The Rebirthing of Sedona | Parisse Deza

- How A Sacred Site Turned Amusement Park Is Returned To Her Natural Self 

By Parisse Deza
April 20, 2020

Introduction 

"They paved paradise, put up a parking lot."

New-agers tend to think idealistically about Sedona, getting high on the idea of vortexes, ETs, and flute-playing natives, while having serious cognitive dissonance about its 3D realities. I want to provide a reality check now, and to ask for your vibrational assistance, because Sedona's glamorous spiritual persona is far from what she has become on the mundane level since the 1980s; her true nature and purpose having been prostituted by the Churches of Commerce and Progress who taught the world to think of her as a "vacation destination" and her red rocks as her "main attraction". I'm going to offer some facts about this, and ask you to co-create with me a new vision for Sedona, a spiritual directive to resonate with, as she needs a literal soul retrieval, hers having been stolen when bureaucrats decided "incorporation" was a good idea. What returns with her soul is her true purpose as a center for spiritual communion.



The Place Herself 

Sedona, Arizona, is a sacred site, not a city. There are those who would argue with this, which is why they made her a city, incorporating in 1988 after a painful feud between, essentially, the Townies and the Mob, who believe her purpose is to attract tourists for money and prestige ("The Most Beautiful Place On Earth"), not really caring about all the dirt and tension that comes with their materialism gone nuts.

Sedona is one of the most powerfully charged energy centers in the world, revered for her special ability to send a creativity-inducing, growth-catalyzing charge through anyone in reach. We talk about having four major vortexes here (Tourist: "Do you know where the vortex is?"), but really the entire, overall horseshoe-shaped area is a gigantic vibrating whirlpooling cosmic capacitor, a mega spiritual radio sending-and-receiving station. The Buddhists liked Sedona so much they erected an authentic thirty-six foot stupa here -one of the few things built in the last quarter-century that I would not deconstruct to bring the area back to nature.




In the 1980's Sedona began her inexorable transformation from nearly pristine natural environment with a sustainable, relatively respectful population welcoming scads of awe-struck tourists and a sudden influx of new-agers seeking the fifth dimension to being a fat cat cash cow for the Chamber of Commerce - greedy, narcissistic business people and politicians who revel in having turned it into a pricey amusement park of their very own.

What once was peaceful and pure now needs prayer and purging.

Past, Present, Future 



Named for Sedona Schnebly, the town of fifty-five inhabitants (now counted as 11,500) was officially born on June 26, 1902, when she and her husband T.C. opened the first post office. Her mother created the name Sedona for her, thinking it sounded pretty, and new-agers are fond of saying that the name spelled backwards is "anodeS", a curiously profound electro-magnetic correlation to the vortex effect here, which does, in fact, produce a measurably higher energy field than most other places. (Maybe Mom was "tuned in, tapped in, and turned on"!) And if you are numerologically inclined, the name Sedona works out to an eye-catching 22/4 - the number said to be that of material mastery. Further, 4/22 is Earth Day. Make of that what you wish; it is rather cosmic.

Before white people formally lived here, the local natives were not local. Being deeply respectful of the nature of this area, and probably having a healthy degree of fear of it, tribal Americans never lived directly in "the Place of the Red Rocks" (Hopi name for her); they lived in the surrounding areas and came here only to do ceremony. They were wise. When in a bad mood about how we've disrespected this place I am apt to say, "Only white people are stupid enough to live here."



Cathedral Rock and Oak Creek 

Geologically, this area is highly infused with red iron oxide, thus its extreme coloration. Rich in every other mineral, with miniature quartz crystal-bearing geodes growing in every rock ledge, and mountains shaped like they were seeded here from Mars, Sedona has such a high electro-magnetic charge (mostly "electro"), and has made so many people act crazy, that when I first lived here in the late 80's we'd joke that if you could last a year here you were considered a senior citizen. I did, in fact, witness people come and go from this place at a never-before-seen rate, and usually with a lot of drama. It is true that if you don't have a relatively calm mind and clear creative initiative to follow, the energies will get you.



