The
News From Spain agency reported recently that Judge Baltasar Garzon had initiated legal action against several
officials of the Bush administration.
“If I were any of those former honchos I wouldn't
travel to Spain,” my NFS source said. “Or anywhere else for that matter. Garzon
is the judge who nabbed General
Augusto Pinochet In London, you know.”
The
NFS correspondent, who wished to remain anonymous, also reminded me that Garzon
is a descendant of Francisco Pizarro, the head conquistador who foisted Spain
and its civilizing church on Peru.
“Apparently,
some two-dozen generations have not diluted the family’s vindictive spirit of
old,” she explained. “But Garzon is more honest than his famous progenitor was:
When a former Bush associate with oil connections put up his hand to the wall
as high as he could reach saying: ‘I will flood all of Spain for you this high
with black gold if you leave me alone,’ unlike his great granddad, Garzon
refused to consider the offer.”
As
the historic record shows, Pizarro and his fellow conquistadors got a roomful
of gold then reneged on their promise to release Emperor Inca Atahualpa whom they held in Cusco, the capital of
his extensive empire.
“And
what did we gain from all his cheating? His own men killed my great grandfather
and we, his descendants, have lived in poverty ever since. Justice is more
valuable than gold, glinting yellow or black,” the NFS correspondent quoted the
judge to have declared.
For
his part, the taciturn Machiavellian former US politician apparently was duly
alarmed. “This is truly ominous,” he reportedly stated with a touch of paranoia.
“It won’t be the first time Spain decimates a thriving empire in the Americas.”
As a research
psychologist specializing in intercultural cross influences, the historical allusion
piqued my curiosity. At the first opportunity I chose to tour Peru with my
family. In Cusco we smelled our way along a stone-paved alley off of the Plaza de Armas to some authentic local
cuisine. That is how we first discovered The Alternative Inca Tour Service. We
entered through another trapezoid doorway, its two sides precisely cut out of
massive black rock at the optimal angle to withstand the Goddess Patcha Mama’s
frequent willful shaking of Her mountainous Andean domain. A young native
beauty greeted us at the door and proceeded to outline in Spanish the various
tours on offer, including one with an overnight visit to an Inca Shaman who
specialized in native hallucinogenic teas. We were in luck, we were told, since
there would be full moon and no rain on the appointed night. “And the shaman is
well versed in the occult sciences,” the woman added.
We debated the
degree of adventurism appropriate for the three-generation mix of our travel
party. We decided to shelter the children and womenfolk from the vagaries of
such full immersion in native culture; only my son and I would dare the
challenge; that was the family consensus. Later, the party shrank by another
fifty percent due to attrition from food poisoning. I had to decide whether to
forego the down payment altogether or to venture alone on a nightlong foray
among the Incas. Then the assigned translator, who had already collected her
fee in advance, claimed a family emergency. I was faced with another fateful
decision. Trouble was I was the frugal type; I never had the fiscal latitude or
the inner fortitude to forego a monetary debt owed me. And I loved to ride a
good horse. I went.
******
We started at
Ollataytambo where we sampled the local Pisco Sour, Corn Chicha, coca tea and
coca candy. At the horse ranch, baring all seemed to be the operative mode for
the journey: Flanked by two bare-breasted maiden guides I rode my mare
bareback. The narrow path turned and twisted with the Urubamba River on its
wild rush to loose itself into the grandeur of the Amazon thousands of miles
down the craggy Andes. We were following the ancient Inca Trail in the belly of
The Sacred Valley, my companions explained. My consciousness had already
started its beneficent obfuscation. We stopped briefly for them to clear some
overgrowth from our path with their machetes. I objected to my companions’
carrying of weapons as well as to the overgrowth itself. I explained as best as
I could that such scene was more suitable for the tropical forest of the Amazon
basin further down, not here with the sparse vegetation of the mountain
terrain.
“And who knows,” I
added. “You may well be wasting a singularly valuable yet-to-be-discovered
plant form.”
“You are right,”
my two guides responded simultaneously. “Prior to the twentieth century no one
valued our native rubber tree.”
“Where would we
all be without rubber?” I said making a silly dig. “You should have held on to
the patent.”
“Those rubber
kings in Iquitos got so fat they shipped their laundry to be done in Paris. Can
you imagine?”
