Ok, so I can now say that I’ve been to a vortex in Sedona Arizona. Like any good tourist, I picked up a map at the hotel lobby and asked them what to look for. The lady behind the desk smiled and said she had no idea. She said that she had a collection of maps, but that I was on my own when it came to finding anything vortex like. It’s not like she told me anything that I wasn’t already expecting, but the conversation was overheard by a different lady sitting on the sofa. This other lady freely stated that she’d been out to a vortex or two and it’s something that you have to be sensitive too or you’ll walk right on by. The maps, she mentioned, will give you the basic idea of where to go, yet, if you pay attention, you’ll know exactly where to stand.

I’ve heard lots of people mention the vortexes at Sedona and, it seemed, that everyone has their own experiences when they go visit. Yet, because I’m always wanting to figure things out, I did a little research before going out. All the references seem to state just about the same thing and it goes like this (which I found on about.com): 

So what is a vortex, anyway? Well you see them in everyday life. The turbulent flow of water makes vortices. If you have ever seen a whirlpool in a river or watched water going down the drain in the bath tub and have witnessed the tornado like glassiness of spinning water, you have seen a vortex. A vortex is created from spiraling motion of air or liquid around a center of rotation. If you have ever witnessed a dust devil kick up in the desert, you have seen a vortex.

In Sedona vortexes are created, not by wind or water, but from spiraling spiritual energy. The vortexes of Sedona are named because they are believed to be spiritual locations where the energy is right to facilitate prayer, mediation and healing. Vortex sites are believed to be locations having energy flow that exists on multiple dimensions. The energy of the vortexes interacts with a person’s inner self. It is not easily explained. Obviously it must be experienced.

Well, hey, I’ve flushed the toilet thousands of times and I’ve seen my fair share of dirt devils. But a spiritual energy vortex? That sounds like something out of Ghost Busters!

With the map in hand, we headed out to Bell Rock. After circling the parking lot for a while, we finally found a spot and prepared for our big hiking adventure. I looked at the map and then turned it so the map fit the layout of the land. Then, up the red dirt trail we walked. Even though it’s in the desert, the air was chilly and the air still held moisture from the rains that had falling during the winter.

A bunch of kids passed us on the trail riding bikes and we passed some people returning. I couldn’t help but wonder if they found the vortex we were looking for. In any case, we continued on the trail towards the diamond shape on the map.

One of the things that the map mentioned was that the Juniper trees are sensitive to the spiraling energy at the vortex. So, one of the things that you should look for are twisty branches. When I looked closely at the trees, I couldn’t help but laugh. All bonsai trees have a significant twist to the branches and these trees looked like larger bonsai. At that point, I figured we were on our own.

After we’d walked maybe 200 yards from the car, the trail opened up to cross a big rock before continuing around Bell Rock. As I stepped out on the rock, my head started to buzz. I didn’t say anything to Lori, but she looked up the hill and pointed saying that this looked like a good place to hike up the hill.

We did. After we climbed about 1/3 the rock, we sat and chilled for a half hour before heading back down.

Yep, that’s me standing on Bell Rock. I never did take a picture of the full rock formation; it might have been because the sun created too much glare.

Thinking that I just wasn’t sensitive to the vortex, we worked our way down a small cut in the hillside. It turns out, it led back to the same open area on the trail where the big rock widened the trail.

And my head started to buzz again.

This time I laughed. I guess I knew that we walked over the vortex on the way up, but it wasn’t until we came back to it a second time that it made sense to me.

Have you ever heard the Hu sound? The Hu is the sound of a Human. It is the sound that you hear when you quit you mind and calm your body. Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpIrDJGVdO0) is a great external representation of the sound on YouTube.   The thing is that the Hu is not something that you hear with your ears, but it’s something that you feel with your body.

At the same location as the YouTube video, there is a comment that really sums it up:

Oneisus Eckankar, ancient science of soul travel, uses this chant supposedly as a love song to God. The only real truth I got out of studying Eckankar was the realization that we and the grand universe are made up of light and sound, if you listen intently in a quiet place, you may hear a high pitch whistle in the center of your head which is the electrical current we are connected with (not to be mistaken for Tinnitus) it’s been there all your life but you may not have noticed it before. [bolding mine]

I have heard this sound a couple times in the last year when practicing yoga. It’s pretty powerful when you really tune into it. Yet, normally, I’m aware of it in a similar way as the person wrote in the quote about. It’s a high pitched buzz that is ever present and more pronounced during meditation.

So there we are standing on the rock. To me, the buzzing in my head has been amplified to a noticeable level. I asked Lori if she heard the same thing. She first shrugged it off as if our ears were ringing due to the hike. Yet, I asked her to check her heart rate and breathing. After a second, she realized, that it couldn’t be related to the hike, for we were both calm. There was nothing strenuous about our trek through the desert, yet both of our heads were buzzing.

