A spiritual tour of Sedona, Arizona has just been announced that incorporates the most awesome beauty and profound power of one of the most inspirational locations in America. Having read a lot of stories about Sedona’s energy vortexes and their connection with the New Age movement, I discounted the reports as just so much hype until I experienced them in person. After discovering the vortex energy is tangible, I realized the magic of Sedona is genuine.
Long before Europeans invaded the continent, the area around Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon was sacred to various aboriginal people, including Hopi, and Navajo who would come to meditate at the areas we now call the Vortexes.
The term “vortex” was initially coined by Page Bryant, a trance medium. She listed Sedona’s most important centers of energy as Airport Mesa, Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock and Boynton Canyon.
I was told that high energy sites can be identified by the appearance of juniper trees. The more twisted are the branches, the nearer you are to an energy vortex. When my partner and I visited Airport Mesa, we moved to a saddle between a pair of hills where the Junipers were extremely twisty. After sitting for only a short time, I felt too active and full of energy to just sit and meditate. I wanted to jump around. My partner said she felt “tingling waves” in the middle of her body. Cathedral Rock, to me felt very different. My mood there was calm and I felt nurtured by the feminine energy from Mother Earth.
Originally, the Sedona area was settled by ranchers, but it was not until it was discovered by artists that residents started realizing how powerful the energy of the vortexes could be. People began going there to meditate and do yoga. The energy has the ability to stimulate creativity. I was told of many older people who were not previously artistic, started taking up painting, drawing, pottery making and other creative endeavors after retiring to Sedona.
Boynton Canyon has been characterized as “a mysterious twilight zone or in-between place where Spirit is sometimes revealed.” Others described the area as a “gateway to a vast unconscious realm.” The canyon is a special place for Native Americans including Taos and Apache. Some people have come back from hikes reporting they saw “the spirit of an old man with long white hair in a braid, having a kind but serious face,” One writer said this spirit is a guardian whose message is that people should respect the land.
It is interesting to note that the four groups of aboriginal people who settled Sedona came there from the four sacred directions: Yavapai from the West, Apaches from the East, Hopi from the South and Athabascans from the North.
The reason for Sedona’s energetic power has been theorized in a variety of different explanations. Raymond Mardyks, writing in Star Temples in the Stones, says the stone formations in are energized through their alignment to constellations in the sky. Marty Wolf of Earth Wisdom tours has a more down to earth theory, saying the red sandstone rocks are energized because the iron and quartz can store magnetic energy.
In Sacred Sites of the West, Bernyce Barlow wrote about underground fault lines, rivers, cracks and fissures, along with the high concentrations of minerals in the soil gave Sedona its unique personality. About the vortexes she said that they “interact with so many other kinds of earth energies that the vortex experience can become a mental barbell workout.”
The May, 2016 Sacred Sedona Tour, recently announced by Body Mind Spirit Journeys, will be led by Dr. Jewels Maloney, who has lived in Sedona for 15 years, and leading tours and ceremonies for visitors since 2003. She is a university professor, Reiki master, and author of several metaphysical and spiritual books.
Click here for full tour details, including pricing and registration.