US Mystical Sites
Joshua Tree National Park
What looks like immense dollops of liquid rock are piled cunningly together by Nature. The light falling upon them creates a kaleidoscope of colours from dawn to dusk.
At night a chorus of howling coyotes and hooting owls provides a musical accompaniment to the panorama of the star-filled sky. Rushing winds turn the benign scene into a place of awesome power – the desert unequivocally rules!
Mount Shasta
Clouds pass slowly above the peaks while below an ever-changing scene is played out on the mountain sides. Painted white with snow, the dark of the rocks creates human faces, animals and mythical scenes that constantly change by the hour.
To walk at the foot of this immense edifice of rock is to be drawn unwittingly towards the vortex of energy that lies at the heart of these volcanic rocks. A stream meanders past the trail, its music somehow strange to the ears. Never has rushing water sounded as unworldly as this.
Shasta is alive, watching like a great brother over the sister land below. The mountain’s beauty changes from season to season and its tales of Lemuria and Blavatsky’s Visionary Masters never cease to be enticing for the pilgrim.
The Caves of Pluto
Situated in the desert on the Northern aspect of Shasta this is magical site. Sacred to the Shasta Indians, as well as providing shelter, these underground caverns on the Northern aspect of the mountain are regarded as entrances to the Otherworld. Described as ‘cathedrals’, but with the dimensions of an English village church, the presence inside is still magnificent.
The spirit of the Bear is part of the old legends and this, combined with a Tolkienesque air to the tunnels creates a unique ambiance. The stillness within, combined with a potent sense of the eternal is most moving. Light pouring through fissures in the rock ceiling conjures visions of the Grail.
Lassen Volcano
Part of the Cascade Range, once the territory of the Maidu Indians, Mt. Lassen erupted in the 1920s. Giant pebbles like the Loomis Hot Rock squat majestically about Lassen National Park. Much heavier than many a megalithic monument in Britain, these rocks were left after the lava path had cooled and are a dramatic reminder of the earth’s power. When dowsed with a pendulum the end furthest from the mountain appears, in all of these giant stones, to have significantly greater energy.
The Painted Hills (Eastern Oregon)
The Painted Hills lie between Prineville and Mitchell - two towns, that were once havens of the Old West. Dating from thirty million years ago, this area is one of the trio of sites in the John Day Fossil Beds. Only visual images can hope to relay the grandeur and beauty of the landscape.
At dawn, we are alone, ensuring that the awesome silence of the place is enhanced. The great age of the land ensures that its purity remains, and with it the heart of the Native American. The spirit of the eagle is so strong here as to make the traveller fall to the ground, there to let his soul be taken into the endless sky and beyond.
From a rock face the image of the head of a cougar stares down, the guardian of the majestic, timeless Painted Hills. The symbol of leadership and power, this reclusive spirit stands, with the black bear and the grey wolf, aloof, independent and eternal.
Earth Energies of Oregon
The landscape of the Pacific North West is spectacular to observe and contains within it powerful elemental forces. These phenomena are particularly active at the Winter and Summer solstices.
'Haystack Rock at Lowtide'
At Cannon Beach a group of rocks stands near the shore. Accessible at low tide, these stone pinnacles resemble a giant version of the stones at Stanton Drew in England. Haystack Rock, the largest of them and has a benign presence. Meditating near it can produce sensations of a physical shift. Earth and water meld, neither one dominating the other.
Silver Falls
Silver Falls State Park contains ten separate waterfalls. The most impressive, fed by Silver Creek, is South Falls. In 2008, swollen by a snow thaw, a wall of water plunged into the mist-filled canyon below.
The sight was unforgettable. The water jostled along the banks in great sepia waves, then, like a great creature unleashed, it whirled and twisted until finally tumbling headlong into the abyss. Its action resembled the Fool as he rushes without a care into another dimension.
All Pictures Courtesy of Shama
