The Valkyries

building.
    Paulo looked back. He could see the car, a tiny red point in the distance but still visible—impossible to become lost. And when he looked at the car, he saw something else that was important.
    “Let’s stop here,” he said.
    They left the path they were taking and walked to a boulder. They huddled in close to it, because itcast only a very small shadow. In the desert, shadows appear only early in the morning or late in the afternoon, and then only near the rocks.
    “Our calculation was wrong,” he said.
    Chris had already noticed that. She was surprised, because Paulo was good at estimating distances, and he had trusted her guess of three or four miles.
    “I know how we went wrong,” he said. “There’s nothing in the desert to base comparisons on. We’re used to calculating distance based on the size of things. We know the approximate size of a tree, or a telephone pole, or a house. They help us to decide whether things are near or far away.”
    Here, there was no point of reference. There were rocks they’d never seen, mountains whose size they could not estimate, and only the sparse vegetation. Paulo had realized this as he looked back at the car. And he could see that they had walked more than four miles.
    “Let’s rest a while, and then we’ll go back.”
    That’s all right,
Chris thought. She was fascinated with the idea of continuing to look out at the horizon. It was a completely new experience for her.
    “This business of looking at the horizon, Paulo…” Chris paused.
    He waited, knowing that she would continue. He knew that she was worried that she might say something silly, or find some esoteric meaning in things, as many do who know only a little about the path.
    “It seems as if … I don’t know … I can’t explain it … as if my soul has grown.”
    Yes,
Paulo thought.
She’s on the right track.
    “Before, I looked in the distance, and things in the distance seemed really
far,
you know? They seemed not to be a part of my world. Because I was used to looking only at things that were close, the things around me.
    “But, two days ago, I got used to looking into the distance. And I saw that besides tables, chairs, and objects, my world also included the mountains, clouds, the sky. And my soul—my soul seems to have eyes that it uses to touch those things.”
    Wow! That’s a great way of saying it,
Paulo thought.
    “My soul seems to have grown,” Chris repeated.
    He opened the bag, took out his cigarettes, and lit one before speaking.
    “Anyone can see that. But we’re always looking at the things that are closest to us. Looking downand inward. So our power diminishes, and using your term, our soul shrinks.
    “Because our soul includes nothing but ourselves. It doesn’t include oceans, mountains, other people; it doesn’t even include the walls of the houses where we live.”
    Paulo liked the expression “My soul has grown.” If he had been talking with another member of the Tradition, there’s no doubt that he would have heard much more complicated explanations, such as “My consciousness expanded.” But the term his wife had used was more exact.
    He finished his cigarette. There was no point in insisting that they make it to the lake; the temperature would soon reach 110 in the shade. The car was far away, but visible, and in an hour and a half they’d be back to it.
    They started walking. Surrounded by the desert, by the huge horizon, a feeling of freedom began to grow in their souls.
    “Let’s take off our clothes,” Paulo said.
    “But someone might be watching,” Chris said automatically.
    Paulo laughed. They could see for miles around them. The day before, when they had been out walking all morning and afternoon, only two carshad passed—and, even then, they had heard the sound of their approach long before the cars had appeared. The desert was the sun, the wind, and the silence.
    “Only our angels are watching,” he answered. “And they’ve already seen us naked many times.”
    He took off his shorts and his shirt and the canteen, placing them all in the bag.
    Chris struggled to keep from laughing. She took her clothes off too, and in a few moments they were two people crossing the Mojave in their sneakers, their hats, and their sunglasses—one of them carrying a bag. Anyone watching would find it hilarious.

Chapter 11
     
    T HEY WALKED FOR HALF AN HOUR. THE car was still just a point on the horizon, but—in contrast to the lake—it