Part Three; Adventures with Starr

The Magic Dome

Map reading is a useful skill. By finding a shortcut to our seminar location, we were able to enjoy a beautiful ride along a stream running through a National Forest area called Gulpha Gorge. Only 5 minutes or so out from the center of town, you can be in the countryside and huge areas of undeveloped land. (We later inquired to find out that some of it was only $5,000 an acre!) After experiencing Florida’s consistently increasing population and paving of every wild area for endless gated subdivisions, this was very refreshing. Of course, it gets cold in the winter here and there are occasionally tornadoes in the spring. Yes, we know. There are advantages and disadvantages to every location.

The Dome is a church built as a geodesic dome. The Church, known as the “Divine Intervention” Church, is led by Starr Fuentes and her husband Art. Starr is the lineage holder of a curandera tradition of Mexico. Curanderas are like shamans and are known for their capacity to heal people with various methods, especially through psychic means. Starr has taken the teachings she “caught” through the power and energy exchange with the previous lineage holder, Esperanza, and translated it into a form that the western mind can utilize. She calls it “Light Language,” and “Divine Intervention.” For more info on Starr and her work, check out her website at www.starrfuentes.com.

Starr and Art live in the church. They had visited Hot Springs on a vacation only a year ago when they drove by the domed church which sported a For Sale sign on it. They drove up to the door and without looking inside, Starr immediately said “I want it!” The next day, check in hand, she and Art arrived for the tour of the church. Art said “I want it!” too and they put the down payment in the realtor’s hand, only a few moments before someone else arrived, check also in hand.

The Dome can be seen from the road – a gray tiled roof in the traditional pattern of domes, sitting as if on a power spot above the road. You drive up the steep entrance and park in a great level expanse. When you enter the two front doors into the dome, you come into a foyer. When we were there, registration and objects for sale were offered on a big table to the right. Some of the products were from the participants at the Conference, as well as Starr’s. On the left, a table was covered with beautiful local Arkansas crystals. Ahead we found the sanctuary doors to the great round room. The walls of the sanctuary rise up in triangles packed upon each other to the ceiling, coming together in a five sided star at the very top. The altar, on three levels, can host a choir and podium and panel of chairs. The great window behind the altar was covered most of the conference with a large screen for slides and presentations.

Surrounding the outside walls of the sanctuary on both sides are hallways inside the outer walls of the Dome. Rooms are arranged on the curve. Follow the hallway on the right from the foyer and you find the big kitchen and dining area that seat at least 50. The refrigerators house food for everyone as well as for Starr and Art. You open the door and there’s a lot of ice cream, produce, various meats, cookies and anything you can imagine in there. Off the left hallway of the dome are Starr and Art’s private quarters – first her office and then her bedroom, and then yet another room.

Life in this church is always busy. Starr’s assistants kept moving in and out of her office and even bedroom. Sometimes a half dozen people sit on the big comfy bed with Starr and Art in the bedroom along with her smaller dog Bosco. The big one, Merlin, is enormous – way too big to get on the bed with everyone else. He lies next to the bed taking up half the room. There is a high energy going on all the time in this place. You can feel it, and it’s obvious that Starr and Art live their lives richly and fully. You just know that they enjoy life totally. Starr also doesn’t play any games with you. If you are in her presence, she may suddenly tell you something pithy about yourself that may surprise you and disturb you. But she loves also, and cares deeply for everyone’s spiritual awakenings and expansion. This, I feel, is the sign that she is doing her destiny work. If you are happy and have a phenomenal life, AND you are making a positive difference in peoples’ lives to boot, you’re there.

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The Conference Begins…

I had thought that Starr was going to teach something about Sacred Geometry, as the Light Language Conference was oriented to that subject. However, as we arrived Friday night to the opening of the Conference, we both discovered that it was actually a gathering of the Light Language Teacher clan with sharings and advanced work. People talked about shapes and colors casually and everyone seemed to understand the difference between an icosododecahedron in orange and one in pearlessence as far as the use in energy healing was concerned. We were a bit lost with this one and Daniel considered strongly not continuing.

