The Holiest Place On Earth (is a surprise worth discovering right under your nose)
The desert painted herself onto my back in thick grey-green and sticky yellowish-brown, adding liberal sprinkles of fiery red and a dash of hot pink for good measure. It was Easter Sunday in southern Anza Borrego, a perfect day for vision questing in the early spring wilderness. I soaked it all in.
It had been the longest, hardest winter of my life. In the past, one by one, like dominoes, I’d lost my lover who was also my best friend, my dream home, reliable health and by default, a steady income or energy for my work. Instinct now dragged me back to my friend the desert to resurrect my flagging faith in life. As it was also Passover season, I would invoke the help of Jewish ancestors, too, those who had foiled the shadow of death and made it across the Red Sea.
It was a hot morning. I crouched under a shade umbrella formed by high pillars of eggshell rock all around. The thought of having to sit all day in a cave to avoid the heat or UV rays was depressing: I don’t idle well. It would be a challenge to quiet my internal chaos sufficiently to hear my angels again, or let a hawk teach me about soaring, or allow the wind remind to remind me that the hawk can’t fly without her. This pilgrim would need faith in the undertaking.
— And daring! I’d come alone with just my elderly canine companion. We’d be spending the night outdoors all by ourselves under a nearly moonless sky with no tent. My “inner warrior” had insisted that I face my fears and ”make peace with the dark.” And with any creepy, crawly things going bump in the night.
My plan was to sleep beneath a wedge of sloping rocks that formed a petite apartment of sorts, a refuge I’d laid claim to upon discovering this site near Jacumba, near the Mexico border.
It felt oddly familiar, like I’d lived in it before. The caves, the dry, pebbly stream bed, the chaparral and the rounded cone hill that jutted out from the flat sands felt like a homecoming. A Native woman in the town had said it was an “ancient Hopi holy place,” a former village that she’d discovered through a vision.
I had stumbled onto the site a year before, intrigued by a huge protrusion of glistening white rock. I stood now on its smooth flat back. Bushes of silvery-green sage poked their heads up all around, scenting the air. Riding an impulse I sang out, surprised and delighted at the immediate spirit echoes. I seemed to be in a natural stone amphitheater. I opened up to indulge another series of deep, throaty tones, since the surrounding hills hid and insulated me from any intruders.
Moved, Inspired, I acknowledged the powers that dwell here: “Thank you for lending me your power. Can you help me find peace inside, and regain my own powers?”
“Peace and power are in the heart and mind of the beholder,” came my answering Benefactor. “We can give you nothing that doesn’t already live within the whole of You. Any place is a power spot, when you are willing to Be.”
Sundown was approaching. I wanted to put my sleeping gear, water, journal, candle and Kristol’s pet food inside my little rocky housing just a few tangled yards of sagebrush away. Once inside, I hunkered down so as not to bump my head on the boulder ceiling. Momentarily distracted from any concerns, I whistled a soft tune as I smoothed and carded the clean, white sand floor –for better sleeping, perhaps as I did in rock-dweller times long ago.
Gratitude filled my heart, much in need of it. I constructed a small altar of varied rock pieces, a snaky stick and stray feather. “Thank you for this holy place,” I offered to my unseen Benefactors.
“You are welcome,” came the reply, “well come. Any place is holy where you bring your Self, where you have come to be well, to know peace, to Be.”
The Voice of my Guidance lingered, tempering the air as I prepared simple meals for Kristol and myself, watching Brother Sun through a crack in my stone house, as He disappeared over a peach and lavender horizon. I went out to sit under the darkening sky. Kristol Girl lay reposed nearby on our enormous, white, rocky platform.
Light disappeared, taking my peaceful mood along with it. Rats. It was getting spooky out here. I coaxed my reluctant dog to get up and come sit closer, as strange blobs of clouds shrouded me in gloom. My imagination was having a heyday: was that a bobcat standing just over there?! What was that shadow moving behind me? And me without a tent: rats!
Alone, scared now, I began to cry. Old hurts came rushing in, dams gave way, loosing oceans of self-pitying tears. Soon I was sobbing as if for a lifetime of hurts that people I loved had caused me, — and for all the hurts I had caused them. Giving into the pain, surrendering to my grief, I howled. The stillness of my surroundings, inky and womb-like, drew me in deeper. Succombing to a greater Will, I felt the river of my own heartache surge, as if trying to enter and merge with the vast sea of all human suffering. I saw that suffering, and the Ignorance that made it, and cried out at the helplessness I felt to change it. I wailed and railed at my Creator.
Unexpectedly, a Voice, calm, loving and knowing, spoke to my grief: “That’s what you have compassion and forgiveness for. Use them,” It said, simply.
Some relief melted onto my grief, easing the tide of tears. I blew my nose on several pieces of nearby sage, remembering to thank them. Staring at stars peeking through patches of clouds, I was understanding more. And a song was coming, inside me. A former professional vocalist, I had stopped singing years before, but now phrases were loosening from the painful, tight places inside my heart. “Let it be, let it be…There will be an Answer, let it be,” came the cherished Beatles tune. What a wondrous gift! My own voice was returning! I cried for joy now, as pieces of “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” found their way, too, out of me.
I sang out to the Spirits of “Ja-Cumbaya,” giving the old peace and prayer song a new twist.“ This is the holiest place on earth!” I yelled at the top of my lungs to any wildcats, ghosts or scorpions passing by.
Again, an unexpected Response touched into the core of me from my spirited Angels: “The holiest place on earth is your Heart. Keep its wisdom in mind, and you will sing life’s praises more often. Peace and blessings, little one.”
I sang well into the night, my beloved pooch by my side. I intoned forgiveness for myself, for the people in my life, for humankind, for us all. Through tears of joy and homecoming, I understood that peace was possible, for I myself am a holy place.
[From the memoir, IRON JANE: Tales of Awakening A Wild Heart, Vol. 1, 2011, revision 2019.]
