WHY AGREEMENTS?” LALA ASKED WITH CONSTERNATION. “Why not commandments? Why not the New Commandments! The Four Sacred Laws! The Pious Promises!”

“They can break an agreement,” don Leonardo sighed, “or change it. There is no judgment or retribution.”

“How does that keep humans in check?”

“Have commandments kept anyone in check? Are vows never broken?”

“Vows are broken, and then confessions are spoken,” she said. “They commit a sin and then judge themselves. God judges them and they judge each other. They must be thoroughly judged.”

“To judge, and to find yourself guilty, is to go against yourself.”

“Oh, of course. The Law of Impeccability.” She yawned.

“The first agreement, my dear. If you dishonor an agreement, learn from the experience and do your best next time. It is an act of grace to forgive. It is an act of love to offer yourself another chance.”

“It is a godly act to punish the backslider.”

“Yes, I see how that has been the strategy—to turn browbeaten children into guilty men and women—but has humanity lived so happily under these laws, señora?”

“Like you, happiness is pure fantasy.”

“Like me, you are pure fantasy.”

They paused. Sarita was absent, but they could still feel her disapproval at their bickering, so they held off. With this pause came an awareness of their surroundings. It appeared that they were watching a private ceremony on the top of the Pyramid of the Sun.

“This is an interesting event,” don Leonardo commented, shifting his focus.

“Where is this?” asked Lala with alarm.

“Quite obviously, we are on the great pyramid. I never had the pleasure of visiting this place.”

“Nor I,” she echoed quietly.

“Aha! You have been promoted!”

“How is it possible?” asked Lala, catching her breath. She was uneasy, in spite of herself. The Pyramid of the Sun represented life, not its reflections.

“Never mind how,” he said, stepping closer to the scene. “Let us give it our full attention. I recognize Miguel, my grandson. He is not changed much since his student days.”

“Your decrepit daughter should be seeing this.”

“My venerable daughter, señora. Please show some respect,” he chastised. She had a point, though, he admitted to himself: Sarita should be seeing this. “You and I have been entrusted with this event. We are here in this glorious spot, where human intent has connected sun to Earth. I see Miguel, smiling and silent. I see a woman with him . . . but her face is unfamiliar to me.”

“The bookmaker.”

“The bookmaker?” he asked, surprised.

“Your grandson’s first book is being printed, and it will be read by people of all cultures. It may just change the world, sir—through language!”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Leonardo. “I did not live long enough to see this!”

“Indeed, there is nothing so wonderful as the printed word,” she said, picking up a few lost shards of enthusiasm. “Do people ever doubt words that are put to papyrus?”

“Paper. No, not often.” He took a deep breath and nodded his head approvingly. “The Four Agreements. A bold perspective. Clean. Simple. And yet disruptive . . . compelling.”

“The dream is fine the way it is.”

“Sickness is fine?” don Leonardo snapped. “Tyranny is fine?” The woman was testing his patience. “Are you saying that fear and retribution are good companions, or that violent responses lead to pleasant results?”

“It appears you are taking the subject a bit personally.”

The old gentleman looked into her fiery eyes and sensed the danger there. It served no purpose to encourage this one, he reminded himself. Words incited conflict, her favorite food. Be they sweet words or bitter words, she would feast on the result.

“I have great respect for your powers, my dear lady,” he said sanguinely. “I wish only to emphasize that you could apply them to better effect.”

Lala stared at him, unable to think of an appropriate response.

“The bookmaker seems well-meaning,” Leonardo observed, “but what is her precise intention?”

“She is reciting prayers, obviously. She is performing a ceremony of her own design. She hopes to conjure success through heartfelt wishes.”

“She stands beside a nagual man, and presumes to wish,” don Leonardo commented, then smiled. Just the sound of that word enlivened him. Nagual. Total power. The tonal, in his culture, referred to matter. Beyond matter was sheer mystery, the limitless and the unknowable, that which was impervious to knowledge. A nagual man was one who knew himself as infinite potential, as the force of life itself. Don Leonardo walked toward his grandson and reached out to touch him. There was no one there to touch, and nothing to feel but the power that still lingered within a gossamer memory. Wait! There it was! As the old man’s hand felt the air and his fingers trembled, his smile grew into quiet laughter. “Intent is the physical force of life,” he said. “Intent runs through this man.”