At that point, I tried to pin-point the location or the center of the vortex. As I walked different directions, the buzzing tapered off until it was at a ‘normal’ level. I walked a number of directions and it turned out the trail went right through the center of it.

After standing there and experiencing it, we both kind of shrugged our shoulders and moved on. Other people walking the trail gave us weird looks, but hey, they could have just thought I was funny looking.

After we got back in the car, Lori mentioned it was like listening to the refrigerator running. I wonder if that’s the reason why more people are not aware of the Hu sound. Everyone just thinks that it’s something outside them humming.

In any case, I don’t know if I would call the vortex that I walked through a spiritual vortex. Yet, I can say that it amplifies the energy that constantly flows through us that can be heard as the Hu.

If you visit Bell Rock and find that vortex, it would be nice to hear about your experience.

Just above the vortex, there was a trickle of water off Bell Rock that could explain why all the plants could live. I fugured that I’d include that here, it was moving to me.

In yoga, instructors are always talking about breathing; one of my instructors goes so far as to say “it’s not yoga if you’re not breathing”. I’d say you’re dead if you’re not breathing – but that’s a debate for another day.

Meditation is generally focused around breathing too. If your mind wonders, just focus on your breath. Some yoga instructors consider the art of yoga a moving meditation.

I figured I’d look a little deeper into this breathing thing and see if there might be some connections that would lead us to some real sources of energy.

I’m starting too really like the Wikipedia. Since yoga refers to it as Prana, let’s see what a well respected definition says:

In Vedantic philosophy, prana is the notion of a vital, life-sustaining force of living beings and vital energy, comparable to the Chinese notion of Qi. Prana is a central concept in Ayurveda and Yoga where it is believed to flow through a network of fine subtle channels called nadis. Its most subtle material form is the breath, but is also to be found in blood, and its most concentrated form is semen in men and vaginal fluid in women.^[1] The Pranamaya-kosha is one of the five Koshas or “sheaths” of the Atman.

Prana was first expounded in the Upanishads, where it is part of the worldly, physical realm, sustaining the body and the mother of thought and thus also of the mind. Prana suffuses all living forms but is not itself the Atman or individual soul. In the Ayurveda, the Sun and sunshine are held to be a source of Prana.

What could be more vague than “… a vital, life-sustaining force…”? This seems a little more tangible; “Its most subtle material form is the breath, …”

I’ve always associated breath and Prana as one in the same thing. Well, ok, not quite. I figured that the air’s about 20 percent oxygen, and because the body needs oxygen to metabolize sugar, the ‘energy’ that we receive is simply oxygen. So to me, when someone’s said “breathe in prana” I’ve always translated that statement into “breathe in oxygen”.

But I’m not sure about that direct mapping any longer.

In the definition of Prana above, they mention Qi. Here is what Wikipedia says about Qi.

In traditional Chinese culture, qi (…) is an active principle forming part of any living thing.

It is frequently translated as “energy flow,” and is often compared to Western notions of energeia or élan vital (vitalism) as well as the yogic notion of prana. The literal translation is “air,” “breath,” or “gas” (compare the original meaning of Latin spiritus “breathing”; or the Common Greek πνεῦμα, meaning “air,” “breath,” or “spirit”; and the Sanskrit term prana, “breath”).

On the surface, Prana and Qi appear to be circular in definition. Reading into the definition a bit, we find that it is referred to as “the life-process or “flow” of energy that sustains living beings…”

Could there be more to this then just feeding the body oxygen to … energize it?

Let’s take a closer look at the water molecule. The Wikipedia describes it as:

Water is the chemical substance with chemical formula H₂O: one molecule of water has two hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to a single oxygen atom.

And, when you follow the link to the covalent bonding we find:

A covalent bond is a form of chemical bonding that is characterized by the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms, and other covalent bonds. In short, the attraction-to-repulsion stability that forms between atoms when they share electrons is known as covalent bonding.

…

Covalency is greatest between atoms of similar electronegativities.

And that last link (electronegativities) shows us:

Electronegativity, symbol χ (the Greek letter chi), is a chemical property that describes the ability of an atom (or, more rarely, a functional group) to attract electrons (or electron density) towards itself.[1] An atom’s electronegativity is affected by both its atomic weight and the distance that its valence electrons reside from the charged nucleus.

This to me is the most interesting part “…the distance that its valence electrons reside from the charged nucleus”. We’ve seen that before.

Let’s look back at water one more time. Yet this time, let’s look at its bonding:

Each hydrogen nucleus is bound to the central oxygen atom by a pair of electrons that are shared between them; chemists call this shared electron pair a covalent chemical bond. In H₂O, only two of the six outer-shell electrons of oxygen are used for this purpose, leaving four electrons which are organized into two non-bonding pairs. The four electron pairs surrounding the oxygen tend to arrange themselves as far from each other as possible in order to minimize repulsions between these clouds of negative charge. This would ordinarily result in a tetrahedral geometry in which the angle between electron pairs (and therefore the H-O-H bond angle) is 109.5°. However, because the two non-bonding pairs remain closer to the oxygen atom, these exert a stronger repulsion against the two covalent bonding pairs, effectively pushing the two hydrogen atoms closer together. The result is a distorted tetrahedral arrangement in which the H-O-H angle is 104.5°.

