I went to Sedona last week hoping to get ear-candled. Instead Sedona swirled around me with all the red majesty of a Jaipur brothel – heady, musky, hot and dusty – and red. I was there for a Sony gadget get-together in which electronic objects were placed at our disposal to use and smart guys were on hand to lend a hand. Which was good because I was stuck in the on/off mode for most of these items.
My plan was to go to Sedona, find a good ear-candler, and get the session — and my new level of consciousness –recorded using a Sony Cyber-shot device, preferably the HX100V. Sedona used to be ground zero for ear-candling in the 1980s and ‘90s. Now, those practitioners, who ever so sagaciously drip soft warm wax into your ear only to pull it out later with a tug that shivers your aura, are few to be found. My drooping third eye would have to wait.
But all was not lost in the land of red. Sedona is a special country, an odd pocket of new ageists and gypsies in a state where the governor yells at the president, police make arrests for driving while Hispanic, and the Constitution’s second amendment is cherished as much as a cold Budweiser on a hot day.
It is in this cowboy country that Sedona brings a certain beauty that is found nowhere else – gigantic formations of sandstone, ancient volcanoes ever eroding into castles, pyramids, cartoon characters, faces and fantastical animals in the eyes of those who see them. It’s a beauty only too fitting for a Sony camera to record. But it was what was in the rocks that caught my eye.
For decades, those in the know have been touting the odd, rare, energized properties of the Sedona rocks. They described these special spots (and only a real Sedonan can tell you where these are) as “vortexes” –swirling invisible tornadoes of energy created by the minerals and magnetism found in the area’s terra firma. Words like “synergy,” “collective consciousness,” “tingling sensations” come up in conversations although no one knows what these vortexes really are or if they actually exist.
Reports of strange coincidences – thinking of a distant person and then suddenly they call, or fiery nighttime dreams, and strange daydream visions, and those tingly hands and feet — are frequent. Menstruating women report a cessation in cramps. Clairvoyants report, well, clearer visions.
But I was out for something else, a sign, a plan, a confirmation that I was on the right path inside of a rocky, looping life. One definite vortex spot, I was told, was atop the sphinx formation of Pyramid Mountain. But once pointed out, I realized that spot had Tom Cruise’s name on it, not mine. Another would be in Boynton Canyon, but exactly where was anyone’s guest. Or you can try the airport, someone chimed in. Makes sense.
In the end I opted for a lonely trail at the end of Jordan Road, an easy walk from town. I did not know where I was going or how I would get to wherever I was going but I figured the gods would lead me there. ‘Deed they did. In a swell of magnesium and sandstone hidden from everyone in the world, I worked that third eye, called in the “collective” and asked the universe to give me a sign. I breathed slowly and consciously and drew from the warmth of the earth, summoning the tingling through my fingers and sending it up through my chakras to the heavens and back into the earth. I sat there for a long, long time under a darkening sky.
Eventually a dog came by, followed by a hiker who had seen me in the twilight and wanted to know if I was ok. “Are you lost?” she said.
I thought about it for a moment before answering. “No,” I said. “I am not lost.”