But we mentioned this to Starr and she told us she’d give us some update on Saturday during lunchtime so we could feel more connected to what was going on. I envisioned our getting an overview of the Light Language system or something like that. We continued Friday night and met a whole bunch of wonderful fun people. Truly, each one was a powerful metaphysical peer. Several were from Germany, Hong Kong, and one from Brazil. Starr’s main protégé, Selena Rodriguez, travels around the world teaching the Light Language. Selena spoke several languages and had a great time speaking German for the German contingent. Selena was the mistress of ceremonies for the conference. Selena was slender, blond, with a broad smile and beautiful teeth. She always talked as if she was telling a magical story to a bunch of kids.

In the conclusion of the Friday night experience was a connecting experience in which we all stood in a circle. In turn, each person asked a question and those whose answer was “yes” stepped forward into the center of the circle. Questions varied from “How many people play a musical instrument?” to heavy ones like “How many people have been sexually abused?” Questions were asked about personal preferences, experiences, fears, et al. I got a feeling of the “demographic” of this group and could relate to it well.

Saturday started with stories about the marvelous experiences the practitioners had working their Light Language “grids.” The practitioner would address the issue of the client by creating a grid of shapes and colors. Miracles and magic happened. Various people found their love mates, healed, broke through personal blocks, manifested money, and more. Then we heard about ways in which Sacred Geometry is used in the Kabbalah, and following that topic we listened to how one can create grids with potencies and specific intentions with crystals. Then came lunchtime.

However, at lunchtime, Starr was having some problem and postponed it to dinner. She told us that she would “download” some energies to us to help out. She reminded us that we were getting it subconsciously even if we weren’t getting it consciously. Finally, she offered us a refund if we didn’t feel we were getting anything out of the experience. How could one lose? We also both realized that staying with the Conference was pushing us out of our usual boxes (limitations). Such as my linearity box and Daniel’s ocial box.

After the lunch break, we returned to the Conference and right away, as I sat down in the sanctuary, I felt a download. Whew! Energy and light and streaming somethings whomped my auric field. I was high and floating in another dimension while sitting there. Later, Starr mentioned how she was laying light grids into the sanctuary and was taking us through the “Toruses.” Obviously some 4th Dimension kind of thing, I thought. LL practitioners use the torus shape (doughnut of time/space 4th dimension) to clear stuff out by dropping whatever you want to get rid of through it. I could feel some deep stuff stewing in my psyche.

After a few more enlightening subjects, dinnertime came. Starr admitted to us that she had a severe toothache and just wasn’t feeling up to it. Probably Monday if we felt we could stay. Seems that she suffered sustained malnutrition as a child and was told that her teeth would all fall out by 40. Well, she was in her later 60’s and just now starting to have problems with them. Several of her advanced students were going to work on her all during the day Sunday she said. She also told me she wanted me to channel in front of the group before the Sunday service. Although I didn’t know why she was so supportive of me, I accepted.

So we went ahead and joined with others to play with the energies of the chakras. For each of the 7 major chakras, we did specific movements to original music and meditation by one of the Brazilian participants of the conference and her husband. The music was energizing with the complex South American beat. We were all pretty high and joyously tired by the time the evening came to a close. I remembered a similar feeling when, back in the ‘70’s and early ‘80’s, Daniel and I would go dancing (remember disco?) all night and return home before dawn to crash, totally spent but happy.

The end of this grand night was a concert by Roy Rivers (who I mentioned earlier out of time sequence). As I said before, he actually sings better than John Denver on John Denver’s songs. Some members of John’s band had even admitted that to him not long ago. In Europe, John Denver was memorialized and installed in a Hall of Fame and Roy played and sang for everyone present. People were weeping and singing along there, as if Roy was truly John. When we sang for us, it was if John Denver was in the room with us. How about that? An impersonator who channels. How many Elvis impersonators channel the megastar? I’d certainly like to see and experience that! We sang until we were hoarse. What a fun day!

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Unforgettable Sunday

Sunday was different in that it started out with a networking session in which Starr encouraged everyone to tell what workshops they were giving and suggested that other people there sponsor each other in various places. Starr is very supportive of people making a living doing something spiritual and also getting the information out there to the world. Of course, she’s a Capricorn!

