m. All  of  us secretly did not want the
world of the nagual. We were afraid and had second  thoughts. In short, none
of us was better than Pablito.
     They  did  not  say  a  word.  All  three  of  them  seemed  thoroughly
embarrassed.
     "Poor little Nagual," Lidia said to  me with a tone of genuine concern.
"You're as  scared as we are. I pretend to be tough, Josefina pretends to be
crazy, Rosa pretends to be ill-tempered and you pretend to be dumb."
     They  laughed, and for the  first time  since I had arrived they made a
gesture  of comradeship  toward me. They embraced  me and  put  their  heads
against mine.
     La  Gorda sat  facing  me  and the little sisters sat around her. I was
facing all four of them.
     "Now we  can talk  about  what happened tonight," la  Gorda said.  "The
Nagual told me that  if  we survived  the last contact  with  the  allies we
wouldn't be the  same.  The  allies did something  to us tonight. They  have
hurled us away."
     She gently touched my writing hand.
     "Tonight was a special night  for you," she went on. "Tonight all of us
pitched  in to help you, including the allies. The  Nagual  would have liked
it. Tonight you saw all the way through."
     "I did?" I asked.
     "There you go again," Lidia said, and everybody laughed.
     "Tell  me about my seeing, Gorda," I insisted. "You know that I'm dumb.
There should be no misunderstandings between us."
     "All right," she said. "I see what you mean. Tonight you saw the little
sisters."
     I said to  them that I had also witnessed  incredible acts performed by
don Juan and don Genaro. I had seen them as plainly as I had seen the little
sisters and yet don Juan and don Genaro had always concluded that  I had not
seen. I failed, therefore, to  determine in what  way could  the acts of the
little sisters be different.
     "You mean  you didn't see how they  were holding onto the  lines of the
world?" She asked.
     "No, I didn't."
     "You didn't see them slipping through the crack between the worlds?"
     I narrated to them what I  had witnessed. They listened  in silence. At
the end of my account la Gorda seemed to be on the verge of tears.
     "What a pity! " she exclaimed.
     She stood up and walked around the table and embraced me. Her eyes were
clear and restful. I knew she bore no malice toward me.
     "It's our  fate  that you are plugged  up  like this," she  said.  "But
you're still the Nagual to us. I  won't  hinder  you with ugly thoughts. You
can at least be assured of that."
     I  knew  that she meant it. She was speaking to me from  a level that I
had witnessed only in don Juan. She had repeatedly explained her mood as the
product of having lost her human form;  she was indeed a formless warrior. A
wave of profound affection for her enveloped me. I was about to weep. It was
at the instant that I  felt  she was  a most marvelous warrior that quite an
intriguing thing  happened to  me. The closest way of describing it would be
to say that I felt that my ears had  suddenly popped. Except that I felt the
popping in the middle of my body, right below my navel, more acutely than in
my ears. Right after the popping everything became clearer;  sounds, sights,
odors. Then I felt  an intense buzzing, which oddly enough did not interfere
with my hearing  capacity;  the buzzing  was loud but did not  drown out any
other sounds. It was as  if I were hearing  the buzzing with some part of me
other than my ears. A hot flash went through my  body. And  then  I suddenly
recalled something I had never seen. It was as  though  an  alien memory had
taken possession of me.
     I remembered Lidia pulling herself  from two  horizontal, reddish ropes
as she walked  on the wall.  She was  not  really walking; she  was actually
gliding on a thick bundle of lines that she held with her feet. I remembered
seeing  her panting  with her mouth open, from the  exertion of pulling  the
reddish ropes. The reason  I could  not hold my balance  at  the  end of her
display was because I was seeing her as a light that went around the room so
fast that it made me dizzy; it pulled me from the area around my navel.
     I remembered  Rosa's actions  and Josefina's as well. Rosa had actually
brachiated,  with her left arm  holding onto  long, vertical, reddish fibers
that looked like  vines dropping from  the dark roof. With her right arm she
was also holding some vertical fibers that seemed to give her stability. She
also held onto the same fibers with her toes. Toward  the end of her display
she was  like a phosphorescence on the  roof. The lines of her body had been
erased.
