Feel the warmth of the sun,” says Linda Summers. “Listen to the movement of the wind and the song of the birds.” I’m sitting silently amid the spectacular red rock formations of Sedona, Arizona, following Summers’ instructions. I keep my eyes closed and rest my hands on my knees, with my palms “open to the sky, open to the natural world and all it has to offer us.”
So far, so good. As a somewhat skeptical urbanite, more inclined to the cosmopolitan than the cosmic, I’d felt an initial twinge of hesitation at the prospect of joining Summers for one of her three-hour Journeys of Enlightenment (she also works as a Reiki therapist). By van and foot, Summers leads tourists to some of Sedona’s famed vortexes, where mysterious spiritual energies are alleged to emanate from the earth, offering the potential for healing and heightened consciousness.
Yet, as we wound our way through the Verde Valley’s salmon-colored mesas, punctuated with dusty green sprays of catclaw acacia and tiny white blooms of Arizona cliffrose, I found myself genuinely soothed by the landscape’s beauty, and by my guide’s cheerful, non-proselytizing spirituality. “Oh, you’re a little bit of a cynic!” Summers notes with a chuckle at one point, after I’d foolishly asked a science-based question.
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