Ghosts, Crystals, Blue-Eyed Bears and Red Rocks

Today was my last full day in Sedona, the weather beautiful, the skies brilliant blue, the rocks redder than Georgia soil.

I took a little drive over to Jerome, a little tourist town that used to be one of the prosperous copper mining capitals of the world--from 1900 to 1953.   Population: about 15,000.  But in 1953, when the mines closed, most of the inhabitants moved away, turning the town into a ghost town almost overnight.

"We had a death a day here while the mines were operating," said the man from whom I bought "ghost rocks" for my grandsons.  "Lots of spirits are still wandering around here, unsettled, from those days."

Colorful ghost rocks in hand, and a booklet on Jerome to read later tonight, I returned to Sedona to get one last dark-chocolate-dipped-macaroon before bedtime--and actually got two--which I'll write about in a later blog post.

Delicious!

"So what's all this about blue-eyed bears?" I asked as I was looking at tiny carved bears.

Turns out these smiling little bears are Zuni fetishes, believed to bring protection and strength.  The Zuni people come to Sedona in October to get the antler horns from which to carve the little bears, and turquoise is used for the eyes.  "The Zuni people believe in wasting nothing," the man told me.  "We use everything, from hide to meat to bone."  If you see a carved bear with a pack on his back, that's the Zuni way of expressing gratitude for a good hunt.

Further down the road, on the way to get my macaroons, I tried counting the shops that sell crystals and Tarot and chakra balancing tools.  Every block offers massage and Reiki and aura photographs.  "Sedona is," a man I met told me, "a healing center because of all the vortexes."

It is now time for me to research vortexes--and I will get back to you when I find out what that means.