“Who knows but I
might be on my way to fame and riches then,” I joked.
“Not you,” they responded together. “We research our clients and we know you are one with us. You would not enslave us as the Europeans on the rubber plantations did."
They were winning
me over. Since we arrived in Lima I had sought to connect with Peruvians around
me. With my Middle Eastern looks I thought I could pass for a mestizo. The hint
at my acceptance into the native fold sent me orbiting at the far edges of the
Milky Way whose outline had started to decorate the evening skies. I felt one
not only with the Incas but with all natives, indeed with all humanity and with
the entire universe. I was already circling in the realm of the unimaginable.
That was when it
first struck me how adept at sign language I had become after those drinks at
the horse ranch and they at understanding me. I knew how alcohol affected me
and this was not it. I broke out laughing wildly for I realized that it
couldn’t be only the latent effect of the tea we had had. It had been offered
with the explanation that it should tide us over till we made it to the
shaman’s home up the slopes. Some of the discourse of Professor Timothy Leary
in my college days came to mind: Could this be the magical ‘before-effect’ of
the powerful hallucinogenic concoctions I was about to take? I seemed to
remember him explaining that if we accept that some drugs may have a lifelong
aftereffect then we should expect the sequential reverse of that in some cases.
I never fully understood Leary’s theories in the first place and decided to
drop his doubtful line of reasoning right then and there.
We arrived at our
destination with the night still young. The entire length of the street leading
from the village Plaza to the shaman’s house was lined on both sides with basalt
boulders, each the size of a small tent, topped by precisely cut and fitted
smaller black stones with an occasional narrow window opening at such a height
that it was not possible to see through it from the street. Each window faced
slightly differently from all the others. I understood instinctively that, like
those of the Great Mosque in Cordova, each window was designed to allow the
sunrays in for one specific day of the year. My maiden guides signaled to me
that, in recognition of the shaman’s special stature as the high priest, the
window of his private room admitted the sunrays on the day of the summer
solstice.
The shaman waited
for us at the door. Though he wore a large black stone cross on his chest, he
was still fully committed to Inti, the Inca Sun God, he explained. He wore an
armless woolen vest over faded blue jeans and walked barefoot. Fiber bracelets
adorned his muscular upper arms and one held back his long hair in a thick
braid. I queried my two companions with a gesture: “Are we in Macho Picchu?”
They understood my
gut-inspired gesturing style and confirmed my suspicion with nods and a big
smile, apparently in reverence and appreciation of my mentioning the name of
the sacred locale at the center of which we stood. The amazing thing was that
the same happy and proud smile spread across their two faces. This was a
revelation for me. It was not two maidens smiling at me simultaneously. That
would have been charming enough. It was a single smile shared by two separate
faces. The effect of this strange phenomenon went way beyond exhilaration.
Absorbing its cogency, I was instantaneously transformed into emotional
omniscience. I understood my inner reality better than I had in all of my seven
decades of earthbound awareness. When I inquired about that shared smile, the
two maidens explained in unison that it was on account of their being in Macho
Picchu, the proudest relic of Inca civilization, in the presence of the high
priest who was a descendant of Emperor Huayna Capac, founder of the Inca
empire, and the reigning personification of Inti, the sun god.
It is difficult to
describe the depth of my delight not only at receiving this explanation from
the two lovely Incan supplicants but also at being able to comprehend their
sign language. I neglected to mention that at the teeming plaza of the sacred
village we were treated to another cup of local herbal tea, possibly
facilitating my comprehension beyond my realization. In unison, yet privately,
my two companions had already explained to me that the essence of all the
psychedelic experience they were guiding me through was sexual in nature, and
hence my unlimited pleasure throughout the night even though no sexual contact
was necessary. “The smile is the culmination of all positive feelings,” the two
explained. “It is the flowering of love beyond which extends the emptiness of
the universe and the nothingness of the Gods. Love is the ultimate reality and
the smile is its spring flower. That is where we all are heading tonight.”
At the door, the
shaman pounded his clenched fest emphatically to the V-opening in his baby
alpaca wool vest where his cross lay:
"Carlos."
"I had hoped
for a different name; something authentic," I said hoping he understood
English.
"Autentic,"
he repeated with a nod of his head. His prominent nose, which bisected his
wide-open and deeply furrowed chocolate brown face, dominated the head motion.
