Walking with Geese on the banks of the Tajo (Toledo)

"For Don Juan, witchcraft was the act of embodying certain specialized premises, both theoretical and practical, about the nature of perception and the role it plays in shaping the universe that surrounds us."
[Carlos Castaneda (1)]: 'The art of dreaming', Editorial Seix Barral, 1993]

The road is marked by a Black Virgin, which they claim is called Tiro and was Templar. Hang in a box attached to the wall of the cathedral-not far from where is located a mark with the shape of goosefoot and a few meters below the Library Anticuaria Balaguer, where possibly remains forgotten in some dark corner some copy of the tenebrous Picatrix - mysteriously hidden by a crystal that has progressively darkened with the patina of the centuries.

Sometimes, depending on the position of the sun, a ray illuminates and sharpens the view, you can see his face, hieratic, solemn and regal staring at an alley that is lost in descent, sinuous as the waist of an Arabian dancer, until reaching the banks of the river. A river, the Tagus, that when the waters calm down after a flood, returns to the shore numerous relics of the past, as the seafaring tongues make the sea with everything that is swallowed.

I remember that Sunday morning, the cold penetrated to the marrow, despite the efforts of the sun, shy, however, that sometimes was intercepted by the slow and menacing step of some cloud of frightening appearance and gray intentions. In the upper part of the city -where the streets possibly form a more impenetrable labyrinth- and where the tradition locates the House of the Temple, nearby, for more signs, to the alleys of the Devil and Hell, the bells of the church of San Miguel el Alto called for mass. Its echo, dry and distant as thunder, reverberated in the silence of a street, whose neighbors just began to yawn.

Meanwhile, Toledo was also slowly stretching, getting rid of the magical influence of the night, and tourists began to leave the comfortable rooms of hotels and inns, with his backpack on his shoulder and maps of the city in his hand.

Far from the bacchanal hullabaloo of infants, faithful Sunday custodians of parents who refuse to abandon the habit of approaching to the kiosk on the corner to buy, among others, the sports press, the ruins of the Arab baths remained alien, recumbent on the slope, submerged in the abysmal dream of its ancient splendor.

The hermitage of the Virgen de la Vega, hanging like a lantern a little higher, although on the opposite side of the river, seemed to have a special halo when facing the first rays of the sun. Behind it, what if it was an anchor in the slope, the Peña del Moro offered the appearance of an old dromedary reclining, with his head tilted backwards, without noticing, therefore, that hard-riding cyclist who ascended the hill alone the height of the Arroyo de la Degollada.

As soon as I arrived at the riverbank, I had a first glimpse that time, relatively Einsteinian, had miraculously stopped, and next to the jetty, the landscape, probably in the traditional way of achieving the Great Work commented on in the manual alchemical arcana that are still hidden in some old bookstores and private collections, underwent a sudden transformation.

It is possible that the very nature of the perception that the sorcerer Don Juan was trying to make his lucky disciple understand, would have made the riverbank and jetty part of a mysterious and transcendent Game, as old as the world. A Game, contained in an artistic Board, in which, under a new vision, the elements hitherto known, in a hasty but extraordinary way, would have dissolved and then transmuted into the enigmatic Box 64 of the Board: the Garden of the Goose , whose doors only open after a long, arduous and difficult learning.

The hermitage of the Virgen de la Vega, which until now hung on the hillside like a lantern guiding the pilgrim, was now an enigmatic chapel located in front of a hill called the Star, whose exterior, according to the Tradition, had to go barefoot three times before entering the sancta-santórum of its octagonal chapel: Eunate.

A shepherdess was squatting on the base of the jetty, the crook held in her left hand protruding from her body like a robust oak, while the herd of geese-some in the process of renewal, judging by the state of their plumage-came to eat, in groups of seven, the crumbs of bread that it kept in his right hand, completely open and extended.

Gaia, the Great Alchemist, had achieved a perfect sublimation, and in the mixture of sulfur, mercury and salt, from the immense natural atanor had sprung with suicidal spectacularity the colors of the last death rattle: death and resurrection. However, some players remained anchored on the shore, patiently holding their fishing poles, hoping that from the pools hidden at the bottom of the river would emerge the key that would free them from the spell and allow them to continue on their way.

Others, however, more fortunate than the previous ones, happily crossed the bridge in the direction of the mound on whose base stands, unperturbed at the time, the Templar castle of San Servando, and in fact, the hospice where they could rest and recover strength to continue marching on a Board that, resembling a galaxy by its spiral shape, always pointed towards the West, towards the Finis Terrae ...

But as I said, perhaps Don Juan studied not only the art of witchcraft but also that of daydreaming in the catacombs of Toledo; maybe in Higares, in the closed Hercules Cave and everything I've related is just a product of .... a daydream ?.

[This photograph is made on the wonderful original board, the work of my excellent friend and painter (our little paw of goose) Patricia Muñoz]

Bibliography: Carlos Castaneda,: 'The art of dreaming', Editorial Seix Barral, 1993.

NOTICE: originally published in my blog MEMORIES OF A PILGRIM, although unpublished in Steemit. Both the text and the photographs are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry, which is linked to Steemit (Talentclub), can be found at the following address: https://jc347.blogspot.com.es/2010/12/paseando-con-ocas-por-la-ribera- del.html