Jerome (not his real name, but those are his hands) had been teaching us some elementary Spanish.

We had been advised that the lesson was half an hour later than billed, but it had started on time. By the time we got there, the other two students were well ensconced in the picture cards that match local Mexican animals with their Spanish names.

I should have known then, really… Stuart, in particular, would have smiled, given the starring role the similarly sized Druid Animal cards had played in the previous year’s Silent Eye workshop – Leaf and Flame.

At the end of Jerome’s hour, he was drawing things to a close when he began to refer to the Mayan temple at Chichen Itza – our single destination for a very long day, tomorrow.
In response to a question about the geometry of its construction, he said, ‘You have to be able to see…”
The air had changed… I leaned forward as he explained, briefly, that his grandfather had been a travelling Mayan Shaman and had passed onto him the knowledge that the truth about the Mayan temples was not correctly told, but that was because few could see anymore. I nodded and smiled…

I asked a deeper question, how did such seers recognise each other in the time of his grandfather? He replied that they were the only ones with their eyes open.

He watched me watching him, reading my quiet but intense interest, and the way the sense of wonder on my face grew into a smile. I was back in the land of Carlos Castenada, but this was burningly real, not a book.

This was all in the whirling now, which was getting more unlikely by the second.

After a quick and gentle test on the Spanish cards, everyone stood up to go. He reached across to tap me on the fingertips and said he could stay for a while if I wanted to take our discussions further. Bernie was happy to do her own thing for a while, so the two of us continued our discussions.

“You are a Shaman – in the line of your grandfather?” I asked, knowing it was not a question. We have a Shaman of our own – Running Elk – who is very good at widening the experience of the Clan of the Raven, as our collective alter ego has become known, so I could detect the signs of another, decidedly real one…

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