" Velcome, Autentic!" he added.
I had studied a
pamphlet at the hotel that gave a dozen Quechua words of which I managed to retain
only two. But ‘cat’ and ‘sneeze’ did little to facilitate our interaction. I
had to work on bridging the communication gap between us so he could read
my exact thoughts and I his. I had already achieved that degree of fluency in
sign language with his two followers. We had some more tea and a couple of
spiked green corn tamales. These did the trick.
When we entered
the shaman’s living room, none other but Dark Vader, the former American
official, was sitting there with a lopsided snide smirk on his face.
“We have been
waiting for you, fellow!” he said casually, doing away with introductions.
“What brings you
here, partner?” I responded likewise.
“I was visiting
with some of my Contra friends in Nicaragua and they suggested I consult with
this man about my condition. Now that you are here to translate for us we can
proceed with the business at hand.”
I thought he was
pulling my leg.
“No translators,
no guards, no state-level ceremonies? What is this?” I asked.
He shook his head
dismissively.
“I am here on a
private visit. Few know about this.” He sounded convincing.
“You speak Spanish
then?” I asked.
“Not on your life.
I don’t want anything to do with that country. You translate for me,” he
insisted
I hesitated,
remembering how quickly the Americans went through translators in Iraq for
example. I wanted to see my family again and hated the risk of becoming another
honor-killing statistic or, worse, having shoes thrown at me. He promised to
keep our liaison a secret and I agreed reluctantly.
“Tell the shaman I
am here because of my weak heart,” he said taking command of the situation.
I did and the
shaman cited the example of his own brave ancestors explaining that it was
entirely a matter of attitude and that it was all in the gringo’s head and that
he should gather the courage to go to Spain and face his accusers. I explained
as best as I could that the man was speaking of his physical heart condition
but to no avail.
“I should have
accepted the CIA’s offer and not let them throw that one to the sharks,” the
former official said. “They told me it was a perfect DNA match,” he added. “It
is too late now; I have to wait in the transplant queue.”
My host went back
to our planned hallucinogenic tour. He labored to give us a clearer idea of
what to expect:
“We will guide you
through an unforgettable experience,” he said in sign language.
I hadn’t realized
before that the royal ‘we’ had a completely different essence and sign than the
plural pronoun.
“The first level
of spiritual gymnastics involves the suspending of ordinary logic and the
expanding of consciousness,” he explained. “You need imagination and trust in
the other; you have to permit us into your soul for this to work. "
“Let me tell you,”
I hastened to admit, “in my case, the process is already well on its way, what
with the potions I have imbibed so far and the hours of horseback trotting.”
“The physical is
the gateway to the spiritual,” our host responded. “Your Sufi tradition must
have taught you that, no doubt. I can see by your receptive frame of mind that
you have already been mystically transformed beyond the limiting concepts of
the possible.”
He was obviously
buttering me up, I realized.
“I am already
comfortable in the realm of the paradoxical,” I acknowledged. I was about to
explain that the thin Andean air must have played a role in inducing my total
openness of mind, but this physiologically based reasoning seemed trite in the
extreme.
“We
will now proceed to the second level where you will gain an intimation of the
divine and peer into the soul of the universe. You will travel to where no
frame of reference is of any use, to the flaming borders of the cosmos. This we
will achieve with a different tea extracted from the ‘Spirit Vine’ and with
more willful abandon from your side. The Vine reveals the primordial to the
human spirit and induces clairvoyance. But you need to let your imagination
roam. Try to align yourself with the philosophy of the Vine. Imagine yourself a
cosmic serpent that swallows the whole of humanity, nay, the entire creation.”
I had no problem
translating his sign language to English for the benefit of the other visitor.
The shaman nodded to the two maiden companions who, gold chalices in hand,
strode towards us in ephemeral dance steps and tried to induce us to scoff down
the brew. I took my drink in one gulp. The American former official refused to
touch his.
“One is yours and
the other is his for the night,” my host motioned to me from an adjacent
galaxy. “But beware of the inner fires or we may lose you. Keep Patcha Mamma in
your sight; Mother Earth is where you belong even when you soar to the distant
heavens.”
“I am here for a
physical ailment, not for this kind of monkey business,” the American insisted.
The shaman
suggested an injection he had for him but this was refused as well. Slowly, I
surrendered the last memory of sensibility and willingly let myself be swept up
by the perfumed whirlwind of intimacy swirling around my maiden muse and me. We
spiraled up the moonlit skies to where All was clear to the senses. I traced
the initiatory path of the prophets to the sacred seat of power. The universal
order was one flawless consciousness. Bright and luminous scintillating
patterns of colored light ignited the skies from one wide horizon to the other.
But the other guest kept the same somber expression, constantly jumping at the
least motion.
“All this and we
are only at the middle stage,” I marveled to the shaman hours later upon
regaining a measure of balance in our post-rapture repose.
“We shall head
back now,” he explained. “Only the few can reenter the mythic era and pass from
the sensual to the numinous to achieve the coveted union with Inti. You retain
traces of sensibility. With that His light will annihilate you, I am
afraid."
I objected but to
no avail. I explained our argument to the American guest.
“Travel insurance
doesn’t cover this, I know,” he said wearing his usual self-assured,
all-knowing expression.
“He doesn’t want
to budge from his geo-temporal cage,” the shaman gestured in response. “He
never dropped his guard for a moment. How can a man of the spirit like me do
anything for him?”
“What you have led
me through is not totally strange to my field,” I said seeking to get even
closer to the shaman.
“Who said it had
to be?” he answered. “Truth is unitary.”
“I am familiar
with such states of altered consciousness as out of body voyages and near death
experiences.”
“Except that those
places you have just visited are real. That is my incontestable truth.”
“Only in the biological
sense that ‘junk DNA in our cells may contain dormant mystical knowledge,’ as I
have heard it explained,” the American said with certainty. Leave it to this
guy to ponder the mysteries of cellular memory, I thought. Perhaps that is why
he refused that enemy donor.
“That is the old
Byzantine riddle of what came first, the quail or the egg?” the shaman said
mocking. “I find it easier to accept that at source we humans were ideations
and only later discovered we could inhabit matter.”
“And hence our
physicality, you want me to believe,” I joined the argument on the American’s
side. “I am not totally convinced. I exist and therefore I dream.”
“I exist, period!”
the man declared.
"Infinite
love is the way out of all illusion,” the shaman concluded on a conciliatory
note.
We retired to the
shaman’s Andean stone guestroom, the other guest still wearing his expression
of impatient disbelief. In a timeless mythical diorama I witnessed all the
past, present, and future simultaneously compressed in a four-dimensional
plane. With a sense of relief, I accepted the shaman’s explanations in lieu of
the experience itself: The four short arms of the cross-like diagram cut in
stone in the floor of the room symbolized the four forces of the universe:
earth, water, wind and fire or Itni, the Sun God.
“At the center of
the four potencies of the cross is the human community, the Arabs, the
Americans, the Incas, the Spanish and everyone else,” he explained.
“Leave the
Spaniards out of it,” the American shouted.
The shaman
continued, paying little attention:
“The physical
multi-dimensionality, the social complexity, and the historical development of
all peoples are thus completely incorporated and given full expression in
this unique Inca symbolic representation,” he explained.
He seemed
convinced of what he said. When I tried to augment my understanding and
acceptance of that reality by drawing him into expounding on the
wisdom of his revelations he declared harmony as the basis of it all and
pointed to the bottomless hole at the center of the diagram that drained all
negativity from the four corners of our four-dimensional existence.
“It is the whole
of humanity, not the Inca and the Arabs alone,” he added. And, let me tell you,
it was all real and clear as the midday sun though it was all conveyed to me in
sign language.
As my good friend,
the shaman, said something in Quechua to our companions, the two maidens shared
another horizon-wide single smile as bright and promising as the break of dawn.
He signaled to me: “Let’s follow the girls,” and we did. They brought us a
third but milder offering, a wooden bowl of beer each. We took our seats at the
back of his “House of the Sun.” The balcony was made of rough-hewn native wood
supported by sturdy pillars above the abundant wild growth at the edge of the
Amazon waters on our left. A huge uniformly green plot of yucca was at our
right. My host signaled to me that our beer was made from thoroughly chewed and
fermented yucca:
“The fermentation
does not dilute the arousing effects of women’s saliva on a man’s lips,” he
explained wistfully as he ogled our two partners who had brought it for us with
the freshly roasted farofa. “You sip the beer, swish the remnants of that honey
around in your mouth and imagine all the virginal lips behind it,”
Suddenly, I
realized the improbability of the geographic transition we had made by
traversing his house. I put up my hands in the classic timeout signal. He read
my thoughts and raised his hands to answer when the American politician showed
up on that balcony looking very upset.
