Brida

by Paulo Coelho

  Later, when this night was just a memory, none of these people would tell what they had seen. There was no prohibition on doing so, but they all felt they were in the presence of a powerful force, a mysterious, sacred force so intense and implacable that no human being would dare to defy it.

  “Turn!” said the woman in the black, ankle-length dress. She was the only woman still fully clothed. All the others were naked as they danced and clapped and spun.

  A man placed a pile of dresses beside her. Three of them would be worn for the first time, and two were very similar in style. These were people with the same Gift, which took material form in the dress each woman had dreamed.

  There was no need for Wicca to clap now, for the others continued to do so, as if she were still keeping the beat.

  She knelt down, pressed her thumbs to her head, and began to work the Power.

  The Power of the Tradition of the Moon, the Wisdom of Time, was there. It was a highly dangerous Power, one that witches could only invoke once they had become Teachers. Wicca knew how to use it, but even so, she first asked for her Teacher’s protection.

  In that power dwelled the Wisdom of Time. There was the Serpent, wise and masterful. Only the Virgin, by crushing the serpent’s head beneath her heel, could subjugate it. And so Wicca prayed to the Virgin Mary as well, asking her for purity of soul, steadiness of hand, and the protection of her cloak, so that she could bring down that Power on the women before her, without it seducing or overwhelming any of them.

  With her face lifted to the sky, her voice steady and confident, she recited the words of St. Paul:

  “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

  “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.

  “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

  “And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

  “Therefore, let no man glory in men. For all things are yours.”

  With a few deft movements of her hand, Wicca slowed the rhythm of the clapping. The people beating on the wine bottles beat more slowly, and the women, too, began to spin and turn more slowly. Wicca was keeping the Power under control, and the whole orchestra had to work well, from the loudest horn to the quietest violin. To achieve this, she needed the assistance of the Power but without actually surrendering to it.

  She clapped her hands and made the necessary noises. Gradually, everyone stopped playing and dancing. The witches came over to Wicca and picked up their dresses—only three women remained naked. At that point, there had been an hour and twenty-eight minutes of continuous sound, and although all those present were in a state of altered consciousness, none of them, with the exception of the three naked women, had, for one moment, lost a sense of where they were or what they were doing.

  The three naked women, however, were still in a trance. Wicca held out her ritual dagger and directed all its concentrated energy at them.

  Their Gifts would soon become apparent. This was their way of serving the world; having walked long and tortuous paths, they had finally arrived. The world had tested them in every possible way, and they were worthy of what they had achieved. In daily life, they would continue to have their customary weaknesses and resentments, perform their usual small acts of kindness and of cruelty. The agony and the ecstasy would continue, as it would for everyone who is part of a world in a constant state of flux. However, at the appointed time, they would learn that each human being carries within them something far more important than their own self, namely, their particular Gift. For God placed in the hands of each and every person a Gift, the instrument He used to reveal Himself to the world and to help humanity. God chose human beings to be His helpers on Earth.

  Some came to understand their Gift through the Tradition of the Sun, others through the Tradition of the Moon, but all eventually learned what their Gift was, even if it took several incarnations to do so.

  Wicca stood by the great stone placed there by Celtic priests. The witches, in their black robes, formed a semicircle around her.

  She looked at the three naked women. Their eyes were shining. “Come here.”

  The women walked into the middle of the semicircle. Wicca then asked them to lie facedown on the ground, with their arms outstretched to form a cross.

  The Magus watched Brida lie down on the ground. He tried to concentrate only on her aura, but he was a man, and a man always looks at a woman’s body.

  He didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want to think about whether he was suffering or not. He was aware of only one thing—that his mission with his Soul Mate beside him was over.

  “It’s a shame to have spent so little time with her.” But he couldn’t think like that. Somewhere in Time, they had shared the same body, felt the same pain, and been made happy by the same pleasures. Perhaps they had walked together through a forest similar to this and gazed up at the night sky where the same bright stars shone. He smiled at the thought of his Teacher, who had made him spend so long in the forest merely in order that he should understand his encounter with his Soul Mate.

  That was how things were in the Tradition of the Sun; each person was obliged to learn what he needed to learn and not merely what he wanted to learn. In his man-heart he would weep for a long time, but in his Magus-heart, he felt exultant and grateful to the forest.

  Wicca looked at the three women lying at her feet and gave thanks to God that she had been able to continue doing the same work throughout so many lives; the Tradition of the Moon was inexhaustible. The clearing in the wood had been consecrated by Celtic priests in a time now long forgotten, and little remained of their rituals, only perhaps the stone before which she was standing. It was a huge stone, so large it could not possibly have been transported there by human hands, but then the Ancients had known how to move such stones by magical means. They had built pyramids, observatories, and whole cities in the mountains of South America, using only the forces known to the Tradition of the Moon. Such knowledge was no longer needed by man and had been erased from Time so that it could not be turned to destructive ends. Nevertheless, out of pure curiosity, Wicca would like to have known how they had done it.