Lala turned back to watch him, and curiosity took hold. Her hand began to imitate his, moving through the air, around and between the two people who stood, windblown, at the summit of the pyramid. “Intent, you say, or intention?”

“Intention is the mind’s work, señora. As you put it, a wish and a prayer . . .”

“. . . and a hope,” she murmured.

“It takes something beyond hope to bring a dream to life,” Leonardo said. “It takes action—action that is fueled by faith in oneself.”

“Faith in oneself?” said Lala. “You are the father of blasphemy, sir!”

“So says the mother of lies, madam!” the old gentleman shot back. Satisfied that he’d had the last word, Leonardo shifted his attention. In that instant, they both evanesced into sunshine, allowing the dream to rearrange itself and move on.

Father of blasphemy, mother of lies. How silly words can sound when we forget their true purpose. We are all tempted to accuse, and easily persuaded to defend a favored illusion, an idea of ourselves that only words can explain. By investing all our faith in those words, we become the illusion. We are knowledge, struggling tirelessly to find the words that best describe our journey back to truth.

Nagual is a word I grew up hearing, a word that caught my imagination early on. Within my family, tonal and nagual were familiar ways to describe the totality of life—matter and pure energy. My grandfather Leonardo loved to tell me about the Toltec ways and traditions, and he shared his understanding of these things with joyful enthusiasm. I can feel his delight even now, as I recall how he helped me rekindle my own love for life. Don Leonardo told me many wonderful stories and guided me toward mysteries that couldn’t be told but might be experienced. As a teacher and guide, I have also told stories in order to excite wonder and a deeper curiosity. One, in particular, conveys an essential lesson in awareness. I have told it many ways, but the message is always the same. . . .

There once was a man who, like many humans, became aware of himself as the infinite force of life. This happened to him in a sudden moment of inspiration. This kind of inspiration can happen to anyone, at any time. In this case, the man stood under the stars one clear and silent night and was captivated by what he saw. This happens to all of us, this sudden and strong appreciation for the majesty of the universe; we are suddenly amazed to see beauty everywhere. We take on the eyes of an artist, and beauty is all we see.

So . . . in that moment, the man I’m talking about understood everything—everything—without words. It didn’t matter how long ago the stars had sent information across the landscape of infinity, or if those stars still existed. He was receiving their messages in that moment.

Having looked at the night sky, we all know that the darkness stretching between stars looks like empty space. We may also know that this space is much, much bigger than the space that is occupied by all the stars put together. More than two thousand years ago, in the great civilization of Teotihuacan, the Toltec people referred to the space between objects as the nagual.

Let’s say that this man, standing under the stars that brilliant night, suddenly looked down at his hands. There, too, he saw the universe. He saw that his hands were made of millions of atoms, in the same way that the universe was made of stars. Like the stars, the atoms in his body represented the tonal, or manifest life. He then realized, without any doubt, that the nagual creates the tonal. He could see that the light-filled emptiness was responsible for the creation of all matter. The nagual was total power, the infinite force of creation. The story goes on to talk about the man’s excitement at his discovery, and his desire never to forget its meaning. He knew that his experience could easily be forgotten in the distraction of human existence.

So what are we? Are we the tonal, or are we the nagual? Are we matter, or are we life? Humans have been asking this in different ways for thousands of years, without realizing the simplicity of the truth. The truth is life and death, a simple binary formula whose mathematical symbols are 0 and 1. In the language of science, this means energy and matter. In religious storytelling, it is God . . . and creation.

The stories we tell about truth often lead us further into distortions and deeper into our own fears. We don’t need to prove that life exists—if we tried to do so, we would be doubting our own existence. We are alive, so life exists. Death, or matter, obviously exists as well—everything that has been created also has an end. Incarnation is the process by which life creates matter, moves matter, and becomes matter. The man in my story knew he was the nagual, the force that animated his physical body. The body, or tonal, was his creation. The body was his sanctuary, a place he loved and respected unconditionally. Every place he occupied deserved the same respect. This planet, an object among billions of objects in the vast landscape of life, was also his home, deserving of his respect and love.

A nagual man knows himself to be the force that creates existence and moves matter. He sees that all else is temporal. All else—like thought, like words—is a mirror distortion. To know these things is to know truth.