     Josefina was hiding  herself behind some lines that seemed  to come out
of the floor. What she  was  doing with  her raised  forearm was moving  the
lines together  to give them  the necessary width to conceal  her bulk.  Her
puffed-up clothes  were  a  great  prop;  they  had somehow  contracted  her
luminosity. The  clothes were bulky only for the eye that looked. At the end
of her display  Josefina, like Lidia and  Rosa, was just a patch of light. I
could switch from one recollection to the other in my mind.
     When I told them about my concurrent memories the little sisters looked
at me bewildered. La Gorda was the only one who seemed  to be following what
was happening to me. She laughed with true delight and  said that the Nagual
was right in saying that  I was  too  lazy  to remember  what  I had "seen";
therefore, I only bothered with what I had looked at.
     Is it possible, I  thought to myself, that I am unconsciously selecting
what  I recall? Or is it la Gorda who  is creating  all this? If it was true
that  I  had  selected  my recall  at  first  and then  released what I  had
censored, then it also had to be true that I must  have  perceived much more
of  don  Juan's and don  Genaro's actions,  and  yet I could  only recall  a
selective part of my total perception of those events.
     "It's hard to believe," I said to  la Gorda,  "that I  can remember now
something I didn't remember at all a while ago."
     "The  Nagual  said  that  everyone  can see, and  yet we  choose not to
remember what we see," she said. "Now I  understand how right he was. All of
us can see; some, more than others."
     I told  la Gorda that some  part of  me  knew that I had  found then  a
transcendental key. A missing  piece  had been  handed down to me  by all of
them. But it was difficult to discern what it was.
     She announced that she had just "seen" that I had practiced a good deal
of  "dreaming," and that I had  developed my attention, and yet I was fooled
by my own appearance of not knowing anything.
     "I've been trying to tell you about attention," she proceeded, "but you
know as much as we do about it."
     I  assured  her  that my knowledge  was  intrinsically  different  from
theirs;  theirs  was infinitely  more spectacular  than mine. Anything  they
might say to me in  relation  to their practices, therefore,  was a bonus to
me.
     "The Nagual told us to show you that with our attention we can hold the
images of a dream in the same way we hold the images of the world," la Gorda
said. "The art of the dreamer is the art of attention."
     Thoughts came down  on  me like a landslide. I had to stand up and walk
around the kitchen. I sat  down  again. We remained quiet for a long time. I
knew what she had meant when she  said that the art of dreamers was  the art
of attention. I knew then that don Juan had told me and showed me everything
he could.  I  had  not been  able,  however, to realize the premises  of his
knowledge in my body while he was around. He had said that my reason was the
demon that kept me chained,  and  that I had  to vanquish it if I wanted  to
achieve the realization of his teachings. The issue, therefore, had been how
to vanquish my reason. It had  never  occurred  to  me  to  press him for  a
definition of what he meant by reason.  I  presumed all along  that he meant
the  capacity  for  comprehending,  inferring  or  thinking, in  an orderly,
rational way. From what  la Gorda had said, I knew that to him  reason meant
attention.
     Don Juan said that the core of our being was the act of perceiving, and
that the magic of our being was the act of awareness. For him perception and
awareness were a single, functional, inextricable unit, a unit which had two
domains. The first one was the "attention of the tonal"; that is to say, the
capacity of average  people  to  perceive and place  their awareness on  the
ordinary world of everyday life. Don Juan also called this form of attention
our  "first  ring  of  power,"  and   described   it  as  our  awesome   but
taken-for-granted ability to impart  order to  our perception of  our  daily
world.
     The second domain  was  the "attention of the nagual"; that  is to say,
the capacity of sorcerers to place their awareness on the nonordinary world.
He  called  this  domain  of  attention  the "second  ring of power," or the
altogether portentous ability  that all of us have, but  only sorcerers use,
to impart order to the nonordinary world.
     La Gorda and the little sisters, in demonstrating to me that the art of
dreamers  was  to hold the images of their dreams with  their attention, had
brought  in  the  pragmatic  aspect  of  don  Juan's  scheme. They  were the
practitioners  who had gone beyond the theoretical  aspect of his teachings.
In order to give me a demonstration  of  that art, they  had  to make use of
their "second ring of power," or the "attention of the nagual." In order for
me to witness their art, I had to do the same. In fact it was evident that I
had placed my attention on both  domains. Perhaps all of  us are continually
perceiving  in both fashions but choose  to isolate one for recollection and
discard the other  or perhaps we file it away, as I  myself had  done. Under
certain conditions of  stress or acquiescence, the censored  memory surfaces
and we can then have two distinct memories of one event.