  There were a few Celtic spirits present, and she greeted them. They were teachers who had ceased being reincarnated and now formed part of Earth’s secret government; without them, without the strength of their knowledge, the planet would long since have lost its way. Above the trees to the left of the clearing, these Celtic teachers were hovering in the air, astral bodies surrounded by an intense white light. Through the centuries, they had come there at every Equinox, to make sure that the Tradition was being maintained. Yes, said Wicca with a certain pride, the Equinoxes continued to be celebrated even after all Celtic culture had disappeared from the official History of the World. Because no one can destroy the Tradition of the Moon, only the Hand of God.

  She observed the priests for a while longer. What would they make of people today? Did they feel a nostalgia for the days when they used to come to this place and when contact with God seemed simpler and more direct? Wicca thought not, and her instinct was confirmed. The garden of God was being constructed out of human emotions, and for this to happen, people had to live a long time, in different ages, often adopting very different customs. As in the rest of the Universe, man was following his evolutionary path, and each day he was better than on the previous day, even if he forgot the previous day’s lessons, even if he complained, claiming that life was unfair.

  Because the Kingdom of Heaven is like the seed that a man plants in a field; he sleeps and wakes, day and night, and the seed grows even though he knows not how. These lessons were engraved on the Soul of the World and existed for the benefit of all humanity. It was important that there were still people like those present at
the ceremony, people who were not afraid of the Dark Night of the Soul, as wise St. John of the Cross had described it. Each step, each act of faith, redeemed the whole human race anew. As long as there were people who knew that, in God’s eyes, all of man’s wisdom was madness, the world would continue along the path of light.

  She felt proud of her pupils, male and female, who had proved capable of sacrificing the comfort of a world of nice, neat explanations for the challenge of discovering a new world.

  She looked again at the three naked women lying on the ground, arms outstretched, and tried to clothe them again in the color of the aura they emanated. They were now traveling through Time and meeting many lost Soul Mates. Those three women would, from that night on, plunge into the mission that had been awaiting them since they were born. One was over sixty, but age was of no importance. What mattered was that they were finally face-to-face with the destiny that had been patiently awaiting them, and from now on they would use their Gifts to keep safe certain crucial plants in God’s garden. Each one had arrived at this place for different reasons—a failed love affair, a sense of weariness with routine, or perhaps a search for Power. They had confronted fear, inertia, and the many disappointments that assail those who follow the path of magic. But the fact is, they had reached the place they needed to reach, for the Hand of God always guides those who follow their path with faith.

  “The Tradition of the Moon is a fascinating one, with its Teachers and its rituals, but there is another Tradition, too,” thought the Magus, his eyes still fixed on Brida, and feeling slightly envious of Wicca, who would remain by her side for a long time. That other Tradition was a more difficult one to follow because it was simple, and simple things always seem so complicated. Its Teachers lived in the world and did not always realize the importance of what they were teaching, because the impulse behind that teaching often seemed nothing more than an absurd impulse. They were carpenters, poets, mathematicians, people from all professions and walks of life, who lived scattered throughout the world. People who suddenly felt the need to talk to someone, to explain a feeling they couldn’t quite understand, but which was impossible to keep to themselves, and that was the way in which the Tradition of the Sun kept its knowledge alive. The impulse of Creation.

  Wherever there were people, there was always some trace of the Tradition of the Sun. Sometimes it was a sculpture, sometimes a table, at others a few lines from a poem passed from generation to generation by a particular group or tribe. The people through which the Tradition of the Sun spoke were people just like anyone else, and who, one morning or one evening, looked at the world and felt the presence of something greater. They had unwittingly plunged into an unknown sea, and, for the most part, they did not do so again. Everyone, at least once in each incarnation, possessed the secret of the Universe.

  They found themselves momentarily immersed in the Dark Night, but, lacking sufficient self-belief, they rarely returned to it. And the Sacred Heart, which nourished the world with love and peace and devotion, found itself once more surrounded by thorns.

  Wicca was glad she was a Teacher of the Tradition of the Moon. Everyone who came to her was eager to learn, while, in the Tradition of the Sun, most were in permanent flight from what life was teaching them.

  “Not that it matters,” thought Wicca, because the age of miracles was returning, and no one could remain indifferent to the changes the world was beginning to experience. Within a few years, the power of the Tradition of the Sun would reveal itself in all its brilliance. Anyone not already following their own path would begin to feel dissatisfied with themselves and be forced to make a choice: they would either have to accept an existence beset with disappointment and pain or else come to realize that everyone was born to be happy. Having made their choice, they would have no option but to change, and the great struggle, the Jihad, would begin.

