The Toltec Art of Life and Death. Barbara Emrys
teased me, but for the first time, their jokes carried some male pride and approval.
I was a little guy, but slowly I became a rock star in the arena of scared boys and giggling girls—all eager for romantic stories to tell. It wasn’t long before I became a favorite among the older girls. Sweet words ran like guava juice off my lips, making them all laugh and blush and warm to my little boy kisses. I was cute and funny, and they told themselves I was too young to be dangerous. Sex is a simple enough thing when fear doesn’t intrude on the moment, and with one blissful moment of success, innocence was happily lost for me. I would never again be hungry for love. After a short lifetime of poverty, it seemed that I was on my way to becoming a sexual billionaire.
I say all this to make a point about seduction. Seduction is a skill conspicuous to all living things, and one that is vital to life. Just as it works in the natural world, so does it work in the universe of thought. An idea spoken fearlessly causes a contagion of agreement. An invitation spoken sweetly erases any sense of danger. Suggestion provokes imagination, and imagination builds reality. When we can see these things clearly, we can also see beyond words and suggestions, to the messenger. Any messenger uses knowledge to gain access to a dream. “What do you know? I know it, too,” is one way to start. Or “What do you like? I like it, too.” Once invited in, the messenger can begin to change the shape of that dream. It is an unusual messenger who uses seductions of the mind to benefit another human being. It is an iconic messenger who applies this skill to benefit humanity as a whole.
The creature my mother met on her visit to the Tree of Knowledge is and always has been a skilled messenger. She has been moving and shifting the human story for as long as that story has been told. I refer to her as a woman, not for the reason the world does, with its peculiar distrust of feminine insight, but because I recognized early on that, like most men, I was born to love and cherish women. Once I tasted love, I never stopped wanting it. As a young man, I had a similar infatuation with knowledge. Just like a clever woman, a woman of remarkable power, knowledge captivated me. I suppose I was spellbound and obsessed for many years, but once I saw knowledge for what she was, I used all my talent to break the spell. I felt a desire to redeem knowledge, to guide her into awareness and to live with her in peace. I used the talent that came naturally to me—my talent for romance. By seeing knowledge as a woman who wanted above all to be known and to be heard, I could begin to listen, and to take the fury from her. By recognizing her need to be loved, touched, and tasted, I could transform her.
After I became a shaman, I finally saw that this was the revelation that my grandfather, don Leonardo, most wanted me to have. I finally understood his words, always understated and free of pretense. They weren’t like other wise words, laced with charming guile. Such guile is the character of knowledge, making it a clever messenger, but not a messenger for truth. My grandfather was a man who had heard the voice of knowledge in his own head, and then silenced it. In that silence, life finally made itself known to him. In that silence, he met his own authenticity. The wisdom he was able to share with me was wisdom he had achieved by seducing the temptress. Knowledge is the thing that moves men and women to think and behave as they do. Its authority begins with our initial attempts to speak; then, as we master language, it evolves into thought. It becomes the voice we listen to most, our most trusted informant. Knowledge gains power with every belief we embrace, regardless of that belief’s impact on the human being.
We master death when we finally know ourselves as life; when we can see from the perspective of life, not just knowledge. Each of us is the main character our story, and the main character is afraid of not knowing and not being known. Death represents the greatest threat to knowing and has therefore assumed a terrifying significance in the human dream. Death to an individual means the end to the physical body and the conclusion of thought. Death doesn’t mean the end of life as a whole, however, nor does it mean the end of humanity.
When knowledge serves our fears, it can make the sensible seem satanic, the satanic sensible. And yet knowledge, the single greatest devilry for humanity, can also be its savior. It’s up to each of us to recognize knowledge as the voice in our own head—the voice we have come to trust and obey. It’s up to each of us to modify that voice and to reform the tyrant. For, in the process of mastering knowledge, we have become knowledge. We have become the tyrant, the tempter, prompting fear with every opportunity. By redeeming knowledge, we redeem ourselves.
I have the feeling I should be elsewhere,” said don Leonardo as he paced the little schoolroom. He was walking between rows of desks, absently glancing at first graders as they scribbled symbols on paper.
“I need you here with me,” Sarita reminded him quietly. She was sitting at one of the desks, her body jammed between bench and tabletop as she watched the teacher in action.
“Shush. Listen to the teacher,” chided Lala, her red hair swept high on her head in the fashion of the day. “What she says is important.”
All the same, Lala was looking at the young teacher with disapproval. “Why is her appearance so shabby?” she asked her fellow itinerants. “Teaching is the single most important job there is, yet she brings no style to it! She wears no heels, no rouge. Learning should arouse us, should it not?”
“Not the kind of arousal I’m familiar with,” said the old man, straightening his tie as he checked out the teacher, who was wearing a cardigan and simple skirt. “If I may imagine her without the clothes—well, then . . .”
“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,