Although, many parts of Arizona are teeming with folks who seem oblivious to the realities of environmental cohabitation and balance, Sedona seems to be an exception. After leaving the Navajo reservation we headed west back on i-40 and picked up state road 89A that took us down about 2,000 feet through an amazing canyon of Ponderosa Pines. The road curves alongside Oak Creek, a creek that seems more like a small river. After not seeing water for a week, the reality of this little flowing brook struck us as a small miracle, and we can only imagine how earlier peoples might have paid care and attention to this waterway. Sedona, not surprisingly, sits at the valley floor, and is surrounded by the Red Rock Mesas for which it is so famously known. As we drove through, we continued to repeat over and over: "I think this may be the most beautiful place we've seen so far." This meeting place of water, sandstone mesa, pine and sun must be partly responsible for the sacredness of this landscape, where many have traveled to find solace and to create new spiritual communities, one of whom were the Anasazi, another the mid-20th century New Age pilgrims.
We were greeted with warmth and welcome when we arrived at the home of David Sunfellow who lives, I kid you not, on Disney Way, the street where Walt Disney drew up his first plans for Disney Land. I've never been a huge fan of Disney, at least in my adolescent and adult lives, but it seems interesting to think about how presumably the place he lived in might have influenced his fantastical creation of another world. Once we entered his home, David sat us down and gave us his full attention, asking us questions that were unusually perceptive and gave us his time and patience as we talked through the previous couple days of experiences with him. David's story of moving to Sedona with his young family was surprising and illuminative of the draw of that landscape, and his work as a photographer and social media developer is worth checking out.
After taking a private hike through some ruins in Northern Arizona that morning, we arrived to David's home in the late afternoon still humming from our experiences there. David helped us continue following whatever called us forth in Sedona, and gave us insight into the history of the New Age community in the area. Some may rightly see the town's new age presence as recently commodified and outlandish, but if you try to peer under the surface of things, beyond the kitsch UFO videos and psychic readers, I believe you can find a uniquely powerful spiritual presence. If you find yourselves there, one place to check out that seems to mix kitsch and authenticity is Chocola Tree.
I learned in Sedona that personal intuition and inner guidance can be more compelling and effective than outside mediated "spiritual experiences" or tours. For example, we had no money and not really the time to attend a vortex tour or other such touristic experiences, so we were happily forced to take on the space on our own time and with our own set of intentions. The lack of resources actually provided the opportunity for us to utilize our intuitions, a perceptual instrument that is often shadowed by more tangible senses like sight and sound. We found ourselves, not surprisingly, at Cathedral Rock, pictured below, which was less than a mile from David's home, filled with both tourists and locals swimming in the 90 degree heat. We had an amazing experience there, finding powerful energetic sites that seemed created uniquely for us - sites which could not be mapped or highlighted for us by others. I say this partly aware of the fact that I may be focusing too much on essence here, speaking of the fact that I had to avoid the crowds and markets in order to get to the authentic reality. We don't really believe in essential truth, essential divinity, or essential bodies today; however, essence can be experienced in fleeting embodied moments, where you are there and not there, with the moment and also distanced from it. If you have had moments of transcendence, its impossible, in my opinion, to completely discount the presence of an unmediated spiritual or energetic reality. If we were pilgrims, in the true sense of the term, there was no altar or relic on which to focus; rather, we had to create our own object or site on which to meditate and find solace. This was a creative and collaborative activity.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines Oasis as: " 1) Originally: a fertile place in the Libyan desert. Now: any fertile spot in a desert, where water can be found. Also (in extended use): an area supporting luxuriant plant growth; a piece of productive land in an otherwise unproductive area. 2) A place or period of calm or pleasure in the midst of a difficult or hectic situation; a place of relief, a refuge." Derived from the Greek term, used by Herodotus presumably in his Histories, oasis may be a concept that is particularly useful for us to meditate on in this dramatically changing environment we find ourselves in. Thinking back to images of oases in the Bible or the Koran, the desire for finding fertile and aqueous land in the middle of the desert appears transtemporal and transpatial. And yet, now, more than ever, I would like to think of us, as a global community, doing similar work as the men and women of the ancients: seeking out productive, fertile, and pleasurable places that can support dynamic ecological growth, in the midst of a hectic and damaged world.
Snugs Family
Jess and David
Jess in a Tree (more to come of this genre)
At the water
Cathedral Rock
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