The air was clean, the winters mild, and it rained a little once in a while. (Chemtrailing over three decades has caused the seasons here to act demented, and it is common for it to rain obsessively, not just for a full day, but sometimes for a week or two nearly constantly, with summer/winter temperatures exaggerated beyond anything they used to be.) Crossing Highway 89A running through the middle of town was easy on foot, even though Sedona sustained a yearly tourist load of 1.5 and 3.5 million - no one could tell for sure. Walt Disney vacationed here a lot, brought his artists for inspiration, and made movies here. We have a "Disney Lane" named in honor of him.

And, yes, many westerns were born in Sedona...




Now, all the empty space that was in front of these mountains is covered by buildings...

The Forest "Service" 

"All initiation of force
is a violation of someone else's rights,
whether initiated by an individual or the state,
for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals,
even if it's supposed to be for the benefit of another
individual or group of individuals."
-Ron Paul 

Parking anywhere on the roads going out of town to hike and camp at your leisure was a given - given to us freely by Nature to enjoy. Explicitly stated, you could park, walk, play, and camp anywhere you wanted, for as long as you wanted; no one was going to tamper with your free will. This right has been progressively infringed upon by a police group calling themselves The Forest "Service". The term "service" here is a complete misrepresentation, as they are not serving the forest or us at all. They should call themselves "The Fascist Squadron" as they have commandeered the land as their own, and command tourist and resident alike as to where and how long they can stop, stay, play, camp, and walk, and they have constructed pay stations in many places, all of which are ours to begin with.

They have erected obnoxious, anti-feng shui fencing that ruins the flow of energy across the land, chopping up space like a grocery store makes aisles. They've put signs all over and made a lot of invasive and unnecessary "improvements" to hiking trails and sacred spots, and, yes, they've been paving over paradise - the natural dirt parking lots - with lifeless asphalt and concrete at great cost and no gain whatsoever. Their rationalization for all this is typical of the sociopathic mind: "We're protecting it. It's for your own good. You can use some of it, but not all of it, and only some of the time, and only how we say you can, because we wear uniforms and are important, and you're not."

And the people buy this horseshit, paying them salaries and fees for it.



As this above is not a driving road, why is it there? They have fenced off the land so we don't wreck it. This kind of behavior reminds me of folks in the 50's and 60's who covered their living room couches with plastic to keep them safe. You couldn't enjoy sitting on the couch, but, hey, it would last!

Here are a few more examples of their delusional capers...

They have constructed these useless caged rock piles as "markers for idiots" all along hiking trails - dozens and dozens of them...




They like to block off paths anywhere they decide you shouldn't go...

They're really into fencing, having sequestered large areas around the Airport Vortex here, as well as anywhere else they want to, trying to force us to walk between their lines. Could they be called "control freaks"?




This is me breaking the law by climbing up the forbidden side of the Airport Vortex. I love the decorative touch of deadwood laid on the ground saying, "Do not enter".



None of this junk used to be here a couple of decades ago. It was just you and Nature, as it should always be. These unresolved individuals have invented jobs for themselves that infringe on everyone's rights while desecrating and uglifying the place. Like all those who seek to control the behavior of others, they forget the simple truth: Neither the land nor the people belong to them.

As if all that's not crazy enough, the Squadron (with the delighted help of the Church of Commerce) has actually encouraged mountain bikers to come here en masse, letting them make biking trails, and even share hiking trails with walkers. The "City" even created a biking "festival" just for them.



So what used to be quiet hiking - lawfully guaranteed peaceful enjoyment of nature - is now often interrupted by the noise and fury of rapidly approaching machinery, chewing up trails with their tires as they go, expecting walkers to just get the heck out of their way. I have had to jump off the path or be hit by an idiot on a bicycle in the middle of nowhere coming around a corner at careless speed. And to crank it up yet another notch on the crazy meter, the city has gone out of its way to paint bicycle lanes and put up "bicycle consciousness" signs all over the asphalt roads in a town where the only ones biking are on dirt!



