(nemo) The above comparison between the computer game avatar, and a tonal beings meta-morph does not say it all. Though it does hint at the basis, gives a glimpse into the workings of my view. The following shows that what I have said is consistent with what Genaro was expressing to Carlos in Journey to Ixtlan.
"No. They were people."
"People? But you said they were phantoms."
"I said that they were no longer real. After my encounter with the ally nothing was real any more."
We were quiet for a long time.
"What was the final outcome of that experience, don Genaro?" I asked.
"Final outcome?"
"I mean, when and how did you finally reach Ixtlan?"
Both of them broke into laughter at once.
"So that's the final outcome for you, " don Juan remarked.
"Let's put it this way then. There was no final outcome to Genaro's journey. There will never be any
final outcome. Genaro is still on his way to Ixtlan!" Don Genaro glanced at me with piercing eyes
and then turned his head to look into the distance, towards the south.
"I will never reach Ixtlan, " he said. His voice was firm but soft, almost a murmur. "Yet in my
feelings . . . in my feelings sometimes I think I'm just one step from reaching it. Yet I never will. In
my journey I don't even find the familiar landmarks I used to know. Nothing is any longer the
same."
Don Juan and don Genaro looked at each other. There was something so sad about their look.
"In my I find only phantom travelers," he said softly. I looked at don Juan. I had not understood
what don Genaro had meant.
"Everyone Genaro finds on his way to Ixtlan is only an ephemeral being, " don Juan explained.
"Take you, for instance. You are a phantom. Your feelings and your eagerness are those of people.
That's why he says that he encounters only phantom travelers on his."
I suddenly realized that don Genaro's journey was a metaphor. "Your is not real then, " I said.
"It is real!" don Genaro interjected. "The travelers are not real."
He pointed to don Juan with a nod of his head and said emphatically, "This is the only one who is
real. The world is real only when I am with this one." Don Juan smiled. "Genaro was telling his
story to you, " don Juan said, "because yesterday you stopped the world, and he thinks that you also
saw, but you are such a fool that you don't know it yourself. I keep on telling him that you are
weird, and that sooner or later you will see. At any rate, in your next meeting with the ally, if there
is a next time for you, you will have to wrestle with it and tame it. If you survive the shock, which
I'm sure you will, since you're strong and have been living like a warrior, you will find yourself
alive in an unknown land. Then, as is natural to all of us, the first thing you will want to do is to
start on your way back to Los Angeles. But there is no way to go back to Los Angeles. What you
left there is lost forever. By then, of course, you will be a sorcerer, but that's no help; at a time like
that what's important to all of us is the fact that everything we love or hate or wish for has been left
behind. Yet the feelings in a man do not die or change, and the sorcerer starts on his way back home knowing that he will never reach it, knowing that no power on earth, not even his death, will
deliver him to the place, the things, the people he loved. That's what Genaro told you."
Don Juan's explanation was like a catalyst; the full impact of don Genaro's story hit me suddenly
when I began to link the tale to my own life.
"What about the people I love?" I asked don Juan. "What would happen to them?"
"They would all be left behind, " he said.
"But is there no way I could retrieve them? Could I rescue them and take them with me?"
"No. Your ally will spin you, alone, "
"But I could go back to Los Angeles, couldn't I? I could take the bus or a plane and go there. Los
Angeles would still be there, wouldn't it?"
"Sure, " don Juan said, laughing. "And so will Manteca and Temecula and Tucson."
"And Tecate, " don Genaro added with great seriousness.
"And Piedras Negras and Tranquitas, " don Juan said, smiling.
Don Genaro added more names and so did don Juan; and they became involved in enumerating a
series of the most hilarious and unbelievable names of cities and towns.
"Spinning with your ally will change your idea of the world, " don Juan said. "That idea is
everything; and when that changes, the world itself changes."