Then she turned to me and in her high sqeaky voice and imperiously said “Ginger!” She pointed to the seat next to her in the front and I went up and sat down. It reminded me of the “sit Ubu, sit” joke with the dog that closed one of my favorite sitcoms years ago. I felt tempted to “woof” just like on the TV. Don’t worry if you never saw that! It was just silly, that’s all.

I began speaking about channeling and Starr interrupted “you’re speaking to the choir here. Just get on with the channeling.” This was typical of Starr. She was very direct, and made sure everyone was punctual throughout the conference. Every minute counted. Obviously she wanted me to have the maximum allotted time available to channel – 15 minutes. I knew she’d stop the channeling punctually too, just as if we were in Switzerland where everything runs on time.

So I began to go under, but it took a little extra time since Starr was standing to my left and I was experiencing so much energy and Light from her I could hardly concentrate on letting go. This woman puts out tremendous power! But I did go into trance and Galexis eloquently spoke on spiritual power and make a couple of good points. One minute to go and Starr leans over and says quietly “one more minute.” Galexis wraps it up neatly and I come out to applause. Starr beams and invites people there to host me for a Galexis event. I am amazed at this support but feel delighted at it all.

Then we all took a break before the Sunday service when the locals come in. Several people came up to me and told me how they had felt the power and impact of Galexis. Since Daniel and I had admitted at the very beginning of the conference that we hadn’t taken any Light Language courses, people hadn’t been paying us much attention. But after my channeling, all this changed. Some people were in awe. Another one, Sandra, came up to me and said that she channeled and could feel some similar energy. She channels Qwan Yin and Qwan Yin is part of Galexis at times. Several people offered to sponsor a Galexis event in their town or country. Starr offered her mailing list to me, so that her people can be notified of a Galexis event. Wow! Is the Universe being good to me or what?

The Sunday Service was cool. Starr pointed out that many of us can read other peoples’ energy fields but do we know how ours looks? Where the boundaries of our subtle bodies are? What we are putting out in front of us – our child self? Our insecure self? Starr is a marvelous speaker, dynamic and filled with interesting ideas that grab you. She moves about and you can feel that she’s also moving a lot of energy.

Later in the afternoon, Sandra demonstrated her gifts, channeling Qwan Yin and radiating compassion and healing energy. Art talked about being supportive, and Starr showed slides of patterns/grids/geometrics which had a lot of impact on me. My right brain was stimulated and my logical/linear left brain was totally bamboozled. After a fast sequence of 144 slides of wild surrealistic collages and other strange stuff, my brain was exhausted! Then Starr discussed Toruses and their uses. Finally, she sat down and projected, one at a time, 37 energy grids. I felt them hit and do strange things to my body in subtle ways. We were soon all “implanted” with the energy grids for success, love, power etc. I felt even higher than I did the previous day if that was possible.

Now the Conference was technically over, but many would remain in Hot Springs to take the advanced Light Language class and other intriguing classes taught by the participants, including Selena’s class and James’. Previously a trial lawyer, James is now an apprentice with Starr in the curandera tradition.

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Powerful Monday

Monday arrived, and Daniel and I did some laundry at the RV park facilities and then headed over to Starr’s for our noon appointment. I didn’t know what to expect now, since we’d finished the conference and still hadn’t had any consciously downloaded information. As soon as we sat down, Starr turned to me and asked me point blank “where are you going in your life?”

As I fumbled for an answer, she nailed me. She pointed out how I was too much “me me me” and not often enough connected to Source. That my life was half-assed, not rich and I wasn’t really happy. Because I was busy being “right” and not spiritual. It’s like she poked her finger into all my sore places. Zap! Pow! I don’t generally have this done for me. Sometimes Galexis has done this kind of up-front awakening for others. Now it was my turn and I was resistant. I felt myself getting defensive – a sure sign that it was true. How did she know all this uncomfortable stuff? All I could do was mumble “yeah… but” type of responses. And then she called me on that too, saying I was avoiding facing my life and making the powerful decisions required to change and heal it. It took a decision, she emphasized, a choice to get my life aligned with Spirit. Was I going to do that or not? And if not now, when?

