The Active Side of Infinity by Carlos Castaneda

Author:Carlos Castaneda [Castaneda, Carlos]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780060192204
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1998-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Beyond Syntax

The Usher

I was in don Juan's house in Sonora, sound asleep in my bed, when he woke me up. I had stayed up practically all night, mulling over concepts that he had explained to me.

"You have rested enough," he said firmly, almost gruffly, as he shook me by the shoulders. "Don't indulge in being fatigued. Your fatigue is, more than fatigue, a desire not to be bothered. Something in you resents being bothered. But it's most important that you exacerbate that part of you until it breaks down. Let's go for a hike."

Don Juan was right. There was some part of me that resented immensely being bothered. I wanted to sleep for days and not think about don Juan's sorcery concepts anymore. Thoroughly against my will, I got up and followed him. Don Juan had pre-pared a meal, which I devoured as if I hadn't eaten for days, and then we walked out of the house and headed east, toward the mountains. I had been so dazed that I hadn't noticed that it was early morning until I saw the sun, which was right above the eastern range of mountains. I wanted to comment to don Juan that I had slept all night without moving, but he hushed me. He said that we were going to go on an expedition to the mountains to search for specific plants.

"What are you going to do with the plants you are going to collect, don Juan?" I asked him as soon as we had started off.

"They are not for me," he said with a grin. "They are for a friend of mine, a botanist and pharmacist. He makes potions with them."

"Is he a Yaqui, don Juan? Does he live here in Sonora?" I asked.

"No, he isn't a Yaqui, and he doesn't live here in Sonora. You'll meet him someday."

"Is he a sorcerer, don Juan?"

"Yes, he is," he replied dryly.

I asked him then if I could take some of the plants to be identified at the Botanical Garden at UCLA.

"Surely, surely!" he said.

I had found out in the past that whenever he said "surely," he didn't mean it. It was obvious that he had no intention whatsoever of giving me any specimens for identification. I became very curious about his sorcerer friend, and asked him to tell me more about him, perhaps describe him, telling me where he lived and how he got to meet him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" don Juan said, as if I were a horse. "Hold it, hold it! Who are you? Professor Lorca? Do you want to study his cognitive system?"

We went deep into the arid foothills. Don Juan walked steadily for hours. I thought that the task of the day was going to be just to walk. He finally stopped and sat down on the shaded side of the foothills.

"It is time that you start on one of the biggest projects of sorcery," don Juan said.

"What is this project of sorcery that you're talking about, don Juan?" I inquired.

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