     What don Juan had struggled  to vanquish, or rather suppress in me, was
not my reason as the capacity for rational thought, but my "attention of the
tonal," or my awareness of the world of common sense. His motive for wanting
me to  do so was explained by  la Gorda  when she said that the daily  world
exists because we know  how to hold its  images; consequently, if one  drops
the attention needed to maintain those images, the world collapses.
     "The Nagual  told  us that  practice is what  counts,"  la  Gorda  said
suddenly.  "Once you get your attention on the  images of  your  dream, your
attention is  hooked for good. In the  end you can be like Genaro, who could
hold the images of any dream."
     "We each have  five other dreams," Lidia  said. "But  we showed you the
first one because that was the dream the Nagual gave us."
     "Can all of you go into dreaming any time you want?" I asked.
     "No," la Gorda replied. "Dreaming takes too much power.  None of us has
that much power.  The reason the little  sisters had to roll on the floor so
many  times was that in rolling the earth was giving them energy. Maybe  you
could  also remember seeing them as luminous  beings getting energy from the
light of the earth. The Nagual said that the best way  of getting energy is,
of course, to let the sun inside the eyes, especially the left eye."
     I told her that I knew nothing about it, and she described a  procedure
that don Juan had  taught  them. As she spoke I remembered that don Juan had
also taught the same procedure to me.  It consisted in moving my head slowly
from side to side as I caught the sunlight  with my half-closed left eye. He
said  that one could not only use  the sun but could  use any  kind of light
that could shine on the eyes.
     La  Gorda  said  that  the Nagual had  recommended that they tie  their
shawls  below their waists  in  order to  protect their hipbones  when  they
rolled.
     I commented  that don Juan had never mentioned rolling to me. She  said
that only women  could roll because they had  wombs and energy came directly
into their wombs; by  rolling  around they distributed that energy  over the
rest of their bodies. In order for a man to be energized he had to be on his
back, with his knees bent  so that the soles of his feet touched each other.
His arms had to be extended laterally,  with his forearms raised vertically,
and the fingers clawed in an upright position.
     "We have  been dreaming  those  dreams for  years,"  Lidia said. "Those
dreams are our best,  because our attention is complete. In the other dreams
that we have, our attention is still shaky."
     La Gorda said that holding the images of dreams was a Toltec art. After
years of consuming  practice each one of them was able to perform one act in
any  dream. Lidia  could walk on anything, Rosa could dangle  from anything,
Josefina could hide behind anything and she herself could fly. But they were
only beginners, apprentices of the art. They had complete attention for only
one activity. She  added that Genaro  was the master of "dreaming" and could
turn the tables around  and have attention for as many activities as we have
in  our daily  life, and that  for him the two domains of attention  had the
same value.
     I felt compelled  to ask  them my  usual question: I had to know  their
procedures, how they held the images of their dreams.
     "You know that as well  as we do," la Gorda said. "The only thing I can
say is  that after going  to the same dream over and over, we  began to feel
the lines of the world. They helped us to do what you saw us doing."
     Don Juan had said that our "first ring of power" is engaged very  early
in our lives and that we live under the impression that that is all there is
to  us. Our "second ring of power," the "attention of the  nagual,"  remains
hidden for the  immense majority of us, and  only at the moment of our death
is  it revealed  to us. There is  a pathway  to  reach it, however, which is
available  to  every  one  of us, but which  only  sorcerers take,  and that
pathway is  through "dreaming." "Dreaming" was in essence the transformation
of ordinary dreams into affairs involving  volition.  Dreamers,  by engaging
their "attention of  the nagual" and focusing  it on the items and events of
their ordinary dreams, change those dreams into "dreaming."
     Don Juan said that there were  no procedures to arrive at the attention
of the nagual. He  only gave me pointers. Finding my  hands in my dreams was
the first  pointer; then the  exercise of paying attention was elongated  to
finding  objects, looking for specific features, such as buildings,  streets
and so on. From there  the jump was to  "dreaming" about  specific places at
specific times of the day. The final stage was drawing the "attention of the
nagual" to focus on  the total self. Don Juan said that that final stage was
usually ushered  in by  a dream  that many of us  have  had at  one  time or
another, in  which  one is looking at oneself sleeping in bed. By the time a
sorcerer has had such a dream, his attention has  been developed  to such  a
degree  that instead  of  waking himself  up,  as  most of us would  do in a
similar situation, he turns on his heels and engages himself in activity, as
if he were  acting  in the world of everyday life. From that moment on there
is a breakage, a division of sorts in the otherwise unified personality. The
result  of engaging the "attention of the  nagual" and developing it  to the
height and  sophistication of our  daily attention of the world  was, in don
Juan's scheme, the other self, an identical being as  oneself,  but  made in
"dreaming."