I realized with a shock how several “parts” of me were responding. There was the “princess ego,” who didn’t want to do anything for anyone or give anything back to the world until she was well taken care of, loved and nutured enough. She was the sensitive one – people make too much noise, smell bad, etc. And often she just wasn’t present in her life. Then there was the “internal parent” who said I should feel guilty over how little I do for others and I should do more, way more. Another personality was the recluse who whined about having to be public – who wanted all potential pressures removed and who could live secretly, hidden, in her own little world undisturbed and “safe.” None of the parts was the one who could or would make the decision to get on with my Mission, use my gifts and do my spiritual work for more than an hour a day. Where was that part? I sought within myself but no voice stood up for spirit. I was aghast.

While I was reeling with this awakening, Daniel was receiving his message from Starr. His laziness (as I usually perceived it) was not laziness. He was doing a lot of work, Starr insisted, when he lay down and “drifted” on his bed for an hour or so, seeding himself with information and frequencies for the future. Again, I was jealous. Daniel can take naps and be spiritual but I can’t somehow do that, as I would have trouble sleeping if I napped during the day. She had told me I didn’t need more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Yep, I had to be the metaphysical workaholic. I resisted. I knew that I needed at least 7 hours to be alert enough to think and respond well during my day. Others have told me this too, although I’d love to be able to get away with 4 hours a night - but so far I just can’t do it.

Starr suggested that he take her class in November – a month in the Caribbean – where he would learn to teleport himself and change belief limitations on 49 dimensions. In her last class of twenty, she said, five were able to walk on water before the end of the class. Daniel had the right relationship with his body to be able to handle it. I didn’t. Daniel would make a poor student, she added, because he has been a teacher on so many levels for so long. But he would not only “get” or “grok” this naturally and take to it like a duck to water, but better yet, he would make an excellent teacher of it later.

She said I was not invited, because my relationship with my body had to heal first. That I understood. But I still sat there, still feeling jealous of Daniel for his easy relationship with his body and for the fun of learning something great in the beautiful atmosphere of the Caribbean. What could I do in November where I wouldn’t be jealous of him? Geez. All that was showing up today was my petty small self.

Starr turned back to me. She reminded me that I was gifted and that besides Galexis there were two others (or two other groups) that would like to come through. She said Galexis was a good spirit, no negativity there, and that I was a true channel. She had seen many people claim to channel but most of them were full of hot air. I needed to get Galexis out there into the world. To that end, she suggested I channel a weekend workshop once a month and a week-long workshop once a year. Then she told Daniel to write a small book about Galexis and what wonders it has brought to our lives and the lives of others. Finally, she insisted that we meet a friend of hers named Ron who ran an internet radio station and sign up to do a weekly show with Galexis. What a true Capricorn! When I mentioned that her high level of productivity is typical of Capricorn, she said that I and Daniel (as well as she) were ancient ancient advanced Souls and beyond the scope of Astrological application at this point. Starr seemed to have an answer for everything.

We went on with our meeting past an hour and then an hour and a half. Daniel asked “why are you doing this for us?” She said that we had greatness and potential and it was her way to help us if she could help the world lift. After all, it was done for her at one point years ago, and she suggested that for us, to see it as a “pay it forward.” In other words, in the future, she requested that we do the same for other up-and-coming talents. We agreed with that and were grateful.

As we finished up in the foyer and began saying our goodbyes, she asked us to wait a little while so we could meet the webmaster for her sites who was coming to the Dome. I asked her what she would recommend to me to dismantle my resistance and get me into unification. She started to mention some things and then looked at me deeply and said “A 3 day intensive with me should do it.” I said “you got it,” and signed up for her first available 3-day stretch less than two weeks away. Now our schedule was going to have to change big-time! Everything was off now. But this was important; part of our destiny exploration of this trip.

We hugged Starr goodbye as she went into a session with a student. As we waited it began to rain, breaking the drought in this area. Another sign? Nancy, the webmaster, came running in, nearly drenched. We introduced ourselves and Nancy took us into Starr’s office and showed us her and her daughter’s work on various websites as we talked. Her daughter was filming the current talk going on in the sanctuary so we never met her, but we hit it off right away with Nancy and decided to hire them on the spot to redo our site. Sometimes timings just make things fall into place magically and so it was. Nancy also told us how we would be able to do email again and it would only take about two weeks to get us up on another server and have email addresses @galexisspirit.com. This would solve our dilemma with BellSouth which didn’t want to recognize our account if we were not hooked up to them via cable.

Both of us were feeling in an altered state, what with all the shifts going on and which would be going on in the near future. We returned to the RV park and our non-working email. It was hard being out of touch with everyone. Our satellite dish wasn’t working at the Cloud Nine RV park because there was a tree exactly between the dish and the satellite. And the thunderstorm we witnessed at the Dome had also taken out the wifi at the camp. Duh! It seemed that the Universe was conspiring to keep me off my email obsessiveness. At least I still had my cell phone, although anyone who knows me knows I dislike talking on the phone. Nevertheless, I called a few friends to let them know I couldn’t email them.

We finished our first laundry run at the RV park. The first load in the morning was fine – the machines were empty and cool. But in the afternoon we put in another load right after some other people and got a strong smelly hit of fabric softener – yuk! Everything stunk after it came out of the dryers. Took days to dissipate. My nose itched. Maybe we’ll have to buy our own washer/dryer after all. We have the connections in the RV. But not every place has the 110 volt combo machine. We realized we could use a small vacuum cleaner too. I considered that maybe I’d print out the list of all the horrific chemicals present in fabric softener and then leave it in the laundries in the RV parks we visit. I have yet to do this, as I keep getting distracted with so much going on. For your curiosity, here is the link to the list of chemicals and what they do; www.ourlittleplace.com/fabric.html
 
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Regression and Trance in Huntsville

We picked up from Cloud Nine and almost tearfully hugged Ana the owner. There was such a family like atmosphere there. We drove into the Ozarks – what a beautiful country this is! Young mountains covered with trees in the rich green flush of early summer looked sensuous and vibrant. One scenic vista after another greeted us at every turn. What must it be to live in such beauty year round? Of course, it gets cold here, but even a forest in winter is a beautiful thing and nature is awesome in snow.

We camped at Withrow Springs State Park in a new campground nestled among tall trees. Of about 30 spaces, there were only 3 filled, and our spot wasn’t near the others. So at night, we shut off the electricity and opened the windows. How delicious! How serene to be “off the grid!” Of course, we couldn’t get satellite reception for our computers and even our phones couldn’t find their networks. We were genuinely isolated. Frustrating at first, the experience ultimately was wonderful, relaxing and rejuvenating. Finally, I felt I was beginning to get the deep restorative rest I needed since pushing through the two moves back to back.

The next morning after our first serene night, we went into Huntsville, a sleepy little burg where I would meet up with Dolores Cannon. Dolores is a small-town hypnotherapist who, through a fortuitous sequence of events, ended up with a clientele who had experienced ET’s or traveled with them, and many who had roles in universal energy work. Looking and sounding like a typical middle-aged grandmother, Dolores exudes warmth, simplicity and authority. She has had many of her most intriguing sessions transcribed and they comprise several interesting books, such as Convoluted Universe I and II, which go into how the universe works. String theory explained for the common man… Another book “Beyond Abduction,” speaks of her point of view; that the ET’s and aliens visiting Earth are here to love us and help us help Earth ascend into her rightful place in the intergalactic network. Check out her website; www.ozarkmt.com.

Daniel dropped me off at her office, a garage made over into an efficiency. Built into the side of a hill, it smelled musty and mildewy. But it also had a deep quality of the element earth, as the area in the back of the room where the subject lies down is embedded into a clay hillside. The question and answer session prior to the hypnosis took two hours and the hypnosis itself took another 2 hours. Since I was still trying to understand my resistances to channeling, the session ended up being much more psychological than offbeat psychic/E.T.ish as I had originally hoped. I was glad that the induction was brief and deep, a good technique, as I can get antsy if the induction goes on too long. Dolores is right to be proud of her induction.

I was impressed that I could go into trance and bring forth a guide or speaker to answer my questions without my coming up out of trance as I often do if I channel Galexis and Daniel asks them questions about me. So the information was a bit deeper than I can usually get for myself. I felt that with this experience, I may be able to go into a deeper trance in the future with Galexis and not get all excited and break the trance if the topic turns to me. This alone may have made this session of great value.

Dolores had only one irritating habit if you could call it that. She tends to be overly optimistic, and several times during the session would say things like “although she will experience new feelings and they will be strange, they will pass and then she’ll feel happier and be more successful, won’t she?” Over and over she said this type of statement, even when the spirit guide speaking tried to tell her details that perhaps didn’t fit her Pollyanna view. I guess that’s just typical psychological programming one does under hypnosis. But once out, Dolores didn’t stop. She kept insisting that all my problems were gone now. Too good to be true, I thought, but didn’t say, since she would then feel compelled to counteract and correct me. She dismissed several psychic impressions I had during the sessions which I didn’t feel so pleased about. By then, it was obvious that her statements went over my threshold of believability. Did I have an investment in making my healing a long long effort?

Huntsville was a cute little town and the next day we did some shopping at the hardware store, got new keys made for the RV etc. The people were all so very kind, real and earthy, and pleasant. There on the charming little downtown square with its flowers and gazebo was a dress shop, one of the best I’ve ever been in, even in large cities. If I had only the time, then I would have been able probably to find blue jeans that could fit my unusual dimensions with current style tops in colors that worked for me. But we had scheduled ourselves tightly and I knew we must “keep on truckin.’”

When we returned to our campsite, we said hello to several other campers, and relaxed. Then Daniel suggested we hike a nearby trail. Soon we were walking in woods so quiet that all I could hear was the continuous mild “roaring” in my ears, my tinnitus. Butterflies were everywhere. The Diana butterfly, a fritillary was the most common one – brown in the center with orange detailing on the outside of the wings. The male is dark bluish with blue detailing. Both were flitting about, along with skippers and a dark small swallowtail. A legless lizard scuffled through the leaves and we walked happily in a happy woods. My spirit was so uplifted by the beauty at every turn. And the air was fresh and clean. We were the only ones on the trail. Very few people came to this park, but it was beautiful. Go figure.

An additional nice little walk around our camping area returned us to our trailer. Along the way, we found an abundance of plants happily colonizing the disturbed soils around the roadsides. Interesting textures, sizes and shades of green and gray revealed many wildflowers; daisies/asters, pokeweed, pepperweed, comfrey, Echinacea, and many in pink, yellow, orange etc. that were totally unfamiliar. Of course there was the familiar Virginia Creeper, Poison Ivy, and Smilax vines climbing up many trees trailside. How wonderful to see so much nature around. My heart sang!

The next morning it was still cool and clear. No pollution! Smelling the great air along the way, we drove the 8 miles into Huntsville so that Daniel could download our email. We crossed War Eagle creek. Huntsville’s mascot was a war eagle. Probably a good story there, but then I’m not really a history buff. We passed a shade tree by the road and a beautiful horse standing under it. We would pass this tree with this horse several times (standing in the very same pose) as we passed back and forth between the town and our camp.

Daniel sat outside the internet café on the old town square (now mostly flea market and antique stores) and the wifi (wireless internet) signal was strong enough that he could get internet and receive email. He downloaded my email too. At least I could read it, even if I couldn’t send anything out. By the time we returned to the campsite, it was overcast, and soon it began drizzling and then pouring. I read a book I’d gotten at Ron’s – the autobiography of JZ Knight, who channels Ramtha. I was hoping she would mention the same dilemma I had with channeling, and she did. But she never revealed what she felt about it, only that she was amazed at how she “lost” days out of her life by channeling Ramtha Dialogues all day. They simply disappeared out of the calendar.

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Eureka Springs

We went to bed in the rain and woke up to a clear cold Saturday morning with a bright blue sky and the sounds of many birds. I wish I had my birding expert Barbara with me because she could’ve told me what I was hearing. One bird sounded like a cross between a cricket and a bird as it emitted a buzzy “vee vee vee vee vee vee” quickly on an ascending scale. Another bird sang “TU-pa-lee TU-pa-lee TU-pa-lee.” Other sounds impossible to describe filled the morning air along with song sparrows, cardinals, jays, robins, starlings and crows. The trees were alive with birds.