Peaceful communion with Nature 

The feeling of truly free space, and the peaceful communion with Nature, have been methodically removed by these blighters and their town council co-conspirators, leaving a sort of Nazi-violated version of Sedona, a simulacrum of the real thing.

How did it come to this?



1987 

I came here from Boston in mid-September that year on a spontaneous visit with three friends. It was a month after the famous "Harmonic Convergence". I had heard interesting things about Sedona, had a sense about it, but didn't really know where I was going. Being both a committed visual artist and spiritual practitioner, always looking for my horizons to be expanded, I was totally overwhelmed by the experience. When our four-days were over, I put my friends on the plane back home and stayed another week. When I finally got on the plane to go back, I sat at the window looking out at the desert, crying. Nine months later, I drove my things to Sedona to live. I spent about four years here before resuming my greater journey, and during that time became one of Sedona's early teachers of Taichi, counseled clients, made sculptures and paintings at such an intense pace that it worried my roommate, had lots of girlfriends, looked hard for spaceships, started writing seriously, hiked and played everywhere, and began with friends, as we saw it, to ground the early new energies we were sure were to blossom into a full-out Age of Aquarius by the mid-90s. We were wrong about the timing, and the intensity of the struggle to accomplish it, but that is another story.

While all this wonderfulness was going on I was being disturbed by the sense that something sinister and inevitable was about to happen. It first became apparent in the form of a raging controversy I learned about (denied to have happened by some of the people living here now) between two clearly defined factions: peaceful townies wanting to keep the sweet, innocent nature of Sedona and their simple, happy lives, and an aggressive, greedy, mafia-driven Chamber of Commerce wanting to incorporate. Materialism was infecting the town (dare I say it?) like a virus.

The townspeople were adamant about keeping building to a minimum, wanting to insure peace and quiet, and preserve Sedona's sacredness, and they were especially concerned about ugly structures being erected which blocked views. They were, in fact, concerned about everything they knew was going to happen because they didn't have the clout (bucks) to stop it. The Mob wanted more land, more hotels, more resorts, more jeep tours, more helicopter tours, a MacDonald's, and much, much, much more money. This, of course, was the quintessential 'losing battle' and the end of the trail for Sedona town. The bad guys won, and her soul was sold for a strawman corporate fictional entity ghost called, "The City of Sedona". In other words, "the city that was made out of Sedona".

Then, in ever-increasing waves over time, the destruction started, as the "City" claimed squatters rights over the country.



The Town Council - 2020 

"Welcome to the City of Sedona. A city that is constantly vigilant over the preservation of its natural beauty, scenic vistas, pristine environment and cultural heritage." -tripe from the City of Sedona website

I tried recently (again) to reach the council members with a detailed letter about how overbuilt Sedona is, how noisy, busy, and stressful it is now, and how polluted it's gotten from literally five times the traffic it had when I first lived here. I tried explaining that taking out the side of a mountain to put in another driving lane was contrary to their said aim of preserving Sedona's beauty, and most contrary to preserving the residents' right to peaceful enjoyment. Why did I have to explain that there is a parallel between their "improvements" and over-building and the increased traffic, toxicity, and expenses? (The cost of living in Sedona is 50% higher than the national average.) The real question turned out to be, Why did I bother to try?

I had asked them to show evidence that what they have been doing has made Sedona better for residents and Nature. Five of the seven members ignored my letter. One of the two who answered said this: "No defense on my part is necessary because I am proud of what council has accomplished with all its partners." So, what we're really dealing with here is low intelligence, no accountability, and total denial of the actual results of their actions. They are much too deeply immersed in the matrix to hear anything.

In the last twenty years, building in Sedona has gone from minimal to maximal, and they are digging up every square inch they can to build something on, right up to the edges of the mountains.



