. "It is then guided by the preestablished intent of the recapitulation, which is to free ourselves from our biological and social ties.
"The intent of the recapitulation is a gift bestowed on us by those ancient seers who devised this method and passed it on to their descendants," Clara continued:
"Each person performing it has to add his or her own intent to it; but their intent is merely the desire or need to do the recapitulation.
"The intent of the recapitulation's end result, which is total freedom, was established by those seers of ancient times.
"Because it was set up independently of us, it is an invaluable gift."
Clara explained that the recapitulation reveals to us a crucial facet of our being: The fact that for an instant, just before we plunge into any act, we are capable of accurately assessing its outcome, our chances, and our motives and expectations.
Since this knowledge is never to our convenience or satisfaction, we immediately suppress it.
"What do you mean by that, Clara?"
"I mean that you, for example, knew for a split second that it would be a deadly mistake to jump onto the stage of the auditorium and disrupt the performance.
But, you immediately suppressed that certainty for various reasons.
You also knew, for a moment, that you had stopped practicing karate because you felt offended at not being praised or given recognition.
But, you instantly covered up that knowledge with another, more self-enhancing explanation; that of being fed up with the hypocrisy of others."
Clara said that this moment of direct knowing was called 'the seer' by the people who first formulated the recapitulation, because it allows us to directly see into things with unclouded eyes.
Yet in spite of the clarity and accuracy of the seer's assessments, we never pay attention to it, or give the seer a chance to make itself heard.
Through a continual suppression, we stifle its growth and prevent it from developing its full potential.
"In the end, the seer inside us is filled with bitterness and hatred," Clara went on:
"The ancient men of wisdom who invented the recapitulation believed that since we never stop subduing the seer, it finally destroys us.
"But they also assured us that by means of the recapitulation we can allow the seer to grow and unfold as it was meant to do."
"I never realized what the recapitulation was really about," I said.
"The purpose of the recapitulation is to grant the seer the freedom to see," Clara reminded me:
"By giving the seer range, we can deliberately turn the seer into a force that is both mysterious and effective; a force that will eventually guide us to freedom instead of killing us.
"This is the reason why I always insist that you tell me what you find out through your recapitulation," Clara said:
"You must bring the seer to the surface, and give it the chance to speak and tell what it sees."
I had no problem understanding or agreeing with her.
I knew perfectly well that there is something inside me that always knows what's what.
I also knew that I suppress its capacity to advise because what it tells me is usually contrary to what I expect or want to hear.
A momentary insight I had to share with Clara was that the only time I ever invoked the seer's guidance was when I looked at the southern horizon, and deliberately sought its help; and I had never been able to explain why I did that.
"Someday all that will be explained to you," she promised, but from the way she was grinning, I deduced that she didn't want to say any more about it.
Clara suggested I return to the cave for a few more hours, then come to the house and take a nap before dinner.
"I'll send Manfred to fetch you," she offered.
I declined.
I couldn't have possibly gone back into the cave that day. I was too exhausted.
Revealing to Clara my embarrassing moments, and having to fend off her personal attacks, had left me emotionally drained.
For an instant, my attention was caught by light being reflected on one of the crystals.
Focusing my attention on the crystals calmed me.
I asked Clara if she knew the reason why the master sorcerer had given me the crystals.
She replied that he hadn't actually given them to me, but that he had, rather, recovered them on my behalf.
"He found them in a cave in the mountains. Someone must have left them there ages ago," she said gruffly.
Her impatient tone made me think that she didn't want to talk about the master sorcerer either, so I asked her instead, "What else do you know about these crystals?"
I held one up to the sunlight to see its translucence.
"The use of crystals was the domain of sorcerers of ancient Mexico," Clara explained:
"They are weapons, used to destroy an enemy."
Hearing that gave me such a jolt I nearly dropped one of the crystals.
I tried to give them to Clara to hold, wanting nothing more to do with them, but Clara refused to take them.
"Once you hold crystals like these in your hands, you can't pass them on," she reprimanded me:
"It's not right: In fact, it's dangerous.
"These crystals must be treated with infinite care. They are a gift of power."
"I'm sorry," I said, "I didn't mean any disrespect, I just became frightened when you said they were used as weapons."
"Formerly, they were, but not today," she clarified. "We've lost the knowledge of how to turn them into weapons."
"Was there such a knowledge in ancient Mexico?"
"There certainly was! It's part of our tradition," she declared:
"Just as in China where there were ancient beliefs so farfetched that they have turned into legends, here in Mexico we also have our share of beliefs and legends."
"But how is it that nobody knows very much about what went on in ancient Mexico, while everybody is aware of the beliefs and practices of ancient China?"
"Here in Mexico, there were two cultures that collided head on: the Spaniards and the Indians," Clara explained:
"We know everything about ancient Spain, but not ancient Mexico simply because the Spaniards were the victors and tried to obliterate Indian traditions.
