Brida Page 11

  She was gazing with childlike fascination at the landscape. It must have been exactly the same thousands of years ago, in an age when there were no towns, no harbors, no poets, no young women seeking the Tradition of the Moon; then there were only the rocks, the crashing waves, and the seagulls drifting about beneath the low clouds. Now and then, Brida peered over the precipice and felt slightly dizzy. The sea was saying things she couldn’t understand; the seagulls were making patterns she couldn’t follow. And yet she was looking at that primitive world as if the true wisdom of the Universe lay there rather than in any of the books she’d read or in any of the rituals she practiced. As they moved away from the harbor, everything else gradually diminished in importance—her dreams, her daily life, her search. There was only what Wicca called “God’s signature.”

  All that remained was that primitive moment among the pure forces of nature, the sense of being alive and in the company of someone she loved.

  After nearly two hours of walking, the path suddenly grew wider, and they decided to sit down together to rest. They couldn’t stop for long. The cold would soon become unbearable and they would have to move on, but she felt like spending at least a few minutes by his side, looking up at the clouds and listening to the sound of the sea.

  Brida could smell the sea air and was aware of the taste of salt in her mouth. She warmed her face against Lorens’s jacket. It was a moment of great plenitude. All five of her senses were working.

  Yes, all five of her senses were working.

  For a fraction of a second, the thought of the Magus entered her mind and then vanished. All she cared about now were those five senses. They must keep working. This was the moment.

  “I need to talk to you, Lorens.”

  Lorens murmured something or other, but his heart was afraid. As he looked up at the clouds or down at the precipice, he realized that this woman was the most important thing in his life; that she was the explanation, the sole reason for the existence of those rocks, that sky, that winter. If she were not there with him, it wouldn’t matter if all the angels of heaven came flying down to comfort him—Paradise would make no sense.

  “I want to tell you that I love you,” Brida said softly. “Because you’ve shown me the joy of love.”

  She felt full, complete, as if the whole landscape were seeping into her soul. He began stroking her hair. And she was sure that, if she took a risk, she would experience love as never before.

  Brida kissed him. She felt the taste of his mouth, the touch of his tongue. She was aware of every movement and sensed that he was feeling exactly the same, because the Tradition of the Sun always reveals itself to those who look at the world as if they were seeing it for the first time.

  “I want to make love with you right here, Lorens.”

  Various thoughts flashed through his mind: they were on a public footpath, someone might come by, some other person crazy enough to visit this place in the middle of winter. But anyone crazy enough to do so would also be able to understand that certain forces, once set in motion, cannot be interrupted.

  He slipped his hands under her sweater and stroked her breasts. Brida surrendered herself entirely. The forces of the world were penetrating her five senses and these were becoming transformed into an overwhelming energy. They lay down on the ground among the rock, the precipice, and the sea, between the life of the seagulls flying up above and the death of the stones beneath. And they began, fearlessly, to make love, because God protects the innocent.

  They no longer felt the cold. Their blood was flowing so fast in their veins that she tore off some of her clothes and so did he. There was no more pain; knees and back were pressed into the stony ground, but that became part of their pleasure, completing it. Brida knew that she was close to orgasm, but it was still a very remote feeling, because she was entirely connected to the world: her body and Lorens’s body mingled with the sea and the stones, with life and death. She remained in that state for as long as possible, while some part of her was vaguely conscious that she was doing things she had never done before. What she was feeling, though, was the bringing together once more of herself and the meaning of life; it was a return to the garden of Eden; it was the moment when Eve was reabsorbed into Adam’s body and the two halves became Creation.

  At last, she could no longer control the world around her, her five senses seemed to break free, and she wasn’t strong enough to hold on to them. As if struck by a sacred bolt of lightning, she unleashed them, and the world, the seagulls, the taste of salt, the hard earth, the smell of the sea, the clouds, all disappeared, and in their place appeared a vast golden light, which grew and grew until it touched the most distant star in the galaxy.

  She gradually came down from that state, and the sea and the clouds reappeared, but everything was filled by a sense of profound peace, the peace of a universe that became, if only for a matter of moments, explicable, because she was in communion with the world. She had discovered another bridge that joined the visible to the invisible, and she would never again forget the path that led to it.

  The following day, she phoned Wicca and told her what had happened. For a while, Wicca said nothing.

  “Congratulations,” she said at last. “You’ve made it.”

  She explained that, from then on, the power of sex would bring about profound changes in the way Brida saw and experienced the world.

  “You’re ready now for the celebration of the Equinox. There’s just one more thing.”

  “One more thing? But you said that was it!’

  “It’s quite easy. You simply have to dream of a dress, the dress you will wear on the day.”

  “And what if I can’t.”

  “You will. You’ve done the most difficult part.”

  And then, as so often, she changed the subject. She told Brida that she’d bought a new car and needed to do some shopping. Would Brida like to go with her?

