January 2018
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tree beside the creek I close my eyes, take a deep breath and try to empty my mind of its clutter. Gradually I began to relax as tranquility flows through me. The world around me is at peace. Then I hear something stirring—low murmurs drifting up through the funnels of the red ground straight to my heart. Hallelujah, Mother Earth has finally reached me. The murmurs grow louder, so loud I open my eyes to see a group of people sitting in a circle across the creek. They’re chanting. They’re also dressed funny, wearing black capes and wide-brimmed mauve hats. A moment before, I’d thought I’d just felt God, or somebody like him, and now I just feel crummy. Whatever the chanters are doing looks serious. We get up to leave. How can we feel anything with them babbling away like that? On our way back we see a couple in their 60s—portly, friendly and all-American. The man is struggling to cross the stream. He shouts at us, “Hey, where is the damn thing?” “What,” I say, “the vortex?” “The what? What’s that?” “Well, it’s supposed to be…” “I’m looking for the photo op,” he interrupts. As it turns out, the photo op is a far more stirring place than the actual vortex. A flat plain of smooth red molten rocks, cooled in wavy shapes millennia ago, is now a perfect spot for picnics. People are eating, drinking wine, and enjoying the view. Children laugh at some ducks that actually seem to be shooting the rapids and flying back to shoot them all over again. People throw sticks for dogs and families take photos. These people are oblivious to the “sacred site” just ten minutes away but seem to be having a lot more fun than the murmuring circle of New Age energy channelers. I feel inspired on several levels. The fourth and last of the Sedona vortexes is Bell Rock, also a popular site for UFO sightings, and we stop there just for the heck of it on our way back to the campsite. I've given up on the vortexes and admit I don’t try very hard to feel anything at Bell Rock. I recall a friend saying the only vortex he noticed in Sedona was the one sucking gas from his car when he sat in traffic for 45 minutes. Was the whole town built on a hoax? How can you have a spiritual moment when it's expected of you? Aren't these things meant to happen when we least expect it? But as I climb Bell Rock I look to the west. The sun has just fallen behind a mountain and its afterglow is orchestrating the whole sky into swirling masses of mandarin and deep purple wine. Far off somewhere, a green tree of the brightest emerald is cutting through the arid night, while up in the sky a single planet, perhaps Venus, shines down to where I sit on the rock. A breeze cools my arms, pines give off the fragrance of oozing gum, and coyotes howl for night to begin. Inside I’m quietly exploding from the aching beauty around me. This is the Earth's energy, I realize, and this is sacred.
IF YOU GO:
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