The Altered States of Sedona

Travel Stories: Laurie Gough looks Arizona's New Age mecca in the vortexes and says, "Sacred energy of the Earth, come and get me."

Photo by midiman, via Flickr (Creative Commons)

But I’m not deterred. We decide that after exploring downtown, we’ll head back into the hills for sunset. Sedona, despite it being New Age Disneyland, is stunning. New businesses in this rapidly growing town of 15,000 must have red clay roofs and adhere to adobe architecture in muted shades of browns, greens and taupes. Even the gas stations are adobe. The adobe McDonald’s in Sedona advertises, “The Only Teal Green Arches in the World” and they don’t look bad. When the sun sets in a place like Sedona, a place surrounded by red rock mountains, it’s an event of dazzling proportions that people anticipate for hours. The last rays of the day ignite the towering rocks like golden castles until finally they burn up in a glowing cayenne blaze. When it’s over, the mountains darken to violet shadows as if the sun were never there at all. The sky fills with rosy clouds, the air turns cold and the people turn to go home.

We decide to watch the sunset from Airport Vortex (the “masculine” vortex which might knock me over) because it has tremendous views. I scramble up the rocks ahead of Rob, thinking perhaps I’ll “feel” more on my own. It’s a short but steep climb to the top of the vortex and on my way up I pass a middle-aged woman huffing and puffing coming down. “I didn’t feel anything,” she says to her husband. “What a darn waste of time that was.” I keep climbing. When I reach the top, the sun is in the process of painting everything a fierce red, and I sit down on the sandstone rock. For a long time I stare out across the dizzying grandeur of the high desert landscape, the mesas, mountains and buttes, the ancient rocky depths below, trying to probe the depths of my inner self, yearning for the Earth’s energy to mingle with my own, and a feeling gradually starts to come over me: starvation. I could go for a super burrito right about now.

The next day we go to Cathedral Rock, which, with its red-rock spires lofting over the flowing Oak Creek, is the most photographed site in Sedona. We hike along the brook through the trees until we find Cathedral Rock Vortex, sit down and try, seriously this time, to sense the surges of energy. Under the shade of a juniper 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 says. 

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 10 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 them?

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.



Laurie Gough is the author of Kiss the Sunset Pig: An American Road Trip with Exotic Detours and Kite Strings of the Southern Cross. She has written for Salon, The Los Angeles Times, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, Outpost, Canadian Geographic, The Daily Express, and In London, among others.

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21 Comments for The Altered States of Sedona

Love2SeeNewThings 04.14.09 | 2:02 PM ET

Just came back from Arizona myself and was nowhere near Sedona, but if the state in its entirety is supposed to have healing properties or detract one from killing a close friend or spouse - then I say skip it all together!  Out of 9 days, aside from seeing 2 tourist attractions the only sight I was able to see at sundown was another car while driving.  Another ode to nature - at night it seems darker than New York City.  So, if you are not used to driving at night I would forgo it and grab a cab - especially after a beer or two!

Lindsey 04.14.09 | 4:30 PM ET

Northern Arizona is vibrant and mysterious! Have you been to the Granite Dells just to the west in Prescott?

Shannon 04.15.09 | 10:59 AM ET

Thank you for your article I really enjoy reading it!

Love2SeeNewThings 04.15.09 | 12:56 PM ET

Hi Lindsey,

I would have loved to see more of Arizona; unforunately my host was not much of one.  Maybe it was control issues where she felt I could not go anywhere without her, but like I said in an earlier post - there was no mystical force in AZ that could have deflated my anger.

TambourineMan 04.15.09 | 3:52 PM ET

I’m with you, Laurie. Vortex, shmortex. I’ve been to all the sacred sites in your story and the only time I’ve felt anything is after smoking a J. Sedona is certainly beautiful, but I’m not a fan.

Love2SeeNewThings, sounds like you went to the wrong Arizona. Next time, ditch the host and do some camping out in Vermillion Cliffs National Monument near the AZ/UT border.

http://www.blm.gov/az/st/en/prog/blm_special_areas/natmon/vermilion.html

Titanium 04.16.09 | 4:06 PM ET

Nice story. But honestly the New Agers are only one segment of Sedona’s community. There are also lots of artists and retirees, many of whom are not alternative thinkers and vortex believers. You’ll find this kind of population mix in just about any strikingly beautiful place that hasn’t been reserved as a national park.

Love2SeeNewThings 04.16.09 | 9:36 PM ET

Thanks for the advice TambourineMan!

If I ever get the chance to go again, not only will I ditch the host and check out the areas everyone has suggested I will try to take a Hot Air Ballooning trip, as well as a White Water River Rafting adventure.

Vera Marie Badertscher 04.17.09 | 3:50 PM ET

Glad you saw the real power of Sedona—the incredible beauty.  Talk to an old timer, or 90 percent of the residents and they will tell you about hikes to ancient Indian ruins and petroglyphs, but they will tell you the true story of the supposed vortexes, which were invented by a guy about 30 years ago.  Some people cash in on the hokus pokus, but please don’t lump the whole of Sedona in that bunch. As Titanium said above, the New Agers are just one part of the mix. But anyone who does not feel transported by the beauty of the red rock cliffs and canyons just doesn’t have their eyes open.  Glad you had yours open.

