Whispers from the Other Side: Evolution of a Soul

By Arturo Cantu Rivera

Thirty years in prison has a dramatic impact in the human soul. It either kills you or forces you to change one way or another. In my case it did both, killed the old self and gave birth to a new outlook in life. This work was written during my incarceration, 1989-2019, and rescued by my sister Hilda after my release. It represents reflections of the spirit and its evolution throughout said period of time. Unlike other books of its kind, this work does not speak directly of the shortcomings of prison life, rather, it focuses on the search for spiritual understanding of our fate as human beings, of our human condition. It depicts a spirit in motion towards the light of the inner self.
May these reflections find solace in the land of wandering souls.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664166110

Book preview

PART I

NARRATIVES

PILAR

As if awakened from an early morning dream, the vivid memory of my grandmother Pilar brings back to life images of my childhood. I close my eyes and see her scurrying around the kitchen, getting everything ready for breakfast. The crowing of an old rooster nearby announced the coming of a new day. It was still dark, yet I had to get up and take the nixtamal to the molino down the street in order to turn it into the masa to make tortillas. This was the job I had been assigned every morning before dawn. The spicy smell of chorizo and coffee permeated the air. Chorizo and eggs were my favorite breakfast. She would often add nopalitos and beans to the meal. According to my grandmother, we had to have those beans. They were essential, she would say, beans and tortillas would keep us healthy with all the energy needed for the day.

The sound of her steps opened my eyes.

Hurry up, Arturito! Sometimes she would use the diminutive form of my name. At other times she would just call me ‘mi’jito’, little son.

The molino is about to open, she said, I want you to be first in line so you can return with the masa as quickly as you can. Breakfast is almost ready, but we need tortillas.

Quickly I jumped to my feet, grabbed the two buckets full of nixtamal and rushed out the door, practically running on the way to the mill.

Are we having chorizo and eggs for breakfast!? I yelled as I ran down the street.

And nopalitos!! She shouted as I crossed the street towards the mill.

The day before she had asked me to cut some prickly-pear cacti from her garden. These are the famous nopalitos. After cutting them, I brushed off their tiny, needle-like spines. It was quite an ordeal. If you were not careful your hands and arms would be covered with them. She would slice them into small pieces, then boiled them with salt and garlic until all the slimy juice was released from the cactus. Once this was done, the nopalitos were ready to be cooked with chorizo and eggs or whatever else you wanted.

As I rushed through the morning twilight, I could see the egg-white glow of dawn peeking through the clouds on the Eastern horizon. The thought of nopalitos, chorizo and eggs waiting for me accelerated my pace to the molino.

Once back, Pilar would grab a piece of the masa and turn it into a small ball. She would then flatten it with her hands until it became thin and round, a bit bigger than the size of her hands, then lay it on the hot comal. As the tortillas were coming out of the hot grill, the children would grab them and fill them with beans, chorizo, eggs and nopalitos. Mmm!! Delicious! At the time our limited view of the world made us believe there was nothing better. . . in my case, however, I still do. . .

Days after my father’s departure from this world, a cloud of melancholy seemed to follow me around, especially in the early mornings as I prepare to take the nixtamal to the molino. I would wake up earlier than usual and just sit on top of the blankets on the floor where I slept, quite awake put pensive, full of thoughts mixed with feelings, staring at the darkness beyond the window. In retrospect, as I now analyze this period of my childhood many years later. I do not believe it was sadness, at least not all of it. It is only natural that children be overwhelmed by sadness after the death of a parent. In my case, however, although sadness was undoubtedly an element in the center of my feelings, I believe there were other elements within that cloud of melancholy that also played an important role in the mind of an 8 year old. The seeds that bring forth the ultimate questions of our human condition sprouted for the first time in the reflections of that young soul staring out the window, into the darkness giving birth to the light.

Those final questions of who we are, what we are, why we are here; questions of why we die and why we suffer. These were the feelings waking me up earlier than usual; awake but filled with strange thoughts; questions that had no answers for a young child.

It was during one of those contemplations that my grandmother Pilar found me one morning as she came to wake me up.

Que te pasa, mi’jito? She said, you look sad."

I’m not sad grandma’, I replied as I stood up ready to go to the molino, I was just thinking about things, that’s all.

Embarrassed that I had been caught in such intimate mood, I went straight to the kitchen, grabbed the buckets filled with nixtamal, and took off at a fast pace towards the molino.

That morning during breakfast she sat by me and started a conversation I never forgot:

You should not feel sad, m’ijo, She began, I know the loss of your father is keeping you awake. It is only natural for you to miss him. But do not be sad because he left the world. Dying is part of life. Sooner or later we all leave this world.

I’m not really sad, grandma’. I replied, well, okay, I conceded, I’m sad but mostly is all these questions that keep popping in my head; questions I never had before.

Like what, mi’jito? She asked as the light in her eyes fused with mine.

Like why people have to die? I don’t understand.

Ay, mi’jito, she took a deep sigh before answering, your questions are the same questions of all humanity. And no one has an answer as to why we die. We just do.

But I heard the priest say the other day that when we die, we go to heaven. I said.

Yes, she responded, some of us believe that we go on living. But those are beliefs that we chose to believe in order to make sense of the things we do not understand; they are beliefs, not answers to your question. I’m not sure that your question has an answer.

Grandma’, what do you mean heaven is only a belief? I asked very confused by her statement, you mean is not real?

I want to believe there is a heaven. She answered, but that does not mean that it exists. Only that I chose to believe that it does. But I don’t know. No one does.

I was so focused on what she was saying I never touched my chorizo and eggs on the plate. I was responding to a different type of hunger that unforgettable morning with my grandmother Pilar.