So now, after looking at all of this, the standard water molecule looks to take a particular form were the hydrogen attach at the most probable angle of 105 degrees. But what if the location of the electrons were to change out of their standard ‘water’ configuration? What if the electrons were to get elevated to higher orbits in the atom? Might that change the properties of water? Might that change how the hydrogen atoms arrange themselves particularly if the repulsions were different because the electrons orbit the atoms differently?

Let’s reflect back upon information that we discovered in a previous article (Is food another form of light?).

So, in the process of Cellular respiration, it looks like energy is released that has been stored by the electrons that have been in higher molecular orbits. If reverse logic holds, the atoms that were combined during the photosynthesis must have been atoms with electrons in lower molecular orbits and when light is introduced, the electrons are moved to higher molecular orbits that allow for different atomic arrangements – sugar.

Notice that the basic idea here is that light is introduced and the atoms that make up Carbon Dioxide and Water get their electrons elevated so that they want to bond, thus producing sugar.

What if this same principle holds with Water? What if sun light were to interact with water changing its makeup just enough for it to behave differently?

Let’s consider evaporation. Using the same trusty dictionary we find:

Evaporation is a type of phase transition; it is the process by which molecules in a liquid state (e.g. water) spontaneously become gaseous (e.g. water vapor). Generally, evaporation can be seen by the gradual disappearance of a liquid from a substance when exposed to a significant volume of gas. Vaporization and evaporation however, are not entirely the same processes.

And if we follow the link to Water Vapor we read:

Whenever a water molecule leaves a surface, it is said to have evaporated. Each individual water molecule which transitions between a more associated (liquid) and a less associated (vapour/gas) state does so through the absorption or release of kinetic energy.

And the vaporization link reads:

Evaporation is a phase transition from the liquid phase to gas phase that occurs at temperatures below the boiling temperature at a given pressure. Note: evaporation usually occurs on the surface.

Even though it’s labeled kinetic energy above, we have to wonder about plain old sun light energy. Could the addition of sun light elevate the electrons in a water molecule so that we get the same affect?

One of the common properties of water is, that because the hydrogen line up off center, the molecule gets a positive charge on one side and a negative charge on the other. Like a small magnet. As shown in the above diagram, this magnetic property helps to hold water together.

What if the addition of sun light were to elevate the electrons in the water molecule so that the molecule were to become neutral with regards to its charge? One might think that the molecules at the surface might no longer be as ‘sticky’ and be more likely to leave the collection – evaporate.

I haven’t been able to find anything in my searches that can say anything about the composition of a water molecule while in its vapor form. The only thing is that it took energy for the molecule to get out of its liquid state.

With a different feel, but along the same line of thinking, let’s look at lightning for a minute. Everyone knows that lightning is caused because of an electrical imbalance between one location and another. Here is an article from buzzle that talks about it a bit, but I’m most interested in this:

Electric Charge Formation and Ionization
During thunderstorms, what happens is that strong air currents cause the water particles and ice particles inside the cumulonimbus clouds to collide against each other. Scientists believe that these collisions in the clouds create an electric charge: positive and negative. Further, the positive and negative charges separate from one another, wherein the negative charges moves towards the bottom of the cloud and the positive charges dwell in the upper and middle regions of the cloud. The negative charges cause positive charges to develop in the area surrounding the cloud and on the ground below. The electric charges get stronger and makes the cloud negatively charged and the surface of the Earth positively charged. The electric charge caused between the Earth and the cloud serves as the perfect platform for the occurrence of lightning. [Bold italics mine]

I’m sure the scientists are still studying if this is exactly what occurs. I’m starting to think that there might be a link between sun light, water vapor and lightning.

So, what are my guesses?

What if the interaction of sun light shining on the surface of the earth transforms the water, from its dominate form into a higher energy form where the electrons are in higher orbits.  This water then is not as ‘sticky’ and it becomes water vapor that then travels through the air and gets absorbed by people breathing. Now, like sugar, this water vapor molecule has electrons in higher energy states that allow the body to use this molecule to build other molecules that regular water doesn’t work for or the extra energy can be used by the body by reducing the high energy state water into the standard lower energy state water.  This reaction might be similar to the electromagnetic energy given off when the body breaks down sugars.

If this holds, Prana would be more than just oxygen, but rather the extra energy carried via water vapor that can actually be used by the body.

Well, I might have made some debatable logical inferences above, but when you relate what happens inside a plant when light energy is used, it creates higher energy atoms that have an affinity to combine into the stable sugar molecule that stores the energy for the body. One has to wonder if that same process might happen with other molecules like water.

So breathe deep, there may actually be energy in the molecules that you breathe in.