The first of a six-part series exploring the special people and places of one of the world.s most remarkable spiritual zones
4/9/2000
Written by Wiggz...also known as the AlienZoo prohibitor of dullness.
To get to know Sedona, Arizona, you have to know the land. Sedona is a magical place. A landscape of red rock -. surrounded by peaks imbued with electrical energy and valleys instilled with magnetic pull. These mystical places are called vortexes.
Just a moment after veering off Interstate 17, 90 minutes north of Phoenix, you feel yourself going through a perceptual shift . your energy regenerates, your cares dissipate, and your mind focuses on the moment. What.s more, your eyes are overwhelmed with colors: the blue of a seemingly limitless sky, the red of timeworn buttes, and the green of mesquite and juniper trees.
While mistakenly viewed by many as a tourist trap, Sedona isn.t about giftshops selling throwaway trinkets, cartoonish Western paintings, and pink jeep tours. Sedona is about energy, and getting back in touch with your self. It.s a place where you leave behind images of one kind of .power center. . real estate lingo for "superstores" like WalMart and outlet stores . and experience a power center of another kind, where you can feel the presence of the .ancient ones,. where you can reawaken your creative intuition.
Not just a tour, but a Shamanic experience
Our entry into the remarkable energy of Sedona was led by Rahelio, who has been giving tours of Sedona power spots since the late 1980s. He also gives astrological consultations, sweat lodge ceremonies, phobia clearings, and weddings.
Rahelio is a meditative, gentle spirit, who speaks with conviction about how the rational, conscious mind blocks out the vast majority of what constitutes reality. He knows that what we call waking life is in truth our dreamtime. We (AlienZoo.s Mr. Smith, Rachel, and I) met him at, appropriately enough, the Eye of the Vortex bookstore, on Friday afternoon.
Accompanying Rahelio was John Tch-Iu Dumas, a didgeridoo player who, before moving to Sedona five months ago, spent the two years touring the U.S., wowing audiences with his skill for playing the aboriginal agave-stalk instrument.
.What I.m going to give you today is a Shamanic experience. I want to help you reawaken your creativity, by getting back to land and spirit,. Rahelio said, as if promising a surprise. .I like to give people something different. Otherwise, it.s just a tour..
So we hopped into Rahelio.s trusty Chevy Scottsdale, knowing that we were headed for sacred terrain. Boynton Canyon was our destination . a breathtakingly beautiful place that.s said to be Sedona.s most powerful vortex. It is believed that it balances our masculine and feminine energies, aligning our thoughts with our feelings, our strengths with our natural goodness. Along the trails lining the floor of Boynton Canyon, Rahelio paused to explain how the energy of the place worked. Like pyramids or domes of energy, he said, the electrical power of the peaks flows in spirals. By walking to this special spot, we were to cut ourselves away from discords - the unwanted and unnecessary burdens we feel in everyday life - and accept the healing power of Earth.
A ceremony of reawakening
Once we found a shaded clearing, Rahelio asked us to lay on our backs, relax, and close our eyes. If we were to feel something in our meditative states, he said, we should just .go with it.. In a moment, lighting some dried sage, he offered a prayer of thanks for the day and the land. Then he sprinkled some dried tobacco on our chests as an offering to the spirits.
He told us to take deep breaths, taking in new energy with the smoke of the smoldering sage, and exhaling our problems and concerns. Having led us to a receptive state, he vigorously shook rattles . they sounded like shaking a huge, already open box of dried macaroni . right next to our ears; we later learned this was to shake up our thoughts, and balance our minds. This went on for a few minutes. We each got our moment of mental invigoration as we further connected with the Earth.
A visual journey came next. Rahelio asked us to imagine a cave. .Go there,. he said. .Go inside. See what is there. Walk toward the light.. As we imagined the light, he asked us to take the gift of what was inside the light. I saw a blank canvas, and swathes of paint being applied to it. I saw my creative power.
And then Rahelio played the flute, helping our minds drift as he seemed to summon and thank energies flowing through the air. Then he banged the drum, shaking the ground beneath us, calling the healing power of Earth into us. The vibrations flowed through every muscle of our bodies. At this point, Rachel felt as if her whole body were resonating with the heartbeat of the drum; the beat seemed to pull her off the ground. Just then, John played his didgeridoo . which at some times sounded like a Tibetan Buddhist horn, at others like a metal marble swirling down a cyclonic track . changing the emotional tone of our afternoon.
Closing the ceremony, Rahelio played the flute again, and he sang a appreciative, thoughtful prayer.
When she opened her eyes, Rachel saw snowflakes of energy falling from the sky. Mr. Smith spoke of seeing himself run down the hill while he lay there. I felt renewed. We all did.
We had unlocked the stillness and silences within us, and allowed Earth to re-create us.
Next week
Next Sunday, we.ll continue on the journey Rahelio led us, and discuss his experiences with UFO sightings. We.ll also visit Starport of Sedona, one of the coolest alien giftshops this side of the universe, where a little plastic alien man hangs from tinfoil UFO on the ceiling. Starport is also where Rachel ate durian for the first time in her life! Simply put, things will take a turn for the strange.