The beginnings of Sedona Sacred Earth
After experiencing several intense spiritual awakenings in my early 20s in Sedona upon my first few visits (1980’s), as well as falling deeply in love with the teaming ancestral wisdom and the memory it provides (soul memory), I moved here and started facilitating land journeys while studying plant spirit medicine, creation myths, the process of pilgrimage and the ways of the Good Red Road as taught by my Sioux family. All the while, I served as an educator at local colleges and universities and continued this for a while (seven years) in Hawaii as well.
The teachings of the Lakota/Dakota people have been my touchstone--the way of the sacred chanunpa, and the Native American Church. My adopted mother and father from Sicangu and Ihunktowan nations were kind and generous to me, patiently teaching me the worldview and ways of the Old People. I listened and walked the medicine wheel that is my life--and continue to do so today, with the gray hairs coming in. I do not take these gifts lightly and feel gratitude in my heart every day of my life for my relatives and this way of life.
After taking out 18,000 people since 1992, I feel no less marvel than the first day I woke up in Sedona after a light Thanksgiving night snow, wondering from what strange, beautiful dream I’ve yet to awaken. As I walk the timeless corridors of red stone with my clients, I watch people begin to transform, heal and sense the Great Possibility of their eternal human spirit as they communicate with the ancient natural alters of the Good Red Earth here. People write me from all over the world expressing a vision that they have for their lives, knowing that Sedona has something significant to do with their highest human aim. I feel a responsibility to cultivate a means of assisting these pilgrims and holding the door open as each soul I accompany regathers a palpable pulse of the Original Human Being that we both once were and are again becoming.
The amazing eye of Joshua Esquivel, Sedona’s best photographer.