More Early Memories

In doing the research for this series, I was glad to hear from John Paul Weber, author of The New Gourmet Vegetarian and founder of The Healing Center of Arizona. I rented a sleeping bag under the dome at the Healing Center during my first week in town and remember clearly some delicious suppers cooked by John Paul. He told amazing stories about the building of the Healing Center. At night, he said, he would be given directions in his dreams regarding what was to be done the next day.

John Paul has been in Sedona since 1958.  He grew up here.  It wasn't the New Age Mecca it is now.
 

He recalled Mary Lou Keller very well. She was the lady who "... had a non-denominational church in her house...She was known as 'The crazy real estate lady,' because she had people with turbans and saris in her church.  There was a Christian center for reflection and meditation in what is now known as Back O'Beyond, which had a poem by Tagore over the entrance to the meditation hall. They left town for Colorado some time in the seventies."

John Paul had to leave town to attend high school. He went on to become a Green Beret in the military, and afterward attended the University of California, first as a student and then as a professor, returning to Sedona every summer from wherever he was in the world.
 

Joy Devlin then developed the hotline project under the name  Key to Sedona and launched her business in 1990. It is a free reservation and referral service for affordable lodgings, readers, healers, tours, etc. in the area. Since 1993, Joy has also published an annual Directory of Sedona's Lightworkers.

One of the highlights of John Paul's memories was the morning of Harmonic Convergence, in August 1987. He sang for his friends Arend and Enocha at their wedding on Bell Rock. Thousands of people had gathered at the rock, waiting for it to open and reveal a spaceship. When the spaceship failed to materialize, they joined the wedding party and John Paul's singing. Many of them sang along with him.
 
 

John Paul participated in the Live Wire Choir, a New Age singing group begun by Larry and Sandy Reid in 1986, which lasted three years. He was also a member of the Vortex players, a comedy troupe begun in 1987 by Tony Sills and Tony Carito, to spoof the New Age movement. In 1988, he says, a group of healers gathered together to laugh for a solid hour, an event which was recorded and included on some albums of New Age music.

Wallace Black Elk, Lakota Elder, and John Paul built the first teaching sweat lodge at the Healing Center in 1988. They wanted to help others in town learn how to do a sweat lodge with appropriate reverence and care. This Mother Church Sweat lodge lasted four years. A full moon and a new moon lodge were conducted every month during that time.

In 1990, John Paul recalls dancing through town with a singing and dancing group for the St. Patrick's Day Parade promoting Earth Day. In that same year Oman Ken, Robert Frey and John Paul started a monthly drumming circle open to all for dancing and drumming, which lasted several years.

"I have participated in many festivals and gatherings," says John Paul, "and have represented the New Age community at the Chamber of Commerce, the US Forest Service meetings to determine vortex and sacred site etiquette, and at the Sedona city council..."

In 1991, the CBS television affiliate in Phoenix filmed a thirty minute special, Spirit of Sedona, which contained segments on the Healing Center, channeling, crystals and the vortices.

A year later, John Paul reports, he and Paul Davis built the first solar electric car in Sedona and named it the 'Voltswagen.' Continuing his interest in recycling and sustainable lifestyles, he taught several seminars on 'Earthships' and is presently building the first one in Sedona, hoping to set a precedent for inexpensive construction of houses using recycled automobile tires.

The Healing Center of Arizona has sponsored or presented many New Age concerts, weddings, workshops, comedy shows and underwater births. The unique building on a hillside is set among lovely gardens. When a healer passes on, a tree or rosebush is planted and a brass plaque set out with their name on it for remembrance.
 
 

Another healer, Enocha Ryan, runs a private sanctuary known as Ranjita's Rest in Oak Creek Canyon. Highway 89A runs through the canyon, from Sedona to Flagstaff, a beautiful winding drive along the tumbling creek with towering rock formations on either side.

Known today as a healer, teacher and priestess, Enocha settled in Sedona in 1974. She had been living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and after a spiritual awakening, received inner guidance to leave everything behind and begin a vision quest journey. Not knowing where to go, she and her sister, Christine, traveled around the United States together for about a year. Enocha describes their experiences as a long spiritual odyssey. When she finally saw the red rocks, she burst into tears, saying, "I found my home!"

Only 2500 people lived in the Sedona area at that time, including the Village of Oak Creek where Enocha first stayed. The VOC is actually a twenty minute drive from Sedona proper along Highway 179 but the post office treats it as part of Sedona. A gas station, a restaurant and the Bell Rock Inn provided the only amenities when Enocha arrived. There wasn't even a store for the village.

Enocha found a small metaphysically oriented group. They gathered during the 1970's and early 1980's at Paula's Gold Dust Cafe located next to what is now the Bookworm in uptown Sedona.  Paula was known for her home cooking and especially her herb bread. "She was like a spiritual mother to all of us, unconditionally loving and accepting," says Enocha. Locals would sit and talk about dreams, guidance, channeling, other metaphysical phenomena and UFO experiences.

Paula was in a relationship with Nick Duncan who owned the Red Rock Crossing area including Cathedral Rock. His former wife, Lois Kellogg, of the famous Kellogg family, had started the Aurobindo Center there years before. Sri Aurobindo was known as one of the great spiritual masters of India. When Lois died, Nick carried on in a low key manner for a while. Eventually the land was sold to the Forest Service. Enocha remembers that you could go there to meditate or to use the library. It was a quiet special place.

Red Rock Crossing with Cathedral Rock in the background

Nick and Paula were the spiritual mom and pop of the region. They married in Sedona and moved to Kanab, Utah in the mid-1980's.