  With one perfect movement of her hand, Wicca drew a circle in the air with her dagger. Inside that invisible circle, she drew a five-pointed star, which witches call the pentagram. The pentagram was the symbol of the elements at work in mankind, and through it, the women lying on the ground would now come into contact with the world of light.

  “Close your eyes,” said Wicca.

  The three women obeyed.

  Above the head of each of them Wicca performed the ritual moves with her dagger.

  “Now open the eyes of your souls.”

  Brida opened the eyes of her soul. She was in a desert, and the place looked very familiar.

  She remembered that she had been there before. With the Magus.

  She looked around but couldn’t see him. Yet she wasn’t afraid; she felt calm and happy. She knew who she was and where she lived; she knew that in some other place in time a party was going on. But none of this mattered, because the landscape before her was so much prettier: the sand, the mountains in the distance, and a huge stone.

  “Welcome,” said a voice.

  Beside her stood a gentleman wearing clothes like those worn by her grandfather.

  “I am Wicca’s Teacher. When you become a Teacher, your students will find Wicca here, and so on and so forth until the Soul of the World finally makes itself manifest.”

  “I’m at a ritual for witches,” Brida said, “a Sabbath.”

  The Teacher laughed.

  “You have found your path. Few people have the courage to do so. They prefer to follow a path that is not their own. Everyone has a Gift, but they choose not to see it. You accepted yours, and your encounter with your Gift is your encounter with the world.”

  “But why?”

  “So that you can plant God’s garden.”

  “I have a life ahead of me,” said Brida. “I want to live that life just like anyone else. I want to be able to make mistakes, to be selfish, to have faults.”

  The Teacher smiled. In his right hand a blue cloak suddenly appeared.

  “You can only be close to people if you are one of them.”

  The scene around her changed. She was no longer in a desert but immersed in a kind of liquid, in which various strange creatures were swimming.

  “Life is about making mistakes,” said the Teacher. “Cells went on reproducing themselves in exactly the same way for millions of years until one of them made a mistake, and introduced change into that endless cycle of repetition.”

  Brida was gazing in amazement at the sea. She didn’t ask how it was possible for them to breathe in there; all she could hear was the Teacher’s voice, all she could think of was a very similar journey she had made and which had begun in a field of wheat.

  “It was a mistake that set the world in motion,” said the Teacher. “Never be afraid of making a mistake.”

  “But Adam and Eve were driven out of Paradise.”

  “And they will return one day, knowing the miracle of the heavens and of all the world. God knew what He was doing when He drew their attention to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If He hadn’t wanted them to eat it, He would never have mentioned it.”

  “So why did He, then?”

  “In order to set the Universe in motion.”

  The scene changed back to the desert and the stone. It was morning, and the horizon was becoming suffused with pink light. The Teacher came toward her with the cloak.

  “I consecrate you now, in this moment. Your Gift is God’s instrument. May you prove to be a useful tool.”

  Wicca picked up the dress belonging to the youngest of the three women and held it up in her two hands. She made a symbolic offering to the Celtic priests who, in astral form, were watching everything from above the trees. Then she turned to the young woman.

  “Stand up,” she said.

  Brida stood up. The shadows from the fire flickered over her naked body. Once, another body had been consumed by those same flames, but that time was over.

  “Raise your arms.”

  Brida raised her arms. Wicca put the dress on her.

  “I was naked,” she said to
the Teacher when he had wrapped the cloak about her. “And I was not ashamed.”

  “If it wasn’t for shame, God would never have discovered that Adam and Eve had eaten the apple.”

  The Teacher was watching the sunrise. He seemed distracted, but he wasn’t. Brida knew this.

  “Never be ashamed,” he said. “Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.”

  “How will I know which is which?”

  “By the taste. You can only know a good wine if you have first tasted a bad one.”

  Wicca turned Brida around to face the fire, then moved on to the next Initiate. The fire picked up the energy of her Gift so that it could be made manifest in her. At that moment, Brida was watching a sunrise, a sun that would, from then on, light the rest of her life.

  “Now you must go,” said the Teacher as soon as the sun had risen.

  “I’m not afraid of my Gift,” Brida told him. “I know where I’m going and what I’m going to do. I know that someone helped me to arrive here.

  “I’ve been here before. There were people dancing and a secret temple built to celebrate the Tradition of the Moon.”

  The Teacher said nothing. He turned to her and made a sign with his right hand.

  “You have been accepted. May your path be one of peace in times of peace, and of combat in times of combat. Never confuse one with the other.”

  The figure of the Teacher began to dissolve, along with the desert and the stone. Only the sun remained, but the sun began to become one with the sky. Then the sky grew dark, and the sun became more like the flames of a fire.