Shamanic Vision: Living Life through the Eyes of the Heart Issue #1, Fall 2016 | Page 9

Ravens came, calling out to me...leading me onward, nudging me with finger tipped wings, soaring on thermals, singing their welcomes under the noon sun. We soon found our hotel, left our baggage behind and went into the tourist area to dine. We walked around, admiring how, in the center of town, the leadership there put up a musical sun shelter with three xylophone instruments that filled the heart of Sedona with gong like melodies. It begins with Respect. Off we went, back south to the first Vortex at Bell Rock. After stepping from the car, I paused and asked permission to step into this sacred place. A gust of wind from the South welcomed me with a push towards the mountain. I offered a prayer and a blessing, gave some tobacco to the land and set off on the trail. It was here that we climbed under the Sedona Sun, reaching a special place where I found a Grandfather Tree, the symbol of my vortex (you soon come to discover that this is a land of vortexes rather than a singular one and that they will call out to you). Mine was a Guardian Tree, aged and enriched and hardened by centuries in the ironed soil. I blessed the Tree with tobacco and prayer and water, and then I sat with my back pressed to his trunk, listening to the whispers on the wind, feeling his wisdom, absorbing the wisdom as a man of thirst. 9