Enocha's sister, Christine, also came to live in Sedona. She was in a relationship with Glen Newell who had the first crystal and metaphysical bookshop in the area. It was called The House of Light, and was located across from what is now Tlaquepaque. He did a lot of trade with Native Americans. Enocha describes him as a wise, older gentleman, rather like a sage. The couple used to be caretakers of the Cathedral Rock area when it was owned by Nick.

Uptown Sedona, a small western town in the 1970's, had only a few gift shops and hotel rooms for people on their way to Grand Canyon. The little house still standing next to Arroyo Roble, was one of the homes Enocha lived in. At that time it stood on the outskirts of town. Nothing had been built in the valley below.

There was a cooperative called Sedona Gardens, a restaurant, craft shops and a garden in uptown around 1979-1980. Uptown was the area most oriented to tourists. The road went on from there to Flagstaff through Oak Creek Canyon. West Sedona lay approximately two miles in the other direction and gradually developed shopping and facilities for local residents.
 

To Flagstaff through Oak Creek Canyon
 

Enocha remembers a woman who was known as Dori. She called herself a name like Wigmilady-which had something to do with leprechauns. She lived in Rancho Sedona trailer park off of Schnebly Hill Road and was considered very spiritual, a woman who emanated love, beauty and light. Dori loved to cook natural foods. Every Wednesday night she invited people to her trailer and served them wonderful healthy food with lots of wine. It was her gift to what she considered to be her spiritual family.

Ani Williams, who has since become an internationally known musician/healer, played her guitar at these gatherings. Ani has made numerous recordings with Earth Song Productions since then.

The population of Sedona was divided into two main groups as Enocha remembers it. One was the young, service-oriented types. The other was the retirees. There was nothing in the middle. It was hard to earn a living in Sedona then as now and people had to be willing to do almost any kind of work, or be very creative in order to scrape by.

The road through West Sedona was just two lanes wide. (It is now four lanes with a turning lane in the middle.) There was one grocery store. Flicker Shack, the movie house opened in 1975. A Bayless Market,later a Yellow Front store and a drug store completed the shopping center.

Sedona Market, owned by Bruce Connolly, and still located in the "Y" where 89A and 179 meet, was the first place in town to carry organic fruits and vegetables and then health foods.

There was a little restaurant in uptown called The Herbmaster when Enocha first came, which had a health-oriented cuisine. Sedona Gardens coop carried health food for a few years after Herbmaster closed. Then Enocha opened up a Health Food Bar called Alive and Well in Sedona which featured Enocha's Enovations, grainburgers which became a famous item locally. The demand for the burgers led Enocha to sell them commercially throughout the region.

Beverly Howland started Beverly's market, a fruit stand where Tamale Mama's is now. She took over making Enocha's Enovations until New Frontiers bought her place and Enocha's recipe for grainburgers went with it.

Enocha met Lhesli Dove around 1987. She attended the first goddess group that Lhesli led, exploring and celebrating the goddess energy. Today the two priestesses lead Rites of Passage ceremonies for young women.

By January 1987, Enocha felt she was ready for a mate and made a statement of this to spirit. She was guided to imagine herself as a giant magnet attracting her soulmate. Meanwhile, Arend Versteege, living in San Francisco, had made a similar statement to his own spirit and been guided to imagine a Rainbow Bridge of telepathic link-up to his future mate. Arend was a transpersonal psychotherapist, a channel and a psychic healer who had never heard of Sedona. However, he was actually guided to Enocha's doorstep. Within six months they were planning a wedding.

In a channeled message, Arend was asked if he and Enocha would be willing to be married on Harmonic Convergence day in August, 1987, as a symbol of the integration of male and female energy. They agreed. Enocha says she always wanted to be married at sunrise on Bell Rock. Approximately 250 people were invited to the wedding.
 
 

A large group of people gathered for the Harmonic convergence celebrations in Sedona. Over the months before the events, word had spread like wildfire around the world. This was a special date to be honored. All over the United States and in other countries people gathered in groups to meditate, celebrate and pray for the Earth.

Most of Sedona's gatherings took place in other locations.  But a rumor started that the top of Bell Rock would open and a space ship would come out. It is said that some one even sold tickets to this predicted event!  In any case, a large group (5000 says John Paul, 2000 says Enocha) turned up at Bell Rock to see the space ship. When it didn't appear, they made a large, reverent circle around the wedding.  Enocha recalls it as the most perfect day of her life.

For ten years, she and her husband ran a healing center in the village of Oak Creek called Emergence Center for Transformation. They offered many kinds of healing and shamanic work including rebirthing and channeling, held classes and led groups.

In the early years Enocha had had many wonderful experiences that demonstrated the reality of other dimensions. She became accustomed to having blissful experiences out of her body. Eventually her spirit told her "You have these points of reference. Now it is time to come fully into your body--all the way--and live from there." At first she felt closed off from the non-physical realms, as though she were being punished.  Gradually she understood she had to bring all of herself into the present moment and not try to ascend out of her body. The challenge was to live fully in physical life and bring spiritual qualities into the Earth plane. Like others of the early group, she pulled back from New Age community activities, focusing more on her own spiritual development. She became interested in Gangaji's work through Ramana Maharishi's teaching and continues today to hold Sunday morning satsang in her home using Gangaji's video.

Enocha says Robert Adams, a disciple of Ramana Maharishi, was in Sedona for approximately a year and a half before his death in early 1997 and people were coming from across the world to attend satsang with him. It was held twice weekly.