     Don Juan  had told  me  that  there  are no definite standard steps for
teaching that double, as  there  are no  definite steps for us to  reach our
daily awareness. We simply do it by practicing. He contended that in the act
of engaging our "attention of the nagual," we would find the steps. He urged
me  to  practice  "dreaming"  without  letting  my  fears  make  it  into an
encumbering production.
     He had  done the  same  with  la  Gorda  and  the  little sisters,  but
obviously  something in  them had  made them more receptive  to  the idea of
another level of attention.
     "Genaro was in his body of dreaming most of the  time,"  la Gorda said.
"He  liked it better. That's why he could do the  weirdest things  and scare
you half  to death. Genaro  could go in and  out  of  the crack  between the
worlds like you and I can go in and out a door."
     Don Juan had also talked to  me at great length about the crack between
the worlds.  I had always  believed  that he was  talking in a  metaphorical
sense  about  a subtle  division  between the world  that  the  average  man
perceives and the world that sorcerers perceive.
     La Gorda and the little sisters had shown me that the crack between the
worlds was more than a metaphor. It was rather the capacity to change levels
of attention. One part of  me  understood la  Gorda perfectly, while another
part of me was more frightened than ever.
     "You have been asking where the Nagual and Genaro went," la Gorda said.
"Soledad was very blunt and  told  you that they  went to  the other  world;
Lidia told you  they left this area; the Genaros were stupid and scared you.
The truth is that the Nagual and Genaro went through that crack."
     For some  reason,  undefinable to  me, her  statements plunged me  into
profound  chaos. I  had felt all along  that  they had left for good. I knew
that they had not left in an ordinary sense, but I had kept that feeling  in
the realm of  a metaphor. Although I had even voiced  it to close friends, I
think I  never really believed it myself. In the depths  of  me I had always
been  a  rational man. But  la  Gorda and the little  sisters  had turned my
obscure metaphors into real possibilities. La Gorda had actually transported
us half a mile with the energy of her "dreaming."
     La Gorda stood up  and said that  I had understood everything, and that
it was time for us to eat. She served us the food that she had cooked. I did
not feel like  eating. At the  end of the meal she  stood up and came  to my
side.
     "I think it's time for you to leave," she said to me.
     That seemed to be a cue for the little sisters. They also stood up.
     "If you stay beyond  this moment, you won't  be able to leave anymore,"
la Gorda  went on. "The Nagual gave you freedom once, but you chose  to stay
with him. He told me that if we all survive the last contact with the allies
I should feed all of you, make you feel good and then say good-bye to all of
you. I figure that the little sisters and myself  have no place  to  go,  so
there is no choice for us. But you are different."
     The little sisters surrounded me and each said good-bye to me.
     There  was a monstrous irony in that situation. I was free to leave but
I had no place to go.  There was  no choice for me, either. Years before don
Juan gave  me a chance to back  out, I stayed because already then I had  no
place to go.
     "We choose  only  once,"  he had said  then. "We  choose  either  to be
warriors or to be ordinary men. A second choice does not exist. Not  on this
earth."


        6
     The Second Attention

     "You have to leave  later on  today," la  Gorda said to me right  after
breakfast. "Since  you have decided  to  go  with  us,  you  have  committed
yourself  to helping us  fulfill our new  task. The Nagual left me in charge
only  until  you came. He  entrusted me,  as you already know, with  certain
things to tell you. I've told you  most of  them. But there are still some I
couldn't mention to you until you made  your choice. Today we will take care
of them.  Right after that you  must leave in  order to  give us time to get
ready. We need a few days to settle everything and to prepare to leave these
mountains forever. We have been here a very long  time.  It's hard  to break
away. But everything has come  to a  sudden end. The Nagual warned us of the
total change that you would bring, regardless of the outcome  of your bouts,
but I think no one really believed him."
     "I fail to see why you have to change anything," I said.
