The Sorcerers' Crossing: Chapter 16.

The Sorcerers' Crossing - A Woman's Journey ©1992 by Taisha Abelar.

Chapter 16.

It took me hours to calm down, and it was late afternoon.

Nelida was patiently waiting for me at the back door.

I followed her inside the house.

In the hall just outside the living room, she stopped so abruptly that I nearly collided with her.

Nelida turned to face me, and said, "As Clara told you, I live in the left side of the house.

"I am going to take you there, but first let us go in the living room, and sit down for a while so you can catch your breath."

I was panting and my heart was beating disturbingly fast.

I assured Nelida, "I am in good physical condition. I practiced kung fu with Clara every day. But right now I am not feeling very well."

Nelida said reassuringly, "Do not worry about being out of breath.

"The energy of my body is pressing on you. That extra pressure is what is making your heart beat faster.

"When you get used to my energy, it will no longer bother you."

She took my hand, and guided me to sit on a cushion on the floor with my back propped against the front of the sofa.

"When you are agitated as you are now, prop your lower back against a piece of furniture.

"Or, bend your arms backward and press your hands against the top of your kidneys."

To sit on the floor with my back propped in that fashion had a definite relaxing effect on me.

In a few moments I was breathing normally, and my stomach was no longer tied in knots.

I watched Nelida pace back and forth in front of me.

She continued her relaxed and easy stride, and said, "Now, understand something once and for all.

"When I say that I am responsible for you, I mean that I am in charge of your ultimate freedom.

"So do not give me any more nonsense about your struggle for independence.

"I am not interested in your capricious fight against your family.

"Even though you have been at odds with them all your life, your fight has had no purpose or direction.

"It is time to give your natural strength and your compulsive drive a worthy cause."

Her pacing, I noticed, was not nervous at all. Rather it seemed to be a way of trapping my attention. Her pacing put me completely at ease, yet kept me attentive.

I asked her once more if I would ever see Clara and Manfred.

Nelida looked at me with a pitiless gaze that sent chills through me.

She said, "No, you will not see them again; at least not in this world.

"Both of them have done their impeccable best to prepare you for the great flight.

"Only if you are successful in awakening the double and crossing over into the abstract will you meet again.

"If not, they will become memories that you will talk about with others for a while, or that you will keep to yourself, but then gradually forget."

I swore to her that I would never forget Clara or Manfred; that they would be a part of me always, even if I never saw them again.

And although something in me knew that that would be so, I could not bear such a final separation. I wanted to weep as I had done so easily all my life.

But, somehow my sorcery pass with the crystals had worked, and weeping had fallen off me.

Now when I really needed to cry, I could not.

I was hollow inside and cold. I was what I had always been, except that now I had no more pretenses.

I remember what Clara had told me; that coldness is not cruelty or heartlessness, but an unbending detachment.

At last I knew what it meant to be without pity.

Nelida sensed my mood and said, "Do not focus on your loss. At least not for the time being.

"Let us deal, rather, with helpful ways to gather energy to attempt the inevitable abstract flight.

"You know now that you belong to us and to me in particular. You must try today to come to my side of the house."

Nelida took off her shoes, and sat down in an armchair across from me.

In one graceful movement, she raised her knees to her chest and planted her feet on the seat.

Her full skirt was pulled over her calves so that only her ankles and feet showed.

Nelida said, "Now, try not to be bashful, judgy or kinky."

Then before I could respond, she lifted her skirt and spread her legs apart.

Nelida ordered, "Look at my vagina."

"The hole between the legs of a woman is the energetic opening of the womb, and the womb is an organ that is at the same time powerful and resourceful."

To my horror, Nelida had no underwear on. I could see right into her crotch.

I wanted to look away but I was mesmerized. I could only stare with my mouth half open.

She was hairless, and her abdomen and legs were hard and smooth with absolutely no wrinkles or fat.

Nelida, without a hint of embarrassment, said, "Since I am not in the world as a female, my womb has acquired a different mood than the mood of an average, undisciplined woman. So you simply should not see me in a derogatory light."

She was indeed beautiful and I felt a jolt of sheer envy.

I was at least one third her age and yet I could not possibly have looked that good in a similar position.

In fact, I would not dream of letting anyone see me naked. I always wore long bathrobes, as if I had something to hide.

Remembering my own shyness, I politely looked away, but not before I got an eyeful of what I can only call sheer energy. The area around her vagina seemed to radiate a force that if I stared at it made me dizzy.

I shut my eyes and I did not care what she thought of me.

Nelida's laughter was like an endless cascade of water, soft and bubbly.

She said, "You are perfectly relaxed now.

"Look at me again, and take a few deep breaths to charge yourself."

I had a sudden realization that struck fear in me, and I blurted out, "Wait just a moment, Nelida."

Stammering pitifully, I told her what I had just realized.

Showing me her nakedness had done something inconceivable to me. It had soothed my anguish, and made me abandon all my prudishness. In one instant, Nelida had become extraordinarily familiar to me.

Nelida said cheerfully, "That is exactly what the energy from the womb is supposed to do.

"Now really, you must look at me and breathe deeply. After that, you can analyze things to your heart's content."

I did as she said, and I felt no shyness at all.

Breathing in her energy made me feel strangely invigorated as if a bond had formed between us that needed no words.

Nelida pulled her skirt back down over her calves again, and said, "You can accomplish wonders by controlling and circulating the energy from the womb."

Nelida explained that the womb's primary function is reproduction in order to perpetuate our species.

But unbeknownst to women, the womb also has subtle and sophisticated secondary functions, and these were the functions that she and I were interested in developing.

I was so pleased when Nelida had included me in her statement that I actually experienced a tickling sensation inside my stomach.

I listened attentively as she explained that the most important secondary function of the womb is to serve as a guiding unit for the double.

Males have to rely on a mixture of reason and intent to guide their doubles.

Females have at their disposal a powerful source of energy with an abundance of mysterious attributes and functions all designed to protect and nurture the double.

Nelida explained, "All this becomes possible if you rid yourself of all the encumbering energy that men have left inside you.

"A thorough recapitulation of all your sexual activity will take care of that."

She emphasized that using the womb is an extremely powerful and direct method of reaching the double.

She reminded me of the sorcery pass I had learned in which one breathes directly with the opening of the vagina.

Nelida said, "The womb is the way female animals sense things and regulate their bodies.

"Through the womb, women can generate and store power in their doubles to build or destroy, or to become one with everything around them."

Again I felt a tingle in my abdomen like a mild vibration that this time spread to my genitals and inner thighs.

Nelida continued, "Another way of reaching the double, which is also called the other, besides using the energy of the womb, is through movement.

"This is the reason why Clara taught you the sorcery passes.

"There are two passes that you must use today to prepare yourself adequately for what is to come."

She walked to the closet, pulled out a straw mat, unrolled it on the floor, and told me to lie on it.

When I was flat on my back, she asked me to bend my knees a bit, fold my arms across my chest, and roll once to my right side and then once to my left.

She made me repeat this movement seven times. As I rolled, I was to slowly curl my spine at the shoulders.

She told me then to sit cross-legged once more on the floor leaning my back against the couch, while she took her seat on the armchair.

Slowly and softly, she inhaled through her nose.

Then she gracefully wiggled her left arm and hand out and upward as if she were boring a hole in the air with her hand.

Then she reached in, grasped something, and pulled her arm back.

That gave me the total impression of a long rope being retrieved from a hole in the air.

She then did the same movements with her right arm and hand.

As she performed her sorcery pass, I recognized it to be a movement of the same nature as the ones Clara had shown me, but it was different too as it was lighter, smoother, more energetically charged.

Clara's sorcery passes were like martial art movements. They were graceful and filled with internal strength.

Nelida's passes were ominous, threatening, and yet, at the same time a pleasure to watch. They were not agitated and yet they radiated a nervous energy.

While she executed her pass, Nelida's face was like a beautiful mask. Her features were perfectly symmetrical.

Watching her exquisite movements done with utter aloofness and detachment, I remembered what Clara had said about Nelida having no pity.

Nelida said, "That pass is for gathering energy from the vastness that lies just behind all that we see.

"Try making a hole. Reach behind the facade of visible forms, and grasp the energy that sustains us. Do it now."

I tried to replicate her swift, graceful movements, but I felt stiff and clumsy in comparison.

I could not by any stretch of the imagination feel that I was reaching through a hole and grasping energy.

Nevertheless, after I had finished the pass, I felt strong and bursting with energy.

Nelida went on, "It does not really take much to communicate or reach the ethereal body.

"In addition to using the womb and movement, sound is a powerful way of attracting the ethereal body's attention."

Nelida explained that by systematically directing words to our source of awareness, our double, we can receive a manifestation of that source.

She added, "Provided, of course, that we have enough energy.

"If we do, it may take only a few selected words or a sustained sound to open something unthinkable in front of us."

I asked, "How exactly can we direct those words to the double?"

Nelida extended her arms in a sweeping gesture, and said, "The double is nearly infinite.

"For just as the physical body is in communication with other physical bodies, the double is in communication with the universal life force."

Abruptly Nelida stood up and said, "We have done our sorcery passes and also plenty of talking. Now let us see if we can act.

"I want you to stand in front of the door leading to the left side of the house.

"I want you to remain very quiet, but acutely aware of everything around you."

I followed Nelida down the hall to the door that had always been closed.

Clara had explained to me that it was kept closed even when all of the family members were present in the house.

Since Clara had made me promise that I would never under any circumstances try to open it, no matter how curious I became, I never paid much attention to the door.

As I looked at it now, I saw nothing unusual about it. It was just a common wooden door much like all the other doors in the house.

Nelida carefully opened it.

There was a hallway, just like the right-side hallway that led to the other side of the house.

Nelida stood close behind me, and said, "I want you to repeat one word.

"The word is 'intent.' I want you to say 'intent' three or four times or even more, but bring it out from the depths of you."

"From the depths of me?"

"Allow the word to burst out from your midsection loud and clear.

"In fact, you should shout the word 'intent' with all your strength."

I hated to shout and I disliked it when people raised their voices at me. As a child, I learned it was impolite to shout and I dreaded to hear my parents arguing in loud voices.

I hesitated.

Nelida said, "Do not be bashful. Shout as loud and as many times as is needed."

"How will I know when to stop?"

"You stop when something happens, or when I tell you to stop because nothing has happened. Do it! Now!"

I said the word 'intent', but my voice sounded hesitant, feeble, and unsure. Even to my ear, it lacked conviction.

But, I kept on repeating it, and with more vigor each time.

My voice became not deep but shrill and loud, until I shocked myself into a near faint with a hair-raising scream that seemed not my own, and yet I had heard it before.

It was the same shrill noise I had heard the day Clara and Manfred had dashed into the house and left me under the tree.

I began to shiver, and I became so dizzy that I slumped down on the spot, and leaned against the door frame.

Nelida ordered, "Do not move!"

But she spoke too late, as I became limp on the floor.

Nelida said sternly, "Too bad you moved when you should have stayed put."

Yet she added a smile when she saw I was about to pass out.

She squatted next to me, and rubbed my hands and neck to revive me.

I straightened up against the wall, and muttered, "What did you make me shout for?"

Nelida said, "We were trying to catch the attention of your double.

"There are two levels to the universal awareness; the level of the visible, of order, and of everything that can be thought or named; and the unmanifested level of energy that creates and sustains all things.

"Because we rely on language and reason," Nelida continued, "it is the level of the visible that we regard as reality.

"It appears to have an order, and appears to be stable and predictable.

"Yet in actuality, it is elusive, temporary and ever changing.

"What we judge as permanent reality is only the surface appearance of an unfathomable force."

I felt so drowsy, I could barely follow her words. I yawned several times to take in more air.

Nelida laughed when I opened my eyes wide in an exaggerated manner to give her the impression I was paying full attention.

She went on, "What you and I want to do with all this shouting, is to catch the attention of, not the visible reality, but rather the attention of the unseen; the force that is the source of your existence; a force that we hope will carry you across the chasm."

I wanted to listen to what she was saying, but a strange thought kept distracting me.

Just before I had slumped to the floor, I caught a glimpse of a rare sight.

I noticed that the air in the hall behind the door was bubbling just like the air did in the darkness of my room the first night I had slept in the house.

As Nelida continued speaking, I turned to look into the hallway again, but she moved in front of me and blocked my view.

She bent over and picked up a leaf.

I guessed that while I had been shouting, the leaf must have fallen out of the protective bundle Clara had tied around my midsection.

Nelida held the leaf up for me to see, and said, "Perhaps this leaf will help clarify things."

Nelida began talking faster, as if she knew my attention was waning, and as if she wanted to get as much in as she could before my mind wandered off again.

Nelida said, "Its texture is dry and brittle. Its shape is flat and round. Its color is brown with a touch of crimson.

"We can recognize it as a leaf because our instruments of perception, our senses; and because of our thoughts that gives things names.

"Without them, the leaf is abstract, pure, undifferentiated energy.

"The same unreal, ethereal energy that flows through this leaf flows through and sustains everything.

"We, like everything else, are real on the one hand, and only appearances on the other."

She carefully put the leaf back on the floor as if it were so fragile that it would shatter at the slightest touch.

Nelida paused for a moment as if to wait for my mind to assimilate what she had said, but my attention was again drawn through the open door to the hallway where I saw filaments of light streaming through a large window at the end of the hall.

I caught a fleeting glimpse of three or four men and women who for an instant had stuck their heads out of doors opening onto the hallway.

They all seemed to have been awakened at once by my shouts, and had poked their heads out of their bedrooms to see what all the commotion was about.

Nelida barked at me, "You are certainly undisciplined. Your attention span is much too short."

I tried to tell Nelida what I had seen, but she subdued me with one look.

I felt a chill going up my spine into my neck and I ended up shivering involuntarily.

As I sat there confused and defenseless, the strangest thought thus far occurred to me.

Nelida seemed familiar to me because I had seen her in a dream.

In fact, I had seen her not in one dream, but in a series of recurring dreams. And the people in the hall...

Nelida shouted at me, "Do not let your mind go beyond this point!

"Do not dare. Do you hear me? Do not dare to wander away! I want your undivided attention here with me."

She pulled me to my feet and told me to gather my wits.

I did my best to gather them because I was definitely intimidated by her.

I had always taken pride in believing that no one could dominate me, and yet one look from this woman could stop my thoughts and fill me with awe and dread at the same time.

Nelida gave me a firm knock on the top of my head with a knuckle.

It sobered me up as easily as her shouts had unsettled me.

Nelida said, "I have been talking my head off because Clara assured me that talking is the best way to relax you and pique your interest.

"I want you ready to go through this door at any cost."

I told her that I had the certainty that I had seen her in my dreams. And, that was not all. I had the feeling that the people that had poked their heads into the hall were also known to me.

When I mentioned the people, Nelida stepped back and scrutinized me as if looking for markings on my body.

Nelida was silent for a moment, perhaps considering whether or not to divulge something, and then she said, "As the nagual and Clara have already told you, we are a group of sorcerers.

"We are a lineage, but not a family lineage.

"In this house there are two branches of that lineage. Each has eight members. The members of Clara's branch are the Graus, and the members of my branch are the Abelars.

"Our origin is lost in time, but we count ourselves by generations.

"I am a member of the generation in power, and that means I can teach what my group knows to someone new who is like me; in this case, you.

"You are an Abelar."

She stood behind me, and turned me in the direction of the hallway.

"Now, no more talking. Face the hallway and shout again the word 'intent.' I think you are ready to meet all of us in person."

I shouted "intent" three times.

This time my voice did not screech, but resonated loudly beyond the walls of the house.

On the third shout, the air in the hall began to fizzle. Billions of tiny bubbles sparkled and glowed as if they had all lit up at the same instant.

I heard a soft hum that reminded me of the sound of a muffled generator.

Its mesmeric purr drew me inside past the threshold where Nelida and I had been standing.

My ears were plugged and I had to swallow repeatedly to unplug them.

Then the humming stopped and I found myself in the middle of a hallway that was the exact mirror image of the hallway in the right side of the house where my room was.

Only this hallway was full of people. They all had come out of their rooms, and were staring at me as if I had dropped in from another planet and had materialized right in front of their eyes.

Among them, at the far end of the hallway, I saw Clara.

She had a beaming smile and opened her arms inviting me to come and embrace her.

Then I saw Manfred, pawing the floor. He was as happy to see me as Clara was.

I ran toward them, but instead of feeling my steps on the wooden floor, I felt that I had been catapulted in the air.

To my agony, I flew past Clara and Manfred and all the other people in the hallway. I had no control over my movements.

All I could do was shout Clara's and Manfred's names in anguish as I flew past them beyond the hall, beyond the house, beyond the trees and the hills into a blinding glare, and finally into an absolutely black stillness.