The belief in heaven is the same as our belief in God. She continued, but we really don’t know if there is a God. Yet I chose to believe that there is because it gives me solace; it gives me hope and a purpose for living. That’s why I chose to believe in God even if in truth there is no God.

Does believing in God gives you an answer for why we die? I was hoping for an answer for the big question that was keeping me awake.

Believing in God does not answer any of the big questions. It is only a consolation, a sort of protection against the fear of the unknown. To turn a belief into an answer is not really an answer. I am only telling you what I believe the answer should be. Yet, that is not an answer to your question of why we die. She shifted her gaze to the garden outside. It was not dark anymore. The morning twilight had chased the darkness away. After a long pause, she began to talk again:

There are no survivors on this earth, mi’jito, she suddenly said staring out the window, as if looking for the words amongst the plants of her garden.

We’re born, she continued, we live for as long as we’re supposed to and then we die. That’s life. Those questions now plaguing your mind of why we die or what comes afterwards, we’ll never know. The answers we give to those questions are based on different beliefs, not truths, for no one really knows.

So, we’re born to die and that’s it?! I heard myself thinking out loud.

That is the way for all living things, Arturito. She answered with such finality my questions suddenly vanished.

That sounds really sad, grandma’. I said, my gaze now on the plate before me, full of food, tortillas cold, my hunger gone.

Living and dying is not sad, mi’jo, she continued, not if you look at it from a different angle. Look at it this way, she said, we’re all part of Nature, of that great mystery we call God’s creation, and for whatever purpose all livings beings live and die. To live and die fulfills a balance in nature that we do not understand; yet we can somehow guess that it fits within the grand design of all creation. And life and death are an intimate part of that cycle. As the rest of all living things celebrate the rising of the sun each day, so we must also celebrate being alive. Our stay on this earth, for whatever purpose, is very brief, gone within the blink of an eye and when we least expect it. We must not lose our precious time on this world being sad or feeling bored.

Something else growing within me, greater than my innocent mind, was listening to my grandmother Pilar that morning. The echo of her words has always remained crystal clear in the depths of my soul.

There is absolutely nothing sad about dying, mi’jo she concluded as she got up from the table.

Go ahead and feel sad if you must for the loss of your father. But do not take too long. For you must also rejoice the fact that his cycle of life has been completed. In time, you will learn to be happy for those who come into the world as well as for those who leave it. That is what life and death should be, mi’jito, a celebration. So, accept your fate as a human being and enjoy your journey all the way to the end, wherever it may lead. . .

Arturo Cantu Rivera

May 10, 2017

Tucson, Arizona

THE LEAP

He gazed beyond the emptiness of a colorless sky. The summer white heat had turned the brick building where they kept him into a furnace. There was no escaping the infernal heat, not even in the shade of the spiral staircase rising twenty feet high. His eyes moved from the horizon to the top of the stairs, to the steel bars of the railing above. Slowly he began to climb.

His friends called him the panther. And Jeff indeed moved like a panther, his feline like movements in the handball court had gained him popularity and respect among his fellow inmates. This hot afternoon, however, the panther’s jovial demeanor had melted; his normal cheerfulness suffocated by the mugginess of his emotions.

He carefully scanned the area. There was no one, neither man nor beast, only the fluttering of grasshoppers riding the heat waves shimmering in the distance beyond the wall. And his thoughts, his raging thoughts. . .

What an endless repetition! His internal dialogue was at high gear.

Same shit over and over! His thoughts so intense you could almost hear them.

Is this what life is about? To be forever repeating the same thing day in and day out; work, work, work for what? So that I can eat, crap, dream and work again? What kind of insane apes are we? Are we so lost we don’t know that we don’t know?!

Already 40 years old, his bitterness continued, an entire lifetime in this crazy world, most of it in the fast lane, having a ball, or so I thought. Now here I am, inside these goddamn, concrete walls doing the rest of my life. And for what? For selling a few drugs? For trying to pay the bills? For chasing the American dream? Some fucked up dream if you ask me. All about success. Success for what? At the end you cannot take it with you.

He then looped the rope on the side railing of the stairs above and pulled hard, as hard as he could, testing its strength. This will do. He told himself.

What on earth are you doing? The unexpected voice shattered his internal dialogue. He turned and saw a white hair man standing on the bottom of the stairs, down to his left. The old man was wearing khaki shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt.

Who the fuck are you? His question was more like a reaction.

No one. The elder answered.

What do you mean, no one? Jeff replied with a frown, you’re either a god damn cop or an inmate.

Nope, neither. Retorted the old gizzard.

Who the hell are you then? I’ve never seen you around? Did you just get off the bus?

You could say that. Replied the elderly, on my way to nowhere I heard your thoughts and here I am. The old one began walking up the stairs but Jeff immediately stopped him with a motion of his hand.

Heard my thoughts? Jeff said, what kind of freak are you?

Not any more than you are, answered the elderly as he sat cross legged on the ground.

But tell me, he continued, what do you plan to do with that rope?

None of your fucking business. Retorted Jeff almost shouting.

Why are you so upset?

That’s not any of your god damn business either! Jeff replied, Why don’t you go back to whatever hole you crawled out of and leave me alone! He was screaming now, what the fuck is wrong with the world today!? Can’t a man be left alone to contemplate his own demise?!

I am your death. You called and here I am.

You’re insane old man. Jeff waved him off and went back to checking the rope.

Not any crazier than you are. Replied the old gizzard.

I’ll be damn, Jeff said, a crazy old fool has come to my rescue. What a joke!

Why do you want to leave this beautiful world? The old man asked, it’s not your time yet, you know.

"Because everything here is an illusion; a fantasy we call reality that makes no sense. We