“I Thought I saw
some of those NFS crews around the square today,” I said. “Is that what upsets
you?”
“No, not the NFS,”
he answered. “Ultimately they work for us even if they don’t know it. But now
they have some of my Contra friends with them and I had no advance notice of that.
It means someone is double-crossing me.”
“What exactly do
they have against the man?” the shaman asked as we went in again.
The politician
still didn’t comprehend much sign language. I continued to translate.
“I don’t really
know what they hold against me. I hope they realize I am a changed man,” he
said. “I am now for gay marriage and all, you know. And I never liked war in
the first place. I got seven draft deferments during the Vietnam War; I didn’t
want to fight, period!”
“How do you like
the logic of that?” the shaman said smiling. He and I felt quite close now.
“What would it take to relax this guy a little?” he asked rhetorically.
He paused for a
moment, his face assumed a grave expression, and then he embarked on a lengthy
expose of Incan history as if to compensate me for skipping the third and
ultimate stage of the mind-expanding tour. He knew that interested me:
“Emperor Huayna
Capac and his descendants built a huge empire in a single century,” he bragged.
“Mohammad and his
followers did the same a millennium before that,” I signaled back. There was a
slight hesitancy as I expressed the concept of ‘millennium.’ I found Roman
numerals easier to signal than Arabic ones.
“Our man, General
Quiso Yupanqui, whipped the ass of the Spaniards right at the head of the
valley you came through,” he added. “He buried them with boulders rolled from
up high.”
“We are good with
stones too, you know!” I responded. “And not only because of the Rock of
Gibraltar.”
“All to no avail,”
the shaman added overcome by a rueful mood.
I sought to
console him.
“We enslaved the
Spaniards long before they did you,” I explained in fluid sign language with
expressive dexterity and much boxing-of-ears-and-chopping-of-heads motion of my
hands. “But I admit to some complicity of my people in destroying your great
empire. After all, we taught the Spaniards navigation and gave them the
astrolabe.”
“True, they
weren’t as familiar with the heavenly constellations as our two peoples were.
And those Arabian horses,” he reminded me.
“Were the horses
they brought with them really Arabian? The gun powder came from China, though.”
“All is forgiven,”
he signed magnanimously. ” We bear no grudge.”
“We are on the
same side now,” I responded. ”The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the saying
goes.”
“The gringo tried
to convince me of that when you stepped out. I refused to collaborate with him
against the Spaniards. He said they were after him. That is why he chose to
vacation here and not in Europe.”
“He seems too
tense to enjoy his vacation,” I explained. “And he refuses your potions.”
“Let us try the last
one,” he said. “You deserve that third round of the real stuff.”
He called our two
beauties and ordered the tea. We all headed to the Amazon side of the house to
partake of the magic potion in the bosom of nature. The river flowed at a
languid pace, its surface one reflective glass sheet extending from the dark
forest at its distant bank to the adjacent border fractured by the eddied flow
at the edge of our balcony. Two full moons shone brightly from the east. As we
stepped out we detected the half-hidden shadows of a dozen figures, some with
their distinctive NFS badges flashing occasionally in the moonlight. Slowly and
in hushed motion, they snuck toward the stairway of our balcony on the terra
firma side.
“The Contras have
switched sides,” the American guest said and ran. Before we realized what was
happening, he aimed at the moon in the depth and took a head dive.
“He won’t survive
this one. He has a weak heart,” I signed hoping to save the man’s life, my
hands spinning over my head in alarm like the blades of a helicopter.
“He’s escaped,”
the shaman screamed in perfect English. “Go after him,” he ordered the two
women. “I’ll get the raft. Jump! Now!”
“Guard our backs,”
shouted the two women in perfect English as well.
Hoping to save the
man’s precarious life, I too dove in the calm warm waters. Surprisingly the
nibbling of a school of piranhas at my flesh had a pleasant tickling effect