Is it not true, my angel of love, that walking hand in hand into the dream of life . . . every step is blessed by God?

The wedding ceremony was being held at the home of an apprentice in New Mexico, surrounded by red cliffs and embraced by sapphire skies. This was a good place, an enchanted place. Sarita could feel the hum of Earth-music beneath her feet, and her ears heard sacraments in simple birdsong. The scent of life was evident in desert blossoms and piñon trees, as the summer sun scorched the air to a crystalline brilliance.

Miguel’s words to the gathering were strong, and so was his intent. Listening as a remote observer, Sarita marveled at the change in her son. She had forgotten how evident his power was at that stage of his life. Back from a journey to Hawaii, he was quickly changing. He had found someone who was eager to publish his first book. He had fallen in love again and begun planning for a new family. He had cut his long hair, altered his style of dress, and started jogging every day. He was still young at forty-five, and even more handsome than his father at that age.

“José Luis,” she whispered wistfully. It was good to think of her husband again. At the time of this wedding, he was so recently gone, and his absence had changed her in many ways. After their trip to India, José Luis had begun to show symptoms of fatigue, but he had dismissed them as trivial. He had refused to seek help, and she’d lost him before anyone understood the seriousness of his illness. His death had been unexpected and devastating. Had that loss also changed Miguel? It seemed that something had. He began to tell a new story, another kind of story, with a different cast of characters. Dhara had moved on, and he was inviting another woman to share his life. He was getting married. A few friends and students were here to witness the ceremony; there were no family members present. He recited the words happily, as if he were a boy again, eager for the next adventure and indifferent to its consequences.

Is it not true, my angel of life, that in the eternity of my joy, the smile on your face reflects the love in my eyes?

He was igniting a new flame, yes, but he was also extinguishing an old one. In spite of Miguel’s almost childlike enthusiasm, this ceremony was not being undertaken with the recklessness of a boy, but rather with the deliberate calculations of a man. By committing to this woman, he would be ending old dreams and welcoming new ones. It was strange to see the wedding ceremony from this perspective—one more moment in his life that he hadn’t shared with her, and one more aspect of him that she hadn’t known. She was gratified to witness it now, and thankful that he wanted her to. Change was not a challenge for a man like him. He could adapt, and he could love, no matter the person or the circumstance.

Sarita wiped a tear from her eye and watched it float into sunlight. She hadn’t realized how these memories would stir her. Someone touched her shoulder, and she became aware of the older Miguel, standing at her side. He was wearing his hospital gown, of course, looking small and fragile, nothing like the man in the sunlit ceremony; still, a smile lit his face as he observed the scene playing out before them.

“A mother’s happiest dream,” he said cheerfully.

“You followed me here,” she said, nodding. “Thank you.”

“I wanted to enjoy this moment with you.”

“You’ve looked better,” she noted wryly, pointing toward the groom as evidence.

“I have indeed.” He watched as the minister read the service. “Isn’t it good to see your son happily married at last?” he asked, smiling ironically.

“You were happy; I see that,” she said, her eyes gleaming. “You remind me of your father, m’ijo.”

“My father made his marriage a success.”

“He would never have dared to leave me—that is certain.” Miguel was not his father, she mused. Strong as women might be, he was always more so. “She was a delightful girl, as I remember her,” Sarita offered.

“She still is, but it didn’t work.”

Sarita was about to answer when she saw a bit of movement above them, on a nearby ridge. Thinking it was a deer, a symbol of grace and love, she pointed.

“Is that—?” she began, and then recognized the silhouette of her grandfather, so spry and yet so long deceased. “Is that don Eziquio?” she marveled. “He’ll kill himself jumping around like that.”

“He insists on blessing the occasion.” Miguel smiled, then said, “It was blessed, in truth. Everyone had a magic glow that day, don’t you think?”

“You seem very much in love,” she agreed.

“Of course I was. I adored her.”

“You say that about all of them,” she said affectionately.

“I mean that about all of them.” Miguel shrugged.

“They can accept only the love they think they deserve, m’ijo . . . not a limitless love, not one that sees beyond the woman, to the truth.” She smiled, her face touched by emotion. “Still, it seemed so right between you and this girl.”

“There was no right. There was no wrong.” He put a frail arm around his mother. “I tried. I failed. That’s it.”

