The Toltec Art of Life and Death

“Papá, the children!”

“Hardly more than a beast,” the other woman murmured, her voice silky and contemptuous.

“That’s enough!” snapped Sarita. “Because we are among first graders, that does not mean we should act like children!” She scanned the room. “Where is Miguel, the six-year-old?”

“There, by the window, daydreaming,” replied Lala. “But he is not the point. Listen to the music of knowledge, strumming a song of power and possibility.”

“Welcome to your first day of school,” sang the teacher, her face alight. “My name is Señorita Trujillo, and I know you are nervous. Some of you may be afraid, and others excited, but you are all here—like your parents and brothers and sisters before you—to learn how to be people in this great society.”

“To be people . . . ?” whispered Leonardo.

“Because they are hardly more than beasts,” repeated the redhead.

“And I am expecting each of you to work hard,” Señorita Trujillo continued. “If you work very hard, you will reach perfection, and perfection is what we all desire.”

Leonardo stood in place, pivoting on his feet to inspect the twenty little boys and girls. “And how are they not perfect?” he asked. “How,” he said, his hand gesturing to encompass the perfect heads of the children, “can these angels be considered imperfect?”

“They have learned nothing yet!” argued Lala. “They barely know how to think, how to judge. They are slow to make assumptions and quick to ignore sacred beliefs.”

“Are you now an advocate for the church?”

“I have always been a friend to religion,” she said haughtily, “and I fully support God’s rigorous judgment.”

“Amen,” said Sarita, crossing herself. She considered it a good habit to agree with anything stated piously. As she kissed her own thumb, she noticed the disappearance of morning sunlight, and found herself seated on a pew within a chapel murky with smoke. “Are we now in church?” she asked, disoriented.

“Ah!” cried don Leonardo. “You go too far, señora!”

Lala glared at him, her eyes burning. Sarita looked from one to the other in surprise. “What are you doing, you two?” Her eyes wandered to the pews. “This place has nothing to do with my son, or with his memories.”

“Indeed, it does,” answered Lala, happy to draw attention away from don Leonardo. Just then, they saw a priest walking toward the front of the chapel. He walked past them, unseeing, and continued to the first pew, where Sara, the young mother and wife, was sitting quietly. Nearby, her four boys moved from bench to bench in a silent game of tag.

“Ah!” exclaimed Sarita. “There am I, with my boys!”

“Remember this?” asked Lala. “When the good priest told you your thirteenth child would make a difference in the world?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. He said Miguel would be an important messenger.”

“Was that before or after he judged him a sinner?” asked Leonardo.

The redhead ignored him, leaning closer to Sarita. “And what is a messenger, but the servant of knowledge?”

“An authentic human,” said don Leonardo flatly. “Such is a great messenger.”

The woman gave him another angry look, but Sarita was talking, apparently reminiscing, and their attention was drawn back to her.

“I remember when he grew old enough to feel his own power,” she was saying, “a power that had already become evident to me. He was a boy of ten then, older than he is here. I had been talking to him one day about greed and selfishness, and how we hurt ourselves when we disrespect others. When I was finished talking, he looked at me with all the seriousness of a worried mouse. ‘Do you think me selfish, Mamá?’ he asked. What could I do but laugh? ‘Yes, sweet one,’ I teased. ‘You are as selfish as your mother is supremely generous.’ It was a hasty joke, I admit, but he paid no attention. He was lost in thought, sorting truth from subtle lie.”

Don Leonardo sat beside her and took her hand, hoping to encourage the memories.

“He smiled at me,” Sarita went on, “and it was a gracious smile, a smile that was conscious and careful. I had the impulse to touch Miguel protectively, but this particular smile told me not to. It told me that he was now old enough to grasp the truth with his own small hands. If he was selfish, he would find the remedy. It reminded me of something I had always known, even without the counsel of the priest: that humanity would one day long for his words, for the touch of his eyes, his hands, and his irresistible smile. The smile he gave me on that particular day told me that I was becoming a stranger to him. The tender bond that held us was weakening.”

“It was strong then, my girl,” her father assured her, “as it is now.”

Lala turned away impatiently, wishing the priest would speak to the young Sara, that he would say something about the excellence of minds, not this nonsense about emotional bonds. What was the purpose of this particular memory, except to remind them of the power of words?

“The point is—” she began, addressing father and daughter again.

“She sees the point, señora,” stated Leonardo.

“My love will bring him back,” Sarita said softly. “Our bond, which cannot be undone, must now be respected. His legacy must be—”

Lala grabbed her chance. “His legacy exists in the minds of everyone he has touched! He is memory. He is thought, and his words echo through the ages.”

