The Toltec Art of Life and Death

“I know everything,” Lala interrupted. “Remember that. Doubt me, and we have nothing—nothing but light and motion and . . . and fragile buds on an unnamed tree.”

Sarita tried to remember precisely what Miguel had said about memory, but could not. Before she had time to consider what might be wrong with buds on a tree, her companion had moved toward her, swiftly, soundlessly, and was gazing deep into her eyes again.

“The resurrection of a dream,” she stated solemnly.

“The return of my son,” Sarita corrected.

“This is felicitous,” the woman murmured. “The solution lies within my realm of understanding.” She held her piercing gaze. “You were clever to seek me out.”

“Well, as it happens—” Sarita began, but Lala was still talking, still staring.

“Be sure you are respectful.”

“Yes?”

“Be mindful of my unique skills, my ways, and my laws. Listen to me.”

Listen, but don’t believe, Sarita reminded herself.

“Listen, and obey,” Lala added.

Sarita was resolved to remain in this remote terrain, regardless of the company. She must linger here until her son could be swayed. “Of course,” she answered demurely. “How do we begin?”

The creature brightened at the question. “How. Yes.” She smiled. “How, what, and why. There is no progress without these things.” She moved away from Sarita, apparently thinking. Sarita watched her and waited.

“We begin with the first memory,” Lala announced suddenly, “and move on from there.” She glanced at the old woman. “You brought a shopping bag,” she said. “You must have anticipated this.”

Sarita looked at the bag, dumbfounded. Was it going to hold memories, then? Was this to be among her mysterious instructions? She wanted to laugh, but kept her silence.

“With enough memories, we have a dream—a talking picture show of all that is true about a man. I will guide you through the memorable scenes, through each crucial bit of knowledge, and in time we will have gathered all the pieces necessary to solve the puzzle called . . . Miguel.” Lala’s voice held on to the last syllable of his name as a bow glides along the strings of a violin, letting the sound fade slowly, melodically, into silence. Miguel: the word seemed to conjure images of something familiar, something sorely missed. The air around them stirred slightly, bringing with it a hint of warmth and sound.

“We have very little time, madam,” Sarita said emphatically, breaking the spell of the moment.

“Time is my creation,” was Lala’s response. “We have as much of it as I say.” With that, she took the old woman’s hand and gently helped her back upon the giant root.

Sarita, her hand still in Lala’s, thought she heard the faraway patter of rain, but the sky had not changed. Clouds still billowed and streamed; lightning still flashed in the distance, its force reverberating through her body, but no thunder followed. She felt the woman squeeze her hand. Lala stood very still above her, her gaze fixed somewhere in the distance.

She was looking, Sarita saw, toward the Tree of Life, and her face held a curious expression. It was one of fierce anger and deep longing. It was definitely both, although Sarita knew that such feelings did not exist together in the natural world. The old woman looked at the place she had last seen her son, and wondered if she should have respected his wishes this time and let him be. That was something she had rarely done, but now . . .

Lala suddenly let go of her hand. As Sarita looked back at her in surprise, the darkness fell over them both, pierced only by a single, soft light. It was candlelight.

Sarita was no longer sitting under a tree in a vast and desolate landscape. She sat on an ordinary wooden chair in the corner of a small room, watching a man and a woman making love by the light of a single candle set in a fruit jar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And when you married him?”

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

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

“He was so much in love . . .”

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

“Ideas are everything,” Sarita mused quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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