“Son, look at your joy, your fearless resolve! The bride is radiant, and you have such excitement in your eyes!”

“I made a big effort, and so did she,” he said, watching. “The desire was there, the sex was wonderful—”

“Miguel!”

“—but should it have been such an effort? We rarely agreed about anything. It became clear that I embarrassed her. She was reluctant to introduce me to her friends. When she did, I felt like a squid in a pool of exotic fish.”

Sarita had to laugh. “Such a brilliant and exceptional squid!”

“This was not a match,” he insisted, indicating the couple getting married. “It wouldn’t have lasted, but it could be argued that you and Dhara didn’t mourn its collapse.”

“Did you expect otherwise?”

Did he? Miguel frowned slightly, wondering. “You both wanted to drive Miguel’s dream, Madre, and you could not,” he said. “It was mine to live.”

Sarita looked at him, considering the vehicle he would need to navigate through a human dream once again. His body was compromised, but there was still a great nagual man at its helm. His had been a remarkable existence. His life had been a monument to loving, and his body was its instrument. He would come back and give more. She would see to that.

“How long did this one last, in the end?”

“Three months. Three months of discords and perfect harmonies.”

“And then what? What should I expect to see next?”

Her son turned to her, looked her directly in the eye, and said, “Are you ready?” It was a question he always asked apprentices who insisted on seeing things they were not remotely prepared to see. In fact, he would always ask them three times. Realizing this, the wiser ones would stop demanding an act of power from him. Those who didn’t were warned, but only barely. “Are you ready?” he would say a third time, and then reality would shift before they could answer. Visions came, thinking stopped, and the truth roared in like a punch to the stomach.

Sarita had no warning at all.

“Are you ready?” he said softly, weaving the words under the jabber of piñon jays and the rush of hummingbird wings . . . and then she was standing in an unfamiliar room.

It was a woman’s bedroom. It must have been nighttime, because a bedside lamp was on, and the apricot curtains and bedspreads had turned to flaming gold. Dhara was sitting on her bed, in her own home in San Diego. It had been a while since Sarita had visited the house, but she recalled that this is where Miguel had come when he left his new wife a few months after the wedding. He had gone to Dhara’s house. He had flown back from a Circle of Fire weekend, a yearly gathering of his students and family members, and announced to everyone there that he was releasing his bride from her vows. He had left his car in Tahoe and flown back . . . to Dhara.

Sarita could see Miguel, as he was then, sitting in an armchair several feet from the bed. His eyes were closed, and he said nothing. He had arrived late at night. Dhara’s son had let him into the house. “I’m here to see your mother,” Miguel said, walking unannounced down the hall to her bedroom. Dhara was astonished to see him there, but his expression told her everything. She kept her silence. An hour later, they were still sitting on different sides of the room, in silence, offering each other grace and forgiveness without commentary. There were no more battles to fight.

Sarita recalled the next weeks, as Dhara rose like a marvelous eagle, lifting Miguel away from his disappointment over the failed marriage. They traveled to Italy, and the journey shifted and changed him. He would let go of his sadness and rebound. They dined in Venice, toured the Vatican, and walked the ruins of Rome. Italy was a feast of pleasures and amusements—something Miguel could not say about his experiences in India, where the two had traveled together years before. India had not been the heady spiritual adventure for him that it had been for Dhara, or for Sarita. The place did not suit him, it seemed; but being in Italy provided the distraction he needed at a difficult time, and the precious opportunity to decide how his energies would be redirected.

Sitting in silence with Dhara this night, his heart began to heal. The two would come together to share new moments, but without demands or conflict. Sarita sighed, closed her eyes, and dreamed with Miguel and Dhara in the lamplight. She sensed a deep tranquillity now. The anger was gone, and love burned hard and bright within them both. Truth had finally reclaimed the eternal moment. No rebellious words were left to speak . . . and for this one sweet glimpse of peace, Sarita would be forever grateful. In this place the war was won, respect ruled, and consequence had no meaning.

“Are you ready?” she heard her son ask.

“Yes,” she answered, but the vision was already gone. Dhara and the lamplight were gone. Sarita was back with Miguel at the wedding. The bride and groom were now dancing with their guests, and the sun was setting on the western hills. Eziquio, the trickster, skipped lightly on the rim of a mountaintop. Magic showered over his little land of enchantment and touched all its dreaming souls.