The center of Sedona in front of the Thunder Mountain Range 

I have a difficult time going anywhere in Sedona now without tears and rage because I so clearly remember the peace, ease and wonder of her past. The Churches of Progress and Commerce have created a nightmare of irresponsible tourism. Besides the burden of huge numbers of world-wide visitors, the repeal of a local law limiting home owners to renting their places for at least a month at a time has opened the way for out-of-state-ers, especially from California, to buy up homes so they can make 'airbnbs' out of them, and this has driven housing costs as high as the mountains and taken the town away from its residents. This, combined with visitors from Phoenix who use Sedona to escape their own pollution, has caused multiple burdensome problems.



Boynton Canyon Lament 

"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till its gone!" 

One of the greatest losses to humanity, after years of struggle to protect it, was the taking of the huge open mouth of Boynton Canyon, sold to build a resort in. Blockading the canyon's entrance dammed up its energy flow. What had always been freely accessible open land with clean, clear flowing energy leading into one of the most mysterious and magnificent canyons in the world suddenly became a gigantic garage stuffed with upscale phony-adobe tract homes and "resort activities" for the self-centered. An enormous hill was leveled and much vegetation destroyed to build this:




This is how "Enchantment Resort" describes itself:

"Nestled at the base of Boynton Canyon, in the heart of Sedona, Enchantment Resort provides the perfect escape for tranquility, connection and exploration. Discover over 140 weekly resort activities that encourage you to see Sedona from a native point of view."

How right they make it sound. How natural.

Now, to get into the canyon, you must park a half mile away, walk down a long path to the mouth and then spend a half hour walking past these sacrilegiously-placed monuments to the ego. What used to belong to all of us, now belongs to a few. This atrocity is one of many things that must be corrected. Beyond the pain felt over this is the feeling of complete bafflement in knowing that the people who participated in it have no idea what they've done and what they've lost.

Narcissism like this in our society is common, but the exception here is that most places are not one of the highest energy centers in the world. When we have our global reset and the humanitarian funds come through, it is one of my highest priorities to get together with other philanthropists and buy back Sedona, remove what should never have been built in the first place, and return her to her naturalness, empty of capitalist stupidity and garbage, allowing her inherent Song to be heard easily again. Money-making and self-glorification is the opposite of what Sedona is for.



A New Vision For Sedona 

The natural, healthy relationship between entertainment and living is inverted everywhere on the planet; what has happened to Sedona has happened globally - humanity has forsaken its connection with Nature and Spirit, and gotten lost in the outer world. Sedona, while being a microcosm for this imbalance, stands out because of her special energy status. Places of higher power need extra respect and care so the balance everywhere can be more easily maintained because these places are pivot points in the Earth's acupuncture energy network. What is artificial here must be minimized, allowing her true nature and purpose to surface and breathe freely again. To do this a new vision for Sedona must be based on our desire for unity with the Source, peace, freedom, and happiness above all, returning her popular image to that held by the tribal people -a spiritual center, not an entertainment center. Endeavors that were based on materialism must be eliminated and the land used for them brought back to Nature. This will be a big project requiring big money and a unified plan coming from Source implemented by a meritocratic group acting organically. The first step will be to dis-incorporate.

In Conclusion 

There hasn't been proper grieving for what was lost, and that is part of the purpose of this writing - to draw attention to the great loss we have suffered. We must bottom-out in that pain before we can rise to a new future, and to accomplish all this we must ask for "an influx of spirit blessings from the Ancestors" (the words of the I Ching regarding this), so that as humanity passes through its current birthquake, Sedona also is reborn in a higher form as the vessel for communication and transformation she innately is. And we must start, as always, from where we are...

"Our strategy should not only be to confront empire, but to lay siege to it.

To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature,
our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories.

Stories that are different than the ones we are being brainwashed to believe.

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

-Arundhati Roy 



Parisse Deza has 47 years experience in self-cultivation arts, and calls his field​ ​Consciousness and Creativity. He is a​n educator​, counselor, reader, artist, ​writer, ​and Daoist internal​ ​alchemy, chigung, and feng-shui adept living in Sedona, Arizona since December, 2015.

Source: Operation Disclosure