Deja Vu in Sedona?

Text and photos by Patricia Grady Cox

September 30, 2015

I used to enjoy terrifying my friends by driving them up the steep switchbacks on Schnebly Hill Road. They always forgave me when they saw the view at the top. My friend Pat McDonald, a frequent visitor from Rhode Island, is on the left, that’s me on the right in the 90s

I took a ride to Sedona yesterday. I have been to Sedona about a million times. Every time someone from back east visits me; many times for hikes (nothing like the West Fork Trail in autumn);, just for the fun of it, and once—in 1988—to attend a Dick Sutphen Psychic Seminar at the Poco Diablo Resort. Back in the 70s and 80s, these seminars were huge. I had attended one in New York City a few years earlier, but that’s another story and not a western one.

This isn’t a commercial or an endorsement. Just saying that seminar was my first visit to Arizona, and it settled a life-long question for me:

Energy vortex Cathedral Rock as seen from Red Rock Crossing. While there are many theories and opinions on how many vortexes there are and what they do for you, this one does seem to bring a peaceful, balanced feeling.

which western state do you want to live in? I moved here two years later.

I don’t know how much that seminar had to do with it. I do know that while hiking in Boynton Canyon (one of the famous Sedona energy vortexes) a huge yellow swallowtail butterfly flew down from the sky, landed right on my heart, and sat there for several minutes before fluttering away. Even my skeptical, cynical traveling companion said, “Look, it’s kissing you!”

Many people feel drawn to Sedona. They feel as if they’ve been there before. Maybe they lived a past life. There’s something in the air, in the light, that calls to them. It is truly a beautiful place. It’s not hard to believe you’re feeling some sort of psychic energy; it’s not difficult to imagine the attraction you feel to the place is due to some past life.

Stormy sunset in Sedona

Of course, that sense of deja vu might not be of a spiritual origin or springing from a reincarnation experience. It might be because you’ve seen one of the close to fifty movies (most of them westerns) filmed, at least partially, in or near Sedona since back in the 1920s.

But then, you never know . . .

Chapel of the Red Rocks is a favorite stop for many of my visitors, on the way to Sedona. Completed in 1956, It was designed by one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s students, Marguerite Brunswig Staude,

Tags: Arizona, Psychic Energy Vortex, Schnebly Hill Road, Sedona