"But in spite of their systematic and relentless efforts, they didn't succeed completely."
"What were the practices associated with the crystals?" I asked.
"It is believed that sorcerers of ancient times used to hold the mental image of their enemy while in a state of intense and pinpointed concentration; a unique state that is nearly impossible to attain and certainly impossible to describe.
"In such condition of mental and physical awareness, they would manipulate that image until they found its center of energy."
"What did those sorcerers do with their enemy's image?" I asked, driven by morbid curiosity.
"They used to look for an opening usually localized in the area of the heart; like a tiny vortex around which energy circulates.
As soon as they found it, they would point at it with their dartlike crystals."
At the mention of pointing with the crystals at the image of an enemy, I began to shiver.
In spite of my discomfort, I felt compelled to ask Clara what happened to the person whose image was being manipulated by the sorcerers.
"Perhaps his body withered," she offered. "Or maybe the person met with an accident.
"It is believed that those sorcerers themselves never knew exactly what would happen.
"However, if their intent and power were strong enough, they would be assured of success in destroying their enemy."
More than ever I wanted to put the crystals down, but in the light of what Clara had said, I didn't dare profane them.
I wondered why on earth anyone would want to give them to me.
"Magical weapons were terribly important at one time," Clara continued:
"Weapons such as crystals became an extension of the sorcerer's own body. The crystals were filled with energy that could be channeled and projected outward across time and space."
Clara said that the ultimate weapon, however, is not a crystal dart, a sword or even a gun.
It is the human body.
The human body can be turned into an instrument capable of gathering, storing and directing energy.
"We can regard the body either as a biological organism or as a source of power," Clara explained:
"It all depends on the state of the inventory in our warehouse. The body can be hard and rigid, or soft and pliant.
"If our warehouse is empty, the body itself is empty, and energy from infinity can flow through it."
Clara reiterated that in order to empty ourselves, we have to sink into a state of profound recapitulation and let energy flow through us unimpeded.
Only in quiescence, [* quiescence- a state of quiet (but possibly temporary) inaction] she stressed, can we give the seer in us full reign; or can the impersonal energy of the universe turn into the very personal force of intent.
"When we have emptied ourselves sufficiently of our obsolete and encumbering inventory," she went on, "energy comes to us and gathers itself naturally.
When enough of it coalesces, it turns into power.
Anything can announce intent's presence: a loud noise, a soft voice, a thought that isn't yours, an unexpected surge of vigor or well-being."
Clara emphasized that in the final analysis, it made no difference whether power descends on us in a state of wakefulness or in dreams.
It is equally valid in both cases; dreaming being, however, more elusive and potent.
"What we experience in wakefulness in terms of power should be put into practice in dreams," she continued.
"And whatever power we experience in dreams should be used while we are awake.
"What really counts is being aware regardless of whether we are awake or asleep."
She peered at me and repeated, "What counts is being aware."
Clara was silent for a moment.
Then she told me something I considered to be completely irrational. She said, "Being aware of time, for example, can make a man's life span several hundred years."
"That's absurd," I said. "How can a man live that long?"
"Being aware of time is a special state of awareness that prevents us from aging quickly and dying in a few decades," Clara explained:
"There is a belief handed down from the ancient sorcerers, that if we would be able to use our bodies as weapons- or, put in modern terms, if we would empty our warehouses- we would be able to slip out of the world to roam elsewhere."
"Where would we go?" I asked.
Clara looked at me in surprise, as if I ought to know the answer. "To the realm of not-being; to the shadows' world," she replied:
"It is believed that once our warehouse is empty, we would become so light that we could soar through the void and nothing would hinder our flight.
"Then we could return to this world youthful and renewed."
I shifted on the uncomfortable rock numbing my tailbone. "But this is just a belief, isn't it, Clara?" I asked. "A legend handed down from ancient time."
"At this moment, it is just a belief," she acknowledged:
"But moments, like all things, are known to change.
"Nowadays, more than ever, man needs to renew himself and experience emptiness and freedom."
For a moment I wondered what it would be like to be as vaporous as a cloud and float up into the air, with nothing to bar my coming and going.
Then I mentally returned to earth again and felt obliged to say, "All this talk about being aware of time, and passing into the shadows' world, Clara, is impossible for me to accept or to understand.
"It isn't part of my tradition, or, as you put it, it isn't part of the inventory in my warehouse."
"No, it isn't," Clara agreed. "This is sorcery!"
"Do you mean to say that sorcery still exists and is practiced today?" I asked.
Clara suddenly got up and grabbed her bundle.
"Don't ask me any more about it," she said flatly:
"Later on, you'll find out whatever you want to know, but from someone who is more capable of explaining these things than I."