     "I've explained it  to  you already," she protested.  "We have lost our
old purpose. Now  we have a new  one and that new purpose  requires  that we
become as light as the breeze. The breeze is our new mood. It used to be the
hot wind. You have changed our direction."
     "You are talking in circles, Gorda."
     "Yes, but  that's  because you're empty. I can't make it  any  clearer.
When you return, the Genaros will show  you the art of the stalker and right
after  that all of us will leave. The Nagual said that  if  you decide to be
with us the first thing I should tell you is that you have to  remember your
bouts with  Soledad and  the  little sisters and examine every  single thing
that happened  to you with them, because everything is  an omen of what will
happen to you  on your path. If you are careful  and impeccable, you'll find
that those bouts were gifts of power."
     "What's dona Soledad going to do now?"
     "She's leaving. The little sisters have already  helped her to take her
floor apart. That floor  aided her to reach her attention of the nagual. The
lines had power to do that. Each of  them helped her gather a piece  of that
attention. To be incomplete is no  handicap  to reaching  that attention for
some warriors. Soledad  was transformed because  she got to  that  attention
faster than any of us. She doesn't have  to gaze at her floor anymore to  go
into that other world, and now that there is no more need for the floor, she
has returned it to the earth where she got it."
     "You are really determined to leave, Gorda, aren't you?"
     "All of us are. That's why I'm  asking you to go away for a few days to
give us time to pull down everything we have."
     "Am I the one who has to find a place for all of you, Gorda?"
     "If you were an impeccable warrior you  would do just that.  But you're
not an impeccable warrior, and neither are we. But still  we will have to do
our best to meet our new challenge."
     I felt an oppressive sense  of doom. I have never been one to thrive on
responsibilities. I thought that the commitment to guide them was a crushing
burden that I could not handle.
     "Maybe we don't have to do anything," I said.
     "Yes.  That's right,"  she  said,  and  laughed.  "Why don't  you  tell
yourself that over  and  over  until you feel safe? The Nagual told you time
and time again that the only freedom warriors have is to behave impeccably."
     She  told me how  the Nagual had insisted  that all of them  understand
that  not  only was impeccability freedom but  it was the only  way to scare
away the human form.
     I narrated to her the way don Juan made me understand what was meant by
impeccability. He and I were hiking one day through a very steep ravine when
a huge boulder got loose from its matrix on the rock wall and came down with
a formidable force  and landed on the floor of the canyon, twenty  or thirty
yards from where we were standing. The size of the boulder made its  fall  a
very impressive event. Don Juan seized the opportunity  to create a dramatic
lesson.  He  said that the force  that  rules  our  destinies is outside  of
ourselves and has nothing to do with  our acts  or volition. Sometimes  that
force would  make  us stop walking  on  our way and  bend  over to  tie  our
shoelaces, as I had  just  done. And by making us stop, that  force makes us
gain a  precious  moment. If  we had kept on walking,  that enormous boulder
would have most  certainly crushed us to death. Some other day,  however, in
another ravine the same outside  deciding force would make us stop  again to
bend  over and  tie our  shoelaces while  another  boulder  would get  loose
precisely above where we are standing.  By making  us stop, that force would
have made us lose a precious moment. That time if we had kept on walking, we
would have  saved ourselves. Don Juan said that  in view of my total lack of
control over the forces which decide my destiny, my only possible freedom in
that ravine consisted in my tying my shoelaces impeccably.
     La Gorda seemed to be moved by my account. For  an instant she held  my
face in her hands from across the table.
     "Impeccability  for  me is to  tell  you,  at the right  time, what the
Nagual told me to tell you," she said. "But power has to time perfectly what
I have to reveal to yon, or it won't have any effect."
     She  paused in a  dramatic  fashion. Her  delay  was very  studied  but
terribly effective with me.
     "What is it?" I asked desperately.
     She did not answer. She  took me by the arm and led me to the area just
outside the front  door. She made me  sit on the hard-packed ground with  my
back against a thick pole about one and a half feet high that looked  like a
tree stump which had  been planted in the ground almost against  the wall of
the house. There was a row of five such poles  planted about two feet apart.
I had meant to ask la Gorda what their function was. My first impression had
been that  a  former owner of  the  house  had  tied  animals  to  them.  My
conjecture seemed incongruous,  however,  because the  area just outside the
front door was a kind of roofed porch.
