It began as a meditation. I often sit on the bed at night and gaze out through the open door. Since we live on a 5 acre parcel in the desert, I have a magnificent view of distant mountains covered by snow, and a closer vista of Joshua trees, pinon pines and yucca plants. The desert is not the barren wasteland so many envision. Instead, it is full of life in all its many manifestations.
So I sat on the bed and leaned back, enjoying the last vestiges of light splashed along the horizon. It had rained in the morning, and the scent of wet chaparral brush lay heavy in the air. A cold breeze was blowing in. The sky was a pale shade of winter night.
I drifted. And then I slept. Just sitting there at the edge of the desert, on the edge of the nagual. Last thing I recalled, I had glanced at the clock to see that it was about 5:45. Quite some time later, I awakened to the sound of footsteps, and a man's voice. Very clearly, he said, "It's time to get up."
Opening my eyes, I discovered a naked man standing just inside my door, less than 5 feet from me. Silhouetted against the open door, there was no mistake, and yet I was completely without fear. It isn't that I am fearless. It was simply that there was nothing to fear, and in that state between sleep and waking, I Knew this on a level of awareness that transcends all logic.
I gazed at this man for approximately 5 seconds - quite a long time if one is holding one's hand in flame or looking at a naked man standing next to one's bed. As I gazed at him, he began to morph much like a special effect in a movie, and as I watched with utter fascination, he turned into a large golden dog who has been frequenting our land for several weeks - a stray whom we've fed from time to time, but who has always shied away from physical contact.
In the sorcerer's world, nothing is as it seems. All things are only transient manifestations of energy. After the man had become the dog, I got up and went out into the yard, where he was sitting on an old grass mat, gazing at me with one upright ear and one bent ear, and a funny smile that was far more human than not. Laughing at me, I suspect. So I laughed, too.
What does it mean? Who's to say? It is known in the shaman's world that brujos can take on the shape of animals if that is their Will, so I cannot possibly know if the dog is really a sorcerer in his own right, or if a sorcerer chose to manifest as the dog. All I know is that a brujo with a sense of humor wandered naked into my house while I lay sleeping, and told me it was time to get up.
Is this some allegorical tale? Nope. Every word of it is true. Such is life in the sorcerer's world. Trying to wrap human comprehension around it is like trying to contain the nagual in a teacup. The experience is the journey, and the journey is the cumulative experiences that go to form a foundation of Knowledge. I was honored by a visit from a brujo, and after we played together for awhile in the open desert, he simply disappeared into the night, a shadow running along the road.
The crack between the worlds stands open. Sometimes, if we are blessed, something from the other side slips through to remind us of our own limitless power, and the unbounded wonder that is Life.
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Excerpt from...
Quantum Shaman: Diary of a Nagual Woman (by Della Van Hise)
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