  Brida was proud to be invited and asked her boss if she could leave work early. It was the first time Wicca had shown her any kind of affection, even if it was only an invitation to join her on a shopping trip. She knew that many of Wicca’s other students would love to be in her shoes.

  Perhaps that afternoon would provide her with a chance to show Wicca how important she was to her and how much she wanted to be her friend. It was difficult for Brida to separate friendship from the spiritual search, and she was hurt because, up until then, her teacher had never shown the slightest interest in her private life. Their conversations never went beyond what Brida needed to know in order to work within the Tradition of the Moon.

  At the appointed hour, Wicca was waiting outside in a red MG convertible, with the top down. The car, a British classic, was exceptionally well preserved, with gleaming bodywork and a polished wooden dashboard. Brida didn’t even dare hazard a guess at how much it must have cost. The idea that a witch should own such an expensive car frightened her a little. Before she’d known anything about the Tradition of the Moon, she’d heard all kinds of tales in her childhood about witches making terrible pacts with the Devil in exchange for money and power.

  “Isn’t it a bit cold to drive with the top down?” she asked as she got in.

  “I can’t wait until summer,” Wicca said, “I just can’t. I’ve been aching to go for a drive like this for ages.”

  That was good. At least, in this respect, she was like any other normal person.

  They drove through the streets, receiving admiring glances from older passers-by and a few wolf whistles and compliments from men.

  “It’s a good sign that you’re worried about not being able to dream about the dress,” said Wicca. Brida, however, had already forgotten about their phone conversation.

  “Never stop having doubts. If you ever do, it will be because you’ve stopped moving forward, and at that point, God will step in and pull the rug out from under your feet, because that is His way of controlling His chosen ones, by making sure they always follow their appointed pa
th to the end. If, for any reason, we stop, whether out of complacency, laziness, or out of a mistaken belief that we know enough, He forces us on.

  “On the other hand, you must be careful never to allow doubt to paralyze you. Always take the decisions you need to take, even if you’re not sure you’re doing the right thing. You’ll never go wrong if, when you make a decision, you keep in mind an old German proverb that the Tradition of the Moon has adopted: ‘The Devil is in the detail.’ Remember that proverb and you’ll always be able to turn a wrong decision into a right one.”

  Wicca suddenly stopped outside a garage.

  “There’s a superstition connected to that proverb, too,” she said. “It only comes to our aid when we need it. I’ve just bought this car, and the Devil is in the detail.”

  She got out as soon as a mechanic came over to her.

  “Is the hood broken, Madam?”

  Wicca didn’t even answer. She asked him to check the car over for her, and while he was working, the two women sat and drank hot chocolate in a café across the street.

  “Watch what the mechanic does,” Wicca said, looking across at the garage. He had the hood up and was standing, staring at the engine, not even moving.

  “He’s not touching anything. He’s just looking. He’s done this job for years, and he knows that the car speaks to him in a special language. It’s not his reason that’s working now, it’s his intuition.”

  Suddenly, the mechanic went straight to one particular part of the engine and starting fiddling with it.

  “He’s found the fault,” Wicca went on. “He didn’t waste a moment, because between him and the car there is perfect communication. Every good mechanic I’ve ever known has been the same.”

  “So have the mechanics I’ve known,” thought Brida, but she’d always assumed they behaved that way because they didn’t know where to start. She’d never noticed that they always started in the right place.

  “If they have the wisdom of the Sun in their lives, why don’t they try to understand the fundamental questions of the Universe? Why do they prefer to fix cars or work in a bar serving coffee?”

  “And what makes you think that we, with our path and our dedication, understand the Universe any better than other people?

  “I have many students. They’re all perfectly ordinary people, who cry at the movies and worry if their children come home late, even though they know that death is not the end. Witchcraft is merely one way of being close to the Supreme Wisdom, but anything you do can lead you there, as long as you work with love in your heart. We witches can converse with the Soul of the World, see the point of light above the left shoulder of our Soul Mate, and contemplate the infinite through the glow and silence of a candle, but we don’t understand car engines. Mechanics need us as much as we need them. They find their bridge across to the invisible in a car engine, while we find ours in the Tradition of the Moon, but the bridge connects to the same invisible world.

  “Play your part and don’t worry about what others do. Believe that God also speaks to them, and that they are as engaged as you are in discovering the meaning of life.”

  “The car’s fine,” said the mechanic, when they went back to the garage, “apart from a hose that was about to burst. And that could have caused you serious problems.”

  Wicca haggled a little over the price, but she was very glad that she’d remembered the proverb.

  They went to one of Dublin’s main shopping streets, which also happened to be the location of the shop that Brida had once had to visualize as part of an exercise. Whenever the conversation turned to personal topics, Wicca would respond vaguely or evasively, but she spoke with great verve about trivial matters—prices, clothes, rude shop assistants. Everything she bought that afternoon revealed sophistication and good taste.

