Traveling Sage

I was a few miles outside of Sedona, Arizona and headed south to Phoenix when my friend texted "Bring me back some dirt from Sedona!"  I googled the closest park and "Montezuma's Well" popped up on by navigation. I had intended to find a simple community park with a bench to sit for a moment and journal. The universe had different intentions. I came across a footprint in the cement. I thought about the fact that whoever stepped there, wasn't "supposed" to. And yet, here it is. Preserved.  I wondered if across the world, wherever there are stone markings, were they vandalizing? Were they "stepping outside" of the lines? Here we are, preserving the rebels footsteps. The rebels are the ones who step outside the lines, who leave a mark. The conservative point fingers and build fences and tell the rebels to conform- and the rebels don't. They push the edges of the leading edge. Then time goes by, generations pass, and the conservatives of ...

I left the Bell Rock vortex at 9:45am. As my shivering fingers and warming feet soaked in the heat from the warming SUV I had rented, I searched for Hot Coffee nearby and found Oak Creek Espresso.  Arriving into the eclectic and cozy atmosphere, the coffee barista cheered and welcomed every customer. With a strawberry blond pixie cut, button down flannel and swaying stone earrings she took my order for a coconut milk latte. I watched as she and her coworkers seemed to know most of the people ordering drinks and pastries by name. With a boisterous and kind laugh she asked them how they were doing and made everyone who entered feel important.  My beverage was just what I needed to thaw the frost that had seemed to reach my bones. Having hiked in 24 degree pre-sun coolness wearing dress shoes, I was now walking around wearing black gym socks underneath my fancy sandals. I looked comical- and I didn't care.  Oak Creek Espresso shares the parking lot with a Local Artist Collec...

Phoenix, Arizona is a sprawled and flat city across a flat and sparse land. Downtown feels like Las Vegas without all the gambling and neon gimmickry.  My hotel was within walking distance to the conference center- but I opted to drive, based on the bars on the windows of the gentrified outskirts off the main business hubs and unsure of what time I would be leaving the conference- wondering if it was wise to walk alone as a woman down unknown streets after dark.  The second morning of my stay, which was also the last day of the conference, I lounged in the hotel lobby waiting for valet, when an idea flew through my mind like a bird across the sky; a vision of me sitting at Bell Rock in Sedona, Arizona; playing my thousand year old Ancient Singing bowl. It dawned on me that I had free time to make it there and back before my flight the next afternoon. At risk of being late to the business training with Keira Brinton of JOA Publishing, my past publisher, I cancelled my last nigh...