Brida

‘I’m twenty-one,’ said Brida. ‘If I wanted to start learning ballet, I’d be considered too old.’

The Magus made a sign for her to follow him. They set off together through the forest, in silence. ‘She’s pretty,’ he was thinking as the shadows cast by the trees rapidly lengthened and shifted as the sun sank lower on the horizon. ‘But I’m twice her age.’ This, he knew, meant that he might well suffer.

Brida felt irritated by the silence of the man walking beside her; he hadn’t even deigned to respond to her last remark. The forest floor was wet and covered in fallen leaves; she, too, noticed the shadows changing and the rapid approach of night. It would be dark soon and they didn’t have a torch with them.

‘I have to trust him,’ she told herself. ‘If I believe that he can teach me magic, then I also have to believe that he can guide me through the forest.’

They continued walking. He appeared to be wandering aimlessly, from one side to the other, changing direction even when there was no obstacle in his path. More than once they walked in a circle, passing the same place three or four times.

‘Perhaps he’s testing me.’ She was determined to see this experience through to the end and tried telling herself that everything that was happening – including those circular walks – was perfectly normal.

She had come a very long way and had hoped for more from this encounter. Dublin was over 90 miles away, and the buses to the village were uncomfortable and left at absurd times. She’d had to get up early, travel for three hours, ask the people in the village where she might find him and explain what she wanted with such a strange man. Finally, someone had told her in which part of the forest he could usually be found during the day, but not without first warning her that he’d already tried to seduce one of the village girls.

‘He’s an interesting man,’ she thought to herself. They were climbing now, and she found herself hoping that the sun would linger a little longer in the sky. She was afraid she might slip on the damp leaves.

‘Why do you really want to learn about magic?’

Brida was pleased that the silence had been broken. She gave him the same answer she had given before.

But he wasn’t satisfied.

‘Perhaps you want to learn about magic because it’s mysterious and secret, because it provides answers that few human beings ever manage to find in a whole lifetime, or perhaps because it evokes a romantic past.’

Brida said nothing. She didn’t know what to say. Afraid to give an answer the Magus might not like, she rather wished he would lapse back into his earlier silence.

At last, they came to the top of a hill, having crossed the entire forest. The ground there was rocky and bare of vegetation, but at least it was less slippery, and Brida could follow the Magus without difficulty.

He sat down on the highest point and asked Brida to do the same.

‘Other people have been here before,’ said the Magus. ‘They, too, came to ask me to teach them about magic, but I’ve taught everything I needed to teach. I’ve given back to humanity what it gave to me. Now I want to be alone, to climb mountains, tend plants and commune with God.’

‘That’s not true,’ replied the girl.

‘What isn’t true?’ he asked, surprised.

‘You might want to commune with God, but it isn’t true that you want to be alone.’

Brida regretted having spoken. She had spoken on an impulse and now it was too late to correct her mistake. Perhaps there were people who wanted to be alone. Perhaps women needed men more than men needed women.

The Magus, however, showed no sign of irritation when he spoke again.

‘I’m going to ask you a question,’ he said, ‘and you must be absolutely honest in your answer. If you tell me the truth, I’ll teach you what you ask. If you lie, you must never again return to this forest.’

Brida gave a sigh of relief. He was going to ask her a question. She simply had to tell the truth, that was all. She had always assumed that a Teacher would demand really difficult things of someone before taking them on as a pupil.

‘Let’s suppose that I do start teaching you what I’ve learned,’ he said, his eyes fixed on hers. ‘Let’s suppose that I start to show you the parallel universes that surround us, the angels, the wisdom of nature, the mysteries of the Tradition of the Sun and the Tradition of the Moon. Then one day, you go into town to buy some food and, in the middle of the street, you meet the love of your life.’

‘I wouldn’t know how to recognise him,’ she thought, but decided to say nothing. This question was turning out to be more difficult than she’d imagined.

‘He feels the same and comes over to you. You fall in love with each other. You continue your studies with me. During the day, I teach you the wisdom of the Cosmos, and at night, he teaches you the wisdom of Love. But there comes a moment when those two things can no longer coexist, and you have to choose.’