  Brida knew that it wasn’t the done thing to ask someone where she got her money, but so great was her curiosity that she came very close to violating that most elementary rule of politeness.

  They ended up in a Japanese restaurant, with a dish of sashimi before them.

  “May God bless our food,” said Wicca. “We are all sailors on an unknown sea; may He make us brave enough to accept this mystery.”

  “But you’re a Teacher of the Tradition of the Moon,” said Brida. “You know the answers.”

  Wicca sat for a moment, absorbed, looking at the food. Then she said:

  “I know how to travel between the present and the past. I know the world of the spirits, and I’ve communed with forces so amazing that no words in any language could describe them. I could perhaps say that I possess the silent knowledge of the journey that has brought the human race to where it is at this moment.

  “But because I know all this, and because I am a Teacher, I also know that we will never ever know the ultimate reason for our existence. We might know the how, where, and when of being here, but the why will always be a question that remains unanswered. The main objective of the great Architect of the Universe is known to Him alone, and to no one else.”

  A silence fell.

  “Right now, while we’re here eating, ninety-nine percent of the people on this planet are, in their own way, struggling with that very question. Why are we here? Many think they’ve found the answer in religion or in materialism. Others despair and spend their lives and their money trying to grasp the meaning of it all. A few let the question go unanswered and live for the moment, regardless of the results or the consequences.

  “Only the brave and those who understand the Traditions of the Sun and the Moon are aware that the only possible answer to the question is I DON’T KNOW.

  “This might, at first, seem frightening, leaving us terribly vulnerable in our dealings with the world, with the things of the world, and with our own sense of our existence. Once we’ve got over that initial fear, however, we gradually become accustomed to the only possible solution: to follow our dreams. Having the courage to take the steps we always wanted to take is the only way of showing that we trust in God.

  “As soon as we accept this, life takes on a sacred meaning, and we experience the same emotion the Virgin must have felt when, one afternoon in her otherwise very ordinary existence, a stranger appeared to her and made her an offer. ‘Be it unto me according to thy word,’ said the Virgin. Because she had understood that the greatest thing a human being can do is to accept the Mystery.”

  After another long silence, Wicca again took up her knife and fork and resumed her meal. Brida looked at her, proud to be by her side. She wasn’t bothered now by the questions she would never ask, about how Wicca earned her money or if she was in love with someone or jealous of someone else. She thought about the greatness of soul of the true sages, sages who had spent their entire life searching for an answer that did not exist, but who were not tempted to invent an answer when they realized there was none. Instead, they carried on humbly inhabiting a Universe they would never understand. The only way they could truly participate was by following their own desires, their own dreams, because that is how man becomes an instrument of God.

  “So what’s the point of looking for an answer then?”

  “We don’t look for an answer, we accept, and then life becomes much more intense, much more brilliant, because we understand that each minute, each step that we take, has a meaning that goes far beyond us as individuals. We realize that somewhere in time and space this question does have an answer. We realize that there is a reason for us being here, and for us, that is enough.

  “We plunge into the Dark Night with faith, we fulfill what the ancient alchemists used to call our Personal Legend, and we surrender ourselves fully to each moment, knowing that there is always a hand to guide us, and whether we accept it or not is entirely up to us.”

  That night, Brida spent hours listening to music, entirely given over to the miracle of being alive. She thought about her favorite authors. One of them—the English poet William Blake—had, with just one simple phrase, given her enough fai
th to go in search of wisdom.

  What is now proved was once only imagin’d.

  It was time to perform one of her rituals. She would spend the next few minutes contemplating a candle flame, and to do so, she sat down before the little altar. The process of contemplation took her back to the afternoon when she and Lorens had made love among the rocks. There were seagulls flying as high as the clouds and as low as the waves.

  The fish must have asked themselves how they managed to fly, these mysterious creatures who plunged into their world, then left as quickly as they entered.

  The birds must have asked themselves how the creatures they fed on and that lived beneath the waves could possibly manage to breathe under water.

  Birds existed and fish existed. Theirs were universes that occasionally collided, but they could not answer each other’s questions. And yet both had questions, and the questions had answers.

  Brida looked at the flame before her, and a magical atmosphere began to grow around her. This was what normally happened, but that night, the feeling was more intense.

  If she were capable of asking a question, it was because, in another Universe, there was an answer. Someone knew it, even if she didn’t. She didn’t need to understand the meaning of life; it was enough to find someone who did, and then fall asleep in his arms and sleep as a child sleeps, knowing that someone stronger than you is protecting you from all evil and all danger.

  When the ritual was over, she said a little prayer in gratitude for the steps she had so far taken. She was grateful because the first person she had asked about magic hadn’t tried to explain the Universe to her; instead, he had made her spend the whole night in a dark forest.