TambourineMan 04.17.09 | 4:08 PM ET

Well put, Vera. Don’t know if you were talking to me or not, but I didn’t mean that I’m not moved by the beauty of Sedona. I certainly am. What I dislike about Sedona is the crowds (in town and on the trails), the strip malls, the overpriced lodgings, the mediocre restaurants, the U.S. Forest Circus’ confusing Red Rock Pass system, the list goes on.

Now, if any of you DO find yourself in HokusPokusVille, I highly recommend a trip out to the Palatki Heritage Site.  Nice pictorgraphs out there.

Vera Marie Badertscher 04.17.09 | 5:04 PM ET

Hi Tambourine Man:
True there is a lot of ugly sprawl spreading around up there, and you can find mediocre restaurants anywhere, but I hope that you also might have found some of the really excellent restaurants, first class art galleries, and some backcountry like nowhere else in the world.
Actually I was talking to the author of the article, but it applies to a lot of the remarks here that focus on the negative. I learned long ago that if you get 100 yards away from the parking lots and coke machines in a place of beauty like Yosemite, Yellowstone, etc., you’ll find what all those mobs thought they came to see but didn’t walk far enough to experience.

joshua 04.22.09 | 1:28 PM ET

Always love your stories, Laurie. Like you, I think the real majesty lies not in that which is beyond us, but rather that which we can see, taste, touch, hear and smell.

Linda M 04.24.09 | 11:04 AM ET

Is this story a reprint? I swear I read it a few months ago somewhere else, by the same writer…

memory foam 04.27.09 | 11:49 PM ET

I was glad to read this, as my experience in Sedona was fairly similar— the individual so called vortexes did not knock my socks off either. I did have a good overall feeling there. I think some of the new agers look too much for specific effect in very specific places, whereas genuine spiritual or deeper influences are often very holistic and not necessarily confined to a very small area. I do feel there are places that have genuine power—places I’ve been to in India, and Mt. Shasta are examples. Sedona maybe I can’t really judge as I only passed thru for a few hours.

Agesom 05.07.09 | 10:37 PM ET

Linda, you weren’t imagining things. It was in Perceptive Travel a year ago:
http://www.perceptivetravel.com/issues/0508/gough.html

Good story though! Somebody needs to call them out.

African Sands 01.29.10 | 11:02 AM ET

I loved the article. I have never been to Sedona or in fact Arizona, but it is one of the places I have always wanted to go to. The concept behind the story is very familiar though, where a place of great natural beauty has a slightly diminished reputation because it has become over ridden by tourist traps all in a desperate bid to make money. As many of you say, if you just take the time and extra effort to go on a little further than the average traveller you can often be astounded by the great beauty and local flavour that you can experience. It makes persevering worth it!

Nici22Pc 02.21.10 | 8:58 AM ET

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Joshua 09.28.10 | 11:46 PM ET

Northern Arizona is beautiful, the landscape appealing.Red rocks abound and one gets pulled into a vortex… However, one likes or loves the landscape and natural beauty, one often finds a price paid for it if one chooses to live in such places or procure business. Largly these areas make their money on tourism,so regardless of the Phd one may have, or the experience you may have aquired,  dont come to these areas hoping to find work, or stack up some business on a hunch of profit. In Sedona it is saidit takes 2 Million to earn 1 Million dollars. I largely concur. The word has been out for a long time about holding dreams for such beautiful places to live-work or make ones life. Its all bought up and largely controled, said one fellow in business, and another tightly held his lips as I showed a receipt for a loss of a ton of money in some deals up here. But that is my story, and its a long and costly one. Yours may be totally different. Best of Luck. Neverless it is a costly place that forever boasts opportunity. There may be gold in there-them hills, but a certain caviet should be used.
Experience.

Davis 12.02.11 | 10:36 AM ET

We can all have our own Sedonas.  Nancy and I drove down from Oregon to meet friends from Texas and San Francisco whom we hadn’t seen for years.  Our hostess, an artist and writer, had a large family home up a canyon, large enough that we could spend time apart or together as the moment seemed appropriate.  There was a bit of desultory sightseeing and hiking, but mainly we talked about what had happened to us since we had last seen each other and what we were working on at the moment and we may even have engaged in a bit of constructive criticism of mutual acquaintances.  We made huge salads and light meals.  We had all known each other for years and had traveled to the same sort of places and we all loved Greece and the last evening there we had a large meal with a great deal of retsina at a nice Greek restaurant in town.

Andrew Vernon 04.03.12 | 5:49 AM ET

This is a funny take on things, and I agree that such places are often overhyped to attract tourists. Nowadays, people think that going on trips and staying in hotels will take their minds of the day to day stress. But I think that is ridiculous, because people still bring their phones along and all their troubles too.

Andrew - Hotels Ayrshire Scotland

Debra 10.09.12 | 9:59 AM ET

I spent 8 days here.  After I returned home, people constantly commented that I looked more relaxed than I did from any other travels I had done and that had changed…good changes.  I don’t know if it was the beauty, the hikes, a vortex, or some of the retreat appointments (Chakra balancing) that did it.  This is a wonderful place.  I hope some of the positive changes stayed with me.

Barend 12.01.14 | 6:56 PM ET

Sedona truly looks mesmerizing , I would love to hike around that are some day. http://kolikkopelitnetissa.net/

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