Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart_ A Novel - Alice Walker [75]
She remembered sitting with Armando one morning in the Amazon and almost being afraid to tell him the yagé had ceased to work. But he had not seemed perturbed. Sometimes Grandmother is like that, he had said. Maybe she has other work for you to do.
Kate had sat looking toward the river. She had come all this way, she thought, and like the guru of Ram Dass, who had taken a ton of acid, the medicina, in this setting, right where it was born, did absolutely nothing.
Armando was looking at her with shrewd eyes.
I think you have an idea of what you are to do, he said.
Oddly enough, she did.
Well, she said slowly, as you know, during my first visit with Grandmother, I was given seven hours of astonishing instruction. In a way it is greedy of me to ask for anything more. I think I’m here to meet her; to understand where she’s from. To see her living body before it is cut; to see the people whose health often depends on her. I am meant, I believe, to be her friend. And to be yours.
Armando did not reply, but merely nodded his head.
Squeezing into the room now, Kate found the only available space to sit was on the bed. As they watched the native elders of the Americas gather to protect the inheritance of all who can be taught and healed by the plant magic of earth, Kate savored being in bed with so much wisdom. She marveled at the unwavering dedication of the shamans. That they had come so far, dressed so thinly, to defend Grandmother’s medicina and its curing of the sick.
Yolo and I are calling a circle to celebrate sharing our life together, Kate said to Armando as the shamans were leaving. We’d really love it if you could come.
I would be honored to come, said Armando. But, la vida being what it is, who can say? If I do not make it, I will send a spirit to take my place.
Not a jaguar, said Kate, laughing.
No, said Armando, I will send something small, something that loves humans, something trying hard not to be afraid.
After shaking hands and embracing, everyone left, Yolo and Kate waving from the gate.
It Will Be a Long Time
It will be a long time before humans lose their terror of me, said the serpent. Though this serpent shape, this slithery form, is buried deep in every cell of every person on earth. It is the fundamental shape that is common to all. It is the shape of your DNA.
In the dream, Kate had just sprayed poison on a toiling pile of ants that seemed to be living in one corner of her house. It had not seemed the right thing to do, yet the infestation unnerved her. As she looked, however, she saw each individual ant growing larger.
How are we to deal with fear? she asked.
How else? said the snake, smiling benignly, like Mr. Clean from the Buddhist retreat she’d left an eternity ago. Make friends with it.
That’s what the Buddha taught! said Kate, shocked to hear the same instruction coming from a snake.
Yesssss, said the snake. He was in alignment.
It Was a Warm Sunny Day
It was a warm sunny day in autumn. In two days Kate and Yolo would join their friends beside the clear, beautiful river they’d found in the north. Everyone was coming; the women from Kate’s women’s council; the men from Yolo’s Sangha. Their friends from Hawaii and the Amazon. Avoa and Sue and Margery from the run of the Colorado. Anunu and Enoba. Even Rick had called and said he’d be coming. That he had experienced a breakthrough. He was so excited he kept repeating: I’ll be on American, Flight 911, even after Kate told him that no one would be there to meet him, that he’d have to arrange transportation himself.
Yolo cleaned up his studio and swept the yard, and Kate swept out and saged the house. When she finished she went into her altar room. Everything was just as she’d left it more than a year ago. Buddha was still under the purple cloth. Her parents’ pictures were turned to the wall. Che and the