     I told la Gorda my  supposition as she  sat down next to me to my left,
with her back against another pole. She laughed and said that the poles were
indeed used for tying animals of sorts, but not by a former  owner, and that
she had nearly broken her back digging the holes for them.
     "What do you use them for?" I asked.
     "Let's say that  we tie  ourselves  to  them," she  replied.  "And this
brings me to the  next  thing the Nagual asked me to tell you. He said  that
because  you were empty  he  had  to  gather  your  second  attention,  your
attention of  the nagual, in  a way different than ours.  We  gathered  that
attention through dreaming and you did it  with his power plants. The Nagual
said  that  his  power  plants  gathered  the  menacing  side of your second
attention in one clump, and that's the shape that  came out of your head. He
said that that's what happens to sorcerers when they are given power plants.
If they don't die, the power plants spin  their second attention  into  that
awful shape that comes out of their heads.
     "Now  we're coming to what  he wanted you to do. He said  that you must
change directions now and begin gathering  your second  attention in another
way, more  like  us. You  can't keep  on the path  of  knowledge  unless you
balance  your second attention.  So far, that  attention of  yours  has been
riding  on the Nagual's power, but now you are alone. That's  what he wanted
me to tell you."
     "How do I balance my second attention?"
     "You have to do dreaming the way we do it. Dreaming is  the only way to
gather the second  attention without injuring it, without making it menacing
and awesome. Your second attention is fixed on the awful side of the  world;
ours is on the beauty of  it.  You have  to change sides and  come with  us.
That's what you chose last night when you decided to go with us."
     "Could that shape come out of me at any time?"
     "No.  The Nagual said that it  won't come out again until you're as old
as  he is. Your nagual has already come out as many times as was needed. The
Nagual and Genaro have seen to that. They  used to tease it out  of you. The
Nagual told me that sometimes you were a hair  away from  dying because your
second  attention is very indulging.  He said that once you even scared him;
your nagual attacked  him and he had to sing to it to  calm it down. But the
worst thing happened  to you in Mexico City; there he pushed you one day and
you went  into an office  and  in that  office  you  went  through the crack
between the worlds. He intended only to  dispel your attention of the tonal;
you  were  worried sick over some stupid thing. But when he shoved you, your
whole tonal  shrunk and your  entire being went  through the crack. He had a
hellish  time  finding you. He told  me that for a moment he thought you had
gone  farther than  he  could  reach.  But then he  saw you  roaming  around
aimlessly  and  he brought you  back. He  told me  that you went through the
crack around ten in the morn
     ing. So, on that day, ten in the morning became your new time."
     "My new time for what?"
     "For everything. If  you remain a man you will die around that time. If
you become a sorcerer you will leave this world around that time.
     "Eligio also went on a different path, a path none of us knew about. We
met  him just before he left. Eligio was a most marvelous dreamer. He was so
good that the  Nagual  and Genaro used to take him through  the crack and he
had the power to  withstand it,  as if it were nothing. He didn't even pant.
The Nagual and Genaro gave him a final  boost  with power plants. He had the
control  and the power to handle that  boost.  And that's what  sent  him to
wherever he is."
     "The Genaros told me that Eligio jumped with Benigno. Is that true?"
     "Sure. By the time Eligio had to jump, his second attention had already
been  in that other world.  The Nagual  said that yours had also been there,
but that for you it was a nightmare because you had no control. He said that
his power plants had made you lopsided; they had  made  you cut through your
attention of the tonal and had put you directly in the realm of  your second
attention,  but  without any mastery over that  attention. The Nagual didn't
give power plants to Eligio until the very last."
     "Do you think that my second attention has been injured, Gorda?"
     "The Nagual never said that. He thought you were dangerously crazy, but
that  has  nothing  to  do with power  plants.  He  said that both  of  your
attentions  are unmanageable.  If  you could conquer them you'd  be  a great
warrior."
     I  wanted  her  to tell  me more on the subject. She put her hand on my
writing  pad and said that  we had a  terribly busy  day ahead of us  and we
needed  to store energy  in order to  withstand it.  We  had, therefore,  to
energize  ourselves  with the  sunlight. She  said  that  the  circumstances
required that we take the sunlight  with the left eye. She began to move her
head slowly from side to side as she glanced directly into the  sun  through
her half-closed eyes.
     A moment  later  Lidia, Rosa and  Josefina joined us. Lidia  sat  to my
right, Josefina sat next to her,  while Rosa sat  next  to  la Gorda. All of
them were resting their backs against the poles. I was in  the middle of the
row.
     It  was  a  clear day. The  sun  was just above  the distant  range  of
mountains. They  started moving their heads  in  perfect  synchronization. I
joined them and had the  feeling that I  too had synchronized my motion with
theirs. They kept it up for about a minute and then stopped.
     All of them wore hats  and used the brims to protect  their  faces from
the sunlight when they were not bathing their eyes in it. La Gorda had given
me my old hat to wear.
     We sat there for about  half an  hour. In  that  time  we  repeated the
exercise countless times. I intended to make a  mark on my pad for each time
but la Gorda very casually pushed my pad out of reach.
     Lidia suddenly stood up, mumbling  something  unintelligible. La  Gorda
leaned over  to me and whispered that the Genaros were coming up the road. I
strained to look but there was no one in sight. Rosa and Josefina also stood
up and then went with Lidia inside the house.
     I told la Gorda  that I could not  see anyone approaching. She  replied
that the Genaros had  been visible at one point on  the road  and added that
she had dreaded the moment  when all of us would  have to get together,  but
that she was  confident that I could handle the situation. She advised me to
be extra careful with  Josefina and Pablito because they had no control over
themselves. She said  that the most sensible thing for me to do would  be to
take the Genaros away after an hour or so.
     I kept looking at the road. There was no sign of anyone approaching.
     "Are you sure they're coming?" I asked.
     She said that she had not seen them but that Lidia had. The Genaros had
been visible just for Lidia because she had been gazing at the same time she
had been bathing her eyes. I was not sure what la Gorda had  meant and asked
her to explain.
     "We  are gazers," she  said. "Just like yourself. We  are all the same.
There is no need to deny that you're a gazer. The Nagual told  us about your
great feats of gazing."
     "My great feats of gazing! What are you talking about, Gorda?"
     She  contracted her  mouth  and appeared to  be on  the  verge of being
irritated by  my question; she seemed to catch herself. She  smiled and gave
me a gentle shove.
     At that moment she had a sudden flutter in her body. She stared blankly
past me, then  she shook her  head vigorously. She  said  that she had  just
"seen"  that the  Genaros were  not  coming  after all; it was too early for
them. They were going to wait for a while before they made their appearance.
She smiled as if she were delighted with the delay.
     "It's too early for us  to have them here anyway,"  she said. "And they
feel the same way about us."
     "Where are they now?" I asked.
     "They must be sitting beside the road somewhere," she replied. "Benigno
had no doubt gazed at the house as they were walking and saw us sitting here
and that's why they  have decided to wait. That's perfect. That will give us
time."
     "You scare me, Gorda. Time for what?"
     "You have to round up your second attention today, just for us four."
     "How can I do that?"
     "I  don't  know.  You are very  mysterious to us. The  Nagual  has done
scores of things  to you with his power plants, but you  can't claim that as
knowledge. That  is  what I've been  trying to  tell you. Only  if  you have
mastery over your second attention can you perform with it; otherwise you'll
always stay  fixed halfway between  the two, as you are now. Everything that
has  happened  to  you  since you arrived  has  been directed  to force that
attention to spin. I've been giving you instructions little by  little, just
as the Nagual told me to do. Since you took another path, you don't know the
things that we know, just like we don't know anything  about  'power plants.
Soledad  knows  a bit more,  because the Nagual took  her  to  his homeland.
Nestor knows about medicinal plants,  but none of us has been taught the way
you were.  We don't need your knowledge yet.  But someday when  we are ready
you are  the one who  will know  what to do  to  give  us a boost with power
plants. I  am  the only  one who knows  where  the Nagual's pipe is  hidden,
waiting for that day.
     "The Nagual's command is  that you have to change your path and go with
us. That means that  you have to  do dreaming with us and stalking  with the
Genaros. You  can't afford  any  longer to be where  you are, on the awesome
side of your second attention. Another jolt of your nagual coming out of you
could kill you.  The Nagual told  me that human beings are  frail  creatures
composed of many layers of luminosity. When you see them,  they seem to have
fibers, but those fibers are really layers, like an onion. Jolts of any kind
separate those layers and can even cause human beings to die."
