From J2X
'Is death a personage, don Juan?" I asked as I sat down on the porch.
There was an air of bewilderment in don Juan's look. He was holding a bag of groceries I had brought him. He carefully placed them on the ground and sat down in front of me. I felt encouraged and explained that I wanted to know if death was a person, or like a person, when it watched a warrior's last dance.
'What difference does it make?' don Juan asked.
I told him that the image was fascinating to me and I want to know how he had arrived at it. How he knew that that was so.
'It's all very simple,' he said. 'A man of knowledge knows that death is the last witness because he sees'
'Do you mean that you have witnessed a warrior's last dance yourself?'
'No. One cannot be such a witness. Only death can do that. But I have seen my own death watching me and I have danced to it as though I were dying. At the end of my dance death did not point in any direction, and my place of predilection did not shiver saying goodbye to me. So my time on earth was not up yet and I did not die. When all that took place, I had limited power and I did not understand the designs of my own death, thus I believed I was dying.'
'Was your death like a person?'
'You're a funny bird. You think you are going to understand by asking questions. I don't think you will, but who am I to say?
'Death is not like a person. It is rather a presence. But one may also choose to say that it is nothing and yet it is everything. One will be right on every count. Death is whatever one wishes.
'I am at ease with people, so death is a person for me. I am also given to mysteries, so death has hollow eyes for me. I can look through them. They are like two windows and yet they move, like eyes move. And so I can say that death with its hollow eyes looks at a warrior while he dances for the last time on earth.'
'But is that so only for you, don Juan, or is it the same for other warriors?'
1 It is the same for every warrior that has a dance of power, and yet it is not. Death witnesses a warrior's last dance, but the manner in which a warrior sees his death is a personal matter. It could be anything - a bird, a light, a person, a bush, a pebble, a piece of fog, or an unknown presence.'
Don Juan's images of death disturbed me. I could not find adequate words to voice my questions and I stammered. He stared at me, smiling, and coaxed me to speak up.
I asked him if the manner in which a warrior saw his death depended on the way he had been brought up. I used the Yuma and Yaqui Indians as examples. My own idea was that culture determined the way in which one would envision death.
'It doesn't matter how one was brought up,' he said. 'What determines the way one does anything is personal power. A man is only the sum of his personal power, and that sum determines how he lives and how he dies.'
