I’ve wanted to travel to Sedona, AZ for years, ever since a previous coworker of mine returned from a trip to “Red Rock Country” wearing a glow of serenity most honeymooners would envy and passing around photos of towering burnt sienna rock formations against azure skies.

I stayed on a seventy-acre property tucked inside Boynton Canyon, an area some Native American tribes believe to be so sacred they won’t even reside there. The Yavapai-Apache, in fact, consider this canyon the birthplace of their people. It is also a vortex site, a place where concentrated subtle energy supposedly emanates from deep within the earth. Some believe these vortexes can have a mystical, balancing, and/or healing effect. 

The Yavapai-Apache consider Boynton Canyon their Garden of Eden. According to legend, Yavapai-Apache prophets predicted that a great flood would destroy their tribe. A wise man of the tribe created a boat out of a cottonwood log and put his young daughter into it, along with a bird, some food, and other provisions, so she could ride safely to another place and create a new world. When the waters receded, this “First Woman” found herself in what is now Boynton Canyon. But she became lonely and wanted a son, so she performed ceremonies and, with the help of the sun and rain gods, conceived. Thus, the tribe was reborn. (I find it interesting how many elements in this story—a great flood, a boat, a virgin birth, new life—are also found in other faith traditions.) 

I read somewhere that the construction of the resort where we stayed had the blessing of the spirit keepers of the region, though certain conditions had to be met. There had to be free access to the canyon to everyone, including the medicine men, so they could conduct prayer ceremonies at certain times of the year. (Apparently previous owners, who had planned to build a gambling casino on the property, had cut off the path and placed a gate at the entrance.)

Though some preservationists would have preferred no commercial property had been built in the canyon, I think the resort has done a commendable job of incorporating Native American programs and ceremonies into their impressive list of daily activities to honor the native tribes of the area and to preserve their culture and history. I participated in a “smudging” ritual one morning, a cleansing and purification ceremony, in which the meditation guide waved a smoking sage stick around my body, reminiscent of the incense used in some Catholic services. This was followed by a prayer of gratitude for Father Sky and Mother Earth and for all humanity.

But my favorite activity was listening to an informal lecture (in a tipi erected on the resort’s grounds) by a Native American. Aaron, the speaker (part Navaho, part Ute), talked about the history and culture of the Native Americans in the area and about the sun dances still performed during different times throughout the summer. These are all-day ceremonies of fasting and praying and singing and sweating--for four days straight in oppressive heat. During the ceremonies, tribe members pray for peace and healing, for their families and the nation. The dancers are not chosen; they are called to this sacrificial act. Some tribes still conduct piercing ceremonies as an act of suffering for their people and an offering of self to the Great Spirit.

What touched me about Aaron was his obvious love for his people. He told our small group that he wanted everyone to remember his people this time every year. “Remember that someone cares,” he said, choking back tears. “Someone is dancing.”

I came to Sedona imagining climbing red rocks until I reached one of the famous energy vortex centers, then sitting in a lotus position and meditating my way into a state of spiritual enlightenment. Or, if that failed, I imagined visiting a palm reader or having a Tarot card reading (when in Rome, as they say) to gain some new insight about myself, my future.

What I got from the trip was something far better. Aaron reminded me that Sedona isn’t about vortexes or crystals or Prickly Pear Margaritas (yum) or Pink Jeep rides (though I highly recommend the Broken Arrow tour!). It’s about oneness. Our connection to the earth, sun, moon, and stars--and each other. As Aaron said, pointing to his heart, “It’s about what’s in here. We all beat to the same rhythm.”

This trip gave me, among many things, a deeper reverence for other spiritual traditions, particularly ones firmly rooted in and connected to nature. I even have a less cynical attitude toward New Agers. (Our not-so-PC Pink Jeep tour guide referred to Sedona as a bowl of cereal: “You’ve got your fruits, nuts, and flakes.”) But aren’t we all in this together? Aren’t we all just trying our best to figure out life and how we fit into it? The truth is, no matter what faith we practice or spiritual belief system we embrace, it’s still one great big mystery.

Elizabeth Hardwick wrote in Sleepless Nights, “When you travel your first discovery is that you do not exist.” Traveling encourages self-forgetfulness, opens our minds to a new way of thinking and our eyes to a new way of seeing. Always a humbling experience.

It seems almost everyone with whom I’ve had honest, meaningful conversations over the years—and many of these are people of faith--all have a deep-down sense of incompleteness or dissatisfaction, regardless of how content they are with their jobs, home life, social activities, etc.

I’ve sometimes felt a nagging sense that I should be doing something more in life--not necessarily something different, but something more. That I’m not reaching my full potential. Am I simply an overachiever? Incorrigible malcontent? Why, no matter how much I try to live in the present and maintain a thankful attitude, can I not seem to shake this “other” something?

I used to feel that this restlessness, this insatiable hunger for something greater, was a flaw in my personality or a mark of how far I still had to go in my spiritual evolution. But something I read recently gave me new insight into this.

In April I attended the biennial Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids, MI, where I had the pleasure of listening to some of my favorite writers discuss how their faith informs their art. Luci Shaw, who was a dear friend of Madelyn L’Engle’s, turned out to be one of the highlights of the conference for me. I picked up her book, Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit