Barbara Emrys - The Toltec Art of Life and Death

The old woman slowed her pace, then stopped. The storm still flashed and billowed around her, but its eerie silence was gone. Now, beyond the muffled sounds of her breathing, there was something else in the air. Where there should have been thunder, there was now music, building in the distance like a growling wind. He must be near, she thought. She stood where she was, listening, until it became clear that a particular song was playing, rising from the horizon to meet the sky’s fury. It was music she recognized from a time long ago. She could hear her son singing to music like this as a boy, his little fingers moving along the strings of an imaginary guitar while he mouthed senseless syllables and shook his whole body to the rhythm of it, just as he had seen his older brothers do. What had he called this sound? What . . . ? Oh, yes.

“It’s rock-and-roll, Mamá !” she remembered him shouting. “The music of life!”

Yes, a rock-and-roll song was playing in his head even now. That was the sound that raced along the lightning bolts in this blackening sky and whipped like cyclone winds through her gray hair, even when everything around her was still. Her senses had not failed her. She could feel his mind now, and hear his immense and eternal heart reverberating with joy. He was close.

Setting down the shopping bag again, she wrapped her woven shawl more tightly around her. She was dressed for bed, wearing what she’d had on when everyone had arrived at the house to join her in ceremony. In some distant corner of her consciousness, she could hear those guests, too—her children, her grandchildren, her students, and her friends. They had come at her request—for the obvious reason that no child or grandchild, no apprentice or assistant, ever refused Mother Sarita. They had come in quiet resignation—bringing gourds and drums, lighting candles, and burning sage. They had come to sing, to pray, to plead. They had come to bring him back, the thirteenth son of a woman who could not be ignored. They had come as the ancestors would come, to do the job of spiritual warriors.

On this night, with so much at stake, Sarita had been transported from the circle of the faithful in her living room to a world that existed only in imagination. She had trespassed into the mind of another. She was willing to pay the price for that at some other time, but for now she must keep going. For now she must walk without apology into her son’s dream, and she must bring him back—dragging him by an insolent ear, if she had to. Certainly, she had done it many times before.

She shook her head as she remembered the child he once had been. She remembered those black eyes full of humor and mischief, and the little hands that had reached for her face with love when she was tired or touched by sadness. There was nothing—not even death—that would keep her from him. There was no logic that could undo her need for him, not even his logic. In her ninety-two years, Sarita had experienced all the joys and sorrows of being thirteen times a mother. She had survived the deaths of two of her children before this. She had lost husbands, sisters, brothers—but there was enough life in her still to fight one last time for what she loved. Picking up the bag again, she shook a little ethereal dust from the image of the Virgin Guadalupe and searched the landscape. She sniffed the air for some other sign, hesitated, and then turned around. Something had caught her attention, something that could not yet be seen. She would change course. She must follow her intuition—and the music.

The music grew louder with every painstaking step she took. It seemed to vibrate from ground and sky at once, pulsing to a loud beat . . . perhaps to the beat of the drums in her living room. She thanked God silently for obedient children and continued walking, her feet moving heavily through a thick spray of illuminated dust. Beyond the near horizon, she could see Earth rising over the rim of this vacant dream, blazing with a spirited light. She caught her breath. In the darkening sky of storm and shimmering heat, she could see something silhouetted against Earth’s brilliance. A tree loomed in the distance! Its heavy limbs seemed to undulate with erotic pleasure, causing green leaves to quiver and shine. Sarita marveled at the sight of something so full and fertile in a land of such vast emptiness.

Miguel . . . she whispered. In any dream where there was color and life, there would be her son. He used to say that fun followed him everywhere. Well, this was fun. This was magic. Wherever he was, there would be a celebration—of that she was certain. She walked on toward the tree, the music growing louder. The walk might have taken a lifetime, or a minute, or no time at all. She was aware only that her heart was beating to a lively tune while she walked. She must have come a long way, whatever the time, for the massive tree spread before her now—tall, wide, and graceful. Its limbs stretched in all directions, as if beckoning the universe into a huge, benevolent embrace. Sarita hesitated by a root that jutted out of star-silt, and peered up into what looked like a galaxy of suspended fruit twinkling in the unworldly light. As she gazed in wonder, her eyes fell on the one she had come to find. On the lowest limb of the gigantic tree, almost hidden among the dancing shadows and the thousand sparkling leaves, sat her son.

Miguel Ruiz was lounging against the trunk of the tree in his hospital gown, quietly munching on an apple. Seeing her now, his eyes brightened and he waved enthusiastically for her to come closer. His mother edged toward the tree, choosing her steps carefully through the enormous tangle of roots, until she was standing by the limb that supported him. It swooped low along the ground, making it possible for her to look directly into his eyes.

“Sarita!” he exclaimed, wiping juice from his lips with the tip of his thumb. “You’ve joined me! Good!” As she was about to speak, Miguel turned his whole body in the direction of the improbable horizon. “Do you see what I am seeing, Mamá ?” Miguel pointed enthusiastically at the vision of Earth and all her exquisite colors. Sarita caught a glimpse of her son’s bare bottom as the back of his gown fell open. She was tempted to spank him right there, grown man that he was, but he was anxiously calling for her attention.

“Sarita, look!”

From where she now stood, she could see the planet floating beyond the bending branches of the giant tree. It shone bright and clear against a midnight sky, spinning slowly at the edge of the fantasy they occupied.

“ La tierra, ” she said, sighing. “Where we both belong. It is time to stop this idiocy.”

“Do you see them?” Miguel asked urgently. “All the moving lights?”

Frowning, the old woman peered through the branches again. This was not Earth as she remembered it. As the planet slowly turned, she could see waves of light burning bright, then lifting away and evanescing into space. The lights burned hot in some isolated places, and not in others. But wait . . . no. Some streamed over the entire globe. And even as little sparks rose and dissolved, more waves of light fell onto Earth like liquid dreams.

“Yes! Dreams!” her son exclaimed, as if he had followed her thoughts. “These are the dreams of men and women who change humanity. Small ones, bigger ones, and great, lasting ones. Dreams that begin and end, live, and then die.”

“If they die, where do they go?” she asked, puzzled at the rising and falling of light, much like the bouncing waves of sound displayed on her grandson’s stereo. “And where do they begin?”

“From creation—and back to creation!” he said with a laugh, taking another bite from the apple. “Do you see that bright one?” he marveled. “Wonderful! It feels like George, whose message is still remembered. So gentle a dream . . . do you see it?”