On this beautiful day, we decided to check out Eureka Springs, as we’d heard that there was some new age activity there. So we drove off through beautiful countryside on a ribbon of road that curved up and down and around through canyons of tall fully-leafed trees rich in their early summer splendor. The smell was invigorating. As we’d descend into yet another valley, it looked even more charming than the previous one. And when we crossed the ridges between each valley we saw vistas of high wooded hills and low-lying blue mountains beyond. I wondered how the local residents felt about the breathtaking beauty that surrounded them. And how would I feel about it if it were my year-round backdrop? I was tempted to consider this area as a possible place of residence, at least during the summer months. But I didn’t feel any “call.”

We drove into charming Eureka Springs – a community that prided itself on its unusualness. The residents like to call this place “the hole in the Bible Belt” because a lot of artists, gays, and other alternative style people live here amongst the regular “muggles.” If you’re ever in NW Arkansas, you will want to see this place. Built on a ridge, there are spectacular views in several directions. The tour around the old town’s business district can be had by getting on one of the tour buses complete with guide, or driving yourself up and down the narrow, winding streets with dips as sharp as San Francisco’s. Charming shops sporting offbeat artsy clothes, arts and crafts, music etc. were jammed with visitors, perhaps many from the Blues Festival going on this particular weekend. Bikers in their Harleys (or other huge motorcycles) had also descended on the town. Mostly middle-aged weekend warriors and their bleach-haired women, the bikers lined up the expensive chrome downtown in front of the cafes. They were being appropriately ogled and admired by everyone.

We found an additional beauty in downtown next to the various springs gushing out of the central high rocks. Gardens had been planted with pathways and stone steps under the high rock walls looking as if lifted from an ancient civilization and brought here. We walked amongst colorful flowers and landscaping and I took a few pictures for you. I can understand why this place is a favorite for weddings.

Yet without the internet and email, we were unable to contact any of the people we had intended to contact here. And even though Daniel found a wifi and we had internet access on his laptop for a few minutes, we were unable to find phone numbers for them. Maybe another sign that this was not the place for us. So we drove around and enjoyed some of the nature sights just outside of town. One was pivot rock where we had to urgently hold up the rock before it fell over the side of the mountain!

We also found an entry into the earth, a perfect beginning for a powerful meditation. (see hole in earth pic, larger expanded view) Although it seemed that this place was probably a sweet and wonderful place like many others, I felt a tremendous sadness here. It was good to leave.

Then we went to Blue Spring, a place which was a national historic site as well as a sacred Native-American site. It was here that many Cherokees stopped, during the long and arduous “Trail of Tears,” to replenish themselves on their way to their new homeland in Oklahoma. Almost half died on the way in this, one of the most disgraceful episodes in American history. After all, they were not allowed to prepare for their journey by foot. They were driven from their homes and land in the middle of the night with no warm clothing or food except what they could quickly grab. And the march was conducted through winter so many died of starvation and cold. Local Native-Americans use the Blue Spring for ceremonies. When we were there, a wedding had just ended.

The Blue Spring appears like a pond with a cobalt blue color about  80 feet in diameter. The spring emerges cold and clean from deep beneath this pond, coming from a place nearly 510 feet deep and 2 feet wide. In the later years of the 19th Century and early 20th, the water was put into containers and shipped via railroad to other parts of the country and sold as “health water.” We tasted a lot of minerals, silica etc. with a sweet aftertaste.

The Blue Spring is now surrounded by lovely well-tended gardens of butterfly plants and interesting flowers, and there is an extensive rock garden along the rocky cliff edges with whimsical artistic piles of rocks placed here and there. It was a lovely place on a lovely day – how does it get better than that? We forgot to take our camera with us, but I know that no picture would’ve done justice to the amazing color of the spring. Check it out on the net at www.bluespringheritage.com. Click “history” then “native American” to learn more of why it is a National Heritage Site.