When I was visiting San Christobel in Mexico, I became intrigued with
the Zinacantec Indians' dream life. The Zinacantecs believe that everyone is born with
a twin animal spirit, who you learn about in your dreams. Your animal twin
lives in the Supernatural Corral on a sacred mountain with the ancestral
gods. If anything should happen to your twin, something will happen to you.
In my story, I have a young boy, Shun, learn in a dream that his twin is a jaguar, the most powerful of animals. But Shun's jaguar is in danger when his father's enemy has a bad shaman persuade the gods to turn it out of the corral. When that happens, Shun becomes ill. In a feverish dream he sees his jaguar twin stumbling about on the mountainside, but he cannot help it. His parents realize that they must get a good shaman to work some spells to keep the young jaguar from falling off a cliff or being shot by a hunter so that Shun can be cured.
There is suspense as Shun and his jaguar struggle for their lives, but at the last minute the gods intervene to save them.
Day of the Dream
Shun can think of nothing but the dream he has just had. It is hard for him to concentrate on selling his flowers on that remote mountain road in southeast Mexico, because his mind keeps returning to the night before when his soul was out visiting. For when you dream, your soul goes visiting – has adventures of its own. At least that’s what Shun’s Indian tribe believes.
Shun could not have said just what a soul is – although he knows that everyone and everything has one: even his house and the corn on which his people depend for their livelihood. During the day the soul is in the back of your head or in your heart, but when darkness falls, it might sit on the tip of your nose or go wandering about in your dreams.