Don Leonardo heard Lala’s voice ascend into the high dome of the chapel, and he refrained from comment. He squeezed Sarita’s hand supportively before rising to his feet. It was Sarita’s challenge, not his, to resist the persuasions of that voice.

“Indeed,” the old man mumbled loud enough to be heard, “there is definitely someplace I’m supposed to be. Good day to you, ladies,” he said, smiling, “until the next time.” He tipped his hat and marched up the aisle, toward the light that beckoned beyond the chapel doors.

“Papá!”

And he was gone.

Sarita looked back, confused. “Now what? I need his help.”

“You need me,” said Lala. “We already established that. We will follow the same path of esoteric knowledge your son followed. We will follow his most remarkable thoughts, and in that way—”

“Thought is knowledge, Miguel would say,” Sarita interrupted. “Memory is knowledge, he would say.” She looked at the other woman, so beautiful and so certain, illuminated by the light of a hundred prayer candles. “Religion is knowledge, my son would say.”

“And see how wonderful that is!” replied her companion, indicating the chapel, now filled with kneeling worshippers, many of whom were weeping silently.

“None of it is the truth, my son would say.”

“Your son will be back with you soon enough to speak for himself. Come, old one, and we will find the precise day his words showed him to be a leader.”

Sarita stood up, crossed herself again, and followed the beautiful woman into a soft cloud of incense.

Don Leonardo was now exactly where he was supposed to be. He was watching one of his grandsons walk up the path to his house. He was a handsome boy of twenty—not the youngest of his grandchildren, but Sara’s youngest, and that was enough to make Leonardo smile. He loved his daughter and had always seen exceptional things in her. She could have succumbed to the monotonies of human life and old habits, but she had maintained her singular authority. She would soon be recognized as a woman of power by her family and her community.

This boy, too, was not like the others. Leonardo knew this, but could not yet say why. All Sara’s sons were quick, bright, and full of ambition to succeed. He remembered the morning of Miguel’s birth and wondered if the answer to his uniqueness lay there, but too much importance was given to family stories like that—too much was made of auspicious signs and star alignments. The answer was in each present moment, like this one. At this moment, Leonardo was watching his grandson arrive and he perceived everything. He noticed the boy’s stride, the confident way he held himself, the light in his eyes. Yes, the eyes told much. And the smile. What a smile! It seemed to invite the world to play. Come into my dream, it said, and prepare to have fun!

This boy was different, certainly. It was time for Leonardo to see if that difference could be put into exceptional practice. It was time to take this boy out of the sleepy warmth of his convictions and into the icy air of awareness.

Don Leonardo stepped off the porch and opened his arms to embrace Miguel, the last of Sarita’s thirteen children.

I remember that beautiful autumn afternoon during my first year at the university, when I rushed to my grandfather’s home to pay him a visit. My heart was filled with love that day, and my head filled with new ideas. He was in his nineties then, the leading elder in our family. He was respected by everyone who knew him, and I felt tremendous pride in having him as a grandfather. I also felt great pride in being able to go to him, to talk to him, and to share my knowledge. I wanted him to think me wise for my age. I wanted him to be impressed by my penetrating intellect.

I have learned since then not to show gratitude to a great master by offering him knowledge. Offer anything else, but not that. If you have even a little sense, you will offer him your silence. He is a master for the simple reason that knowledge is not a distraction to him. You are the student because it is, to you! In my life as a shaman, I couldn’t count how many times, and in how many ways, my students tried to impress me, just as I tried to impress don Leonardo that autumn day. So many apprentices with a potential for deep wisdom would fall short, choosing instead to serenade me with facts, opinions, and philosophical references. “How can I amaze you?” they might as well have said. “What do I know that you haven’t thought of? Look at me! Listen to me! Let me teach you something!” Do we sit at the feet of a master to celebrate our own importance, or do we sit with a master to listen and to learn?

Well, I didn’t visit don Leonardo to listen that day. I started talking from the moment we sat down in the yard together, and it seemed I couldn’t stop. I told him about all the political activities at my school, about everything I had learned of governments and politics, of injustice and human suffering. I spoke with righteous anger and moral indignation. I spoke against humanity for all its many evils . . . and it was just about then that my grandfather’s smile turned to quiet laughter. There was nothing funny about what I was saying, so it seemed clear he was mocking me. Mocking me! Had he grown so old that he could no longer see the brilliance of my logic? Couldn’t he see how insightful I’d become? I stopped talking, feeling the shame build in me.