The Magus paused for a few seconds. Before he actually asked the question, he felt afraid of what the girl’s reply might be. Her coming there that evening meant the end of a stage in both their lives. He knew this, because he understood the traditions and intentions of Teachers. He needed her as much as she needed him, but she had to answer the question he put to her truthfully; that was the sole condition.

‘Now answer this question with total honesty,’ he said at last, screwing up his courage. ‘Would you give up everything you had learned until then – all the possibilities and all the mysteries that the world of magic could offer you – in order to stay with the love of your life?’

Brida looked away. Around her lay the mountains and the forests, and down below, the lights in the village were beginning to come on; soon, families would be gathering round the table to have supper. They worked hard and honestly, they feared God, and they tried to help their fellow man. They did all these things because they had known love. Their lives had a reason, they could understand everything that was going on in the universe without ever having heard of things like the Tradition of the Sun and the Tradition of the Moon.

‘I see no contradiction between my search and my personal happiness,’ she said.

‘Answer my question.’ His eyes were still fixed on hers. ‘Would you give up everything for that man?’

Brida felt a tremendous urge to cry. It wasn’t so much a question, it was a choice, the most difficult choice anyone would have to make in life. It was something she’d already thought about a lot. There had been a time when nothing in the world was as important as herself. She’d had several boyfriends and had always believed that she loved each one, only to see love vanish from one moment to the next. Of all the things she’d experienced until then, love had been the most difficult. Just then, she was in love with someone slightly older than herself; he was studying physics and had a completely different vision of the world from hers. Once again, she was putting her belief in love, trusting her feelings, but she’d been disappointed so often before that she was no longer sure of anything. Nevertheless, this was the great gamble of her life.

She continued to avoid the Magus’s gaze. Her eyes were fixed on the village and its twinkling lights. People had been trying to understand the universe through love ever since the beginning of time.

‘I’d give it all up,’ she said at last.

The man standing before her, she thought, would never understand what went on in people’s hearts. He was a man who knew the power and the mystery of magic, but he didn’t know people. His hair was grizzled, his skin burned by the sun, and he had the physique of someone used to walking in the mountains. He was so very attractive, with eyes that revealed a soul full of answers, and he would once again be disappointed by the feelings of ordinary human beings. She was disappointed with herself too, but she couldn’t lie.

‘Look at me,’ said the Magus.

Brida felt ashamed, but did as he asked.

‘You told the truth. I will be your teacher.’

Darkness fell, and the stars were shining in a moonless sky. It took two hours for Brida to tell the stranger her life story. She tried to look for facts that would explain her interest in magic – childhood visions, premonitions, an inner calling – but could find nothing. She simply felt a need to know, that was all. And because of that, she had taken courses in astrology, tarot and numerology.

‘Those are merely languages,’ said the Magus, ‘and they’re not the only ones. Magic speaks all the languages of the human heart.’

‘So what is magic?’ she asked.

Even in the darkness, Brida could sense that the Magus had turned away from her. He was looking up at the sky, absorbed in thought, perhaps in search of an answer.

‘Magic is a bridge,’ he said at last, ‘a bridge that allows you to walk from the visible world over into the invisible world, and to learn the lessons of both those worlds.’

‘And how can I learn to cross that bridge?’

‘By discovering your own way of crossing it. Everyone has their own way.’

‘That’s what I came here to find out.’

‘There are two forms,’ replied the Magus. ‘The Tradition of the Sun, which teaches the secrets through space and the world that surrounds us, and the Tradition of the Moon, which teaches through time and the things that are imprisoned in time’s memory.’

Brida had understood. The Tradition of the Sun was the night, the trees, the cold gripping her body, the stars in the sky. And the Tradition of the Moon was that man before her now, with the wisdom of the ancestors shining in his eyes.

‘I learned the Tradition of the Moon,’ said the Magus, as if he could read her thoughts, ‘but I was never a Teacher of that Tradition. I am a Teacher of the Tradition of the Sun.’

‘Teach me the Tradition of the Sun, then,’ said Brida, feeling slightly disconcerted, for she had sensed a note of tenderness in the Magus’s voice.