     She  stood up and  led me back to the kitchen. We  sat down facing each
other. Lidia,  Rosa and Josefina were busy in the yard. I could not see them
but I could hear them talking and laughing.
     "The Nagual said  that we die because our layers  become separated," la
Gorda  said.  "Jolts are always separating them but they get together again.
Sometimes, though, the jolt is so great that  the layers get loose and can't
get back together anymore."
     "Have you ever seen the layers, Gorda?"
     "Sure. I  sou a man dying  in the street. The Nagual told  me that  you
also found a man dying, but you didn't see his death. The Nagual made me see
the  dying man's layers. They  were like the  peels of an onion.  When human
beings are healthy they are like luminous eggs, but if they are injured they
begin to peel, like an onion.
     "The Nagual told me  that your second attention was so strong sometimes
that it pushed  all  the way out.  He and  Genaro  had  to hold your  layers
together; otherwise you would've died.  That's why he figured that you might
have  enough energy to get  your nagual out  of you twice. He meant that you
could hold your layers  together  by yourself twice. You did it  more  times
than that  and now  you are finished;  you have no more energy to  hold your
layers together in case of another jolt. The Nagual has entrusted me to take
care of everyone;  in your case, I have to help you to  tighten your layers.
The Nagual said  that death pushes the layers apart. He explained to me that
the center of  our luminosity, which is  the  attention  of  the  nagual, is
always  pushing  out, and that's  what loosens  the layers. So it's easy for
death to come in between them and push them completely apart. Sorcerers have
to do their best to  keep  their  own layers closed. That's  why  the Nagual
taught us  dreaming.  Dreaming  tightens  the layers.  When  sorcerers learn
dreaming they tie  together their two attentions  and there is no more  need
for that center to push out."
     "Do you mean that sorcerers do not die?"
     "That is right. Sorcerers do not die."
     "Do you mean that none of us is going to die?"
     "I  didn't  mean  us.  We are nothing. We are  freaks, neither here nor
there.  I meant sorcerers.  The Nagual and  Genaro are sorcerers. Their  two
attentions are so tightly together that perhaps they'll never die."
     "Did the Nagual say that, Gorda?"
     "Yes. He and  Genaro both told me that. Not too long  before they left,
the Nagual explained to us  the power of attention. I never  knew  about the
tonal and the nagual until then."
     La  Gorda recounted the way don Juan  had  instructed them  about  that
crucial tonal-nagual dichotomy. She  said that one day the Nagual had all of
them  gather together  in order to take them  for a long hike to a desolate,
rocky valley in the  mountains. He made a large, heavy bundle with all kinds
of items;  he even put  Pablito's  radio in  it. He then gave the bundle  to
Josefina to carry and  put a heavy table on Pablito's shoulders and they all
started hiking. He made all  of them take turns  carrying the bundle and the
table as they hiked nearly  forty  miles to that  high, desolate place. When
they arrived there, the Nagual made Pablito set the table in the very center
of the valley. Then he asked Josefina to arrange the contents  of the bundle
on the table. When the table was filled, he explained to them the difference
between the  tonal and the nagual, in the same terms he had  explained it to
me in a restaurant in Mexico City, except that in their case his example was
infinitely more graphic.
     He told them that the tonal was the order  that we are aware of in  our
daily world and also the personal order that we carry through  life  on  our
shoulders, like they had  carried that table  and  the bundle.  The personal
tonal of each of  us was like the table in that valley, a tiny island filled
with the things we are familiar with. The nagual, on the other hand, was the
inexplicable source that held that table in  place and was like the vastness
of that deserted valley.
     He told them that sorcerers were obligated to watch their tonals from a
distance in order to have a better grasp of what  was really around them. He
made them walk to a  ridge  from where they could view the whole  area. From
there the table  was hardly visible. He then made them go  back to the table
and had them all loom  over it in order to show that an average man does not
have the grasp that a sorcerer has because an average man is right on top of
his table, holding onto every item on it.
     He then made each of them, one at a time, casually look at  the objects
on the table, and tested their recall by taking  something and hiding it, to
see if they  had  been  attentive. All of them passed the  test with  flying
colors. He pointed out to them that their  ability to remember so easily the
items on that table was due to the fact that all of them had developed their
attention of the tonal, or their attention over the table.
     He  next  asked  them to look  casually at  everything that was  on the
ground underneath the table, and tested their reca