I left my fairy tale bungalow with the roses blooming surround to visit Mount Shasta and Crater Lake recently.

A friend informed me that this area was a highly spiritual place for native Indians.

Standing at the teetering edge of Crater Lake is hyper real. The blues are reminiscent of 1950’s technicolored film scenes. The whites are unearthly floating in lazer blue water and sky. The contrast between the tranquility of the scene and the violence which created this high vibration sight is jarring. Even today, Native Indians and New Age mystics come to interact with the deepest water lake in North America.

My friend, Laura and I stood on the dark rock at the edge. She turned to me and said, “The last time I came here was about twenty years ago on my honeymoon.”

I smiled and looked down at the bottomless water holding sky. “The last time I came here was about twenty years ago on my honeymoon.”

We were both quiet. I searched around inside my body closet for emotions… wondering if I would hit a monster memory or a little demon pain and was finding only calm. I felt good. I felt so opened up and enveloped by the beauty before and beneath me. That was all.

Afterward, I went to the gift shop to buy a tee shirt. I would wear it as a victory emblem. I had not returned to Crater Lake. I was seeing it for the first time free of any past story.

When we arrived in Mount Shasta, our hostess told us her own narrative. We found our place to stay during the conference through the airbnb.com site. Chi is a Japanese. She is a Japanese concert pianist who moved to New York. During the summers she taught short courses at Mount Shasta but it called to her. She left her life in New York behind and moved without a place to live, without a job, without a clear purpose and alone.

One year and six months later she now lives in a house, teaches at nearby institutions, tours with local symphonies.She now has a large and luscious garden which she planted. She found a man who loves her and is her equal in skills, openness and gratitude for their new life. In eighteen months she created an entirely new way of being in the world.

Because she trusted herself, she grew.

When she first moved to Mount Shasta, there was a blizzard that shut down the town for weeks. Her friends in New York thought she was crazy. She thought she might be crazy. Now, She has made a new structured reality to live within and it is far better.

The conference itself was uneven. Some speakers were inspirational… but I always find that a waste of time. I brought my own sparkler spirit. I was inspired to travel, to spend money, to leave my house. Yep.

I was so high school girl giggling in the back of the room when my new friend turned to me. We are both open notebook, furiously scribbling types of people.

“I haven’t got anything in my notebook. Did she say anything?” She said.

There is plenty of excitement in the network marketing arena over a new, enthusiastic group viagra on line uk of networkers called Pur3X or the Pure Energy Club. Grape fruit or its juices are also not recommended with the liver viagra pfizer cialis condition which is undoubtedly incurable with medications. Treatments are all based on the cause of the problem and meet viagra purchase canada an expert as early as possible. There are certain side effects that the pill holds. tadalafil 10mg uk “You haven’t got anything in your notebook and I don’t have anything in my notebook because there is no content,” I replied.

She looked relieved as we both laughed.

So much of the conference was light on actual information. I felt like a sixth grader in a third grade class and my body was unused to sitting for such long periods of time. I stop to analyze my reaction. Am I wrong to feel this way? Is it ego to want to find those beautiful revelations of information that open a person up, that challenge a person’s mind?

I frequently get up and go outside to do some yoga poses and just stare at Mount Shasta. I am yearning to get up onto her pathways, to interact with the spirits purported to be on the mountainside.

Sitting in the dark room barely able to see my notebook, I still persisted in taking notes. As I read them scrawled like a insect trail over the pages, it is like reading from one possessed. I will share a few with you to be puzzled by along with me or to amuse you.

“My baby body cleaning me.
Calling the Elders to be with us.
The Telos beings are crying.
I give this day to all that is divine.
A big white puffy woman like a cloud.
Blah blah blah blah so far nothing. only her visions.”

We are asked to stand facing another participant. I am hit. I am hit hard in the chest. The woman I face appears to me as a severed tree broken off in a storm with no branches left. She is a sharp asymmetrical point. The trunk still lives but she has lost all her foliage. I lean into her and whisper, “It will be alright.” I am telling her the truth. She needs to hope and grow her branches back.

We repeat the exercise with another person and this time the woman I face is surrounded by blossoms. She is surrounded by beautiful, healthy, radiant flowers. I tell her. I say, “You have a blooming garden all around you.” She hugs me and quietly responds, “Thank you.” She knows exactly what I have seen. She knows.

The energy in the room from the 700 people is immense. Some are on walkers, some are large with despair, some are healers or lightworkers. Everyone wants to know how to be better at this, at this being alive, at this walking the earth. There are many, many who are here to find a key to the gate of hope.

One speaker talks about personality types and informs the audience of a web site with a test that will lead them to an analysis of their type. She delineated the types and the percentages of the population that are that mode of person. I know immediately from her description that I am a “reflector.” I am in the 1% of the population whose job is to stay outside. My job is to not join the groups. My job is to not follow others, participate in that which others feel is fun or entertaining. A reflector’s calling is to observe from the distant place and allow others to see who they are. By not becoming part of the social organism, we can remain sociological anthropologist. No question. Absolutely.

My notes at this point say: “Moss growing on a paper cutter blade.”

And then I write a poem about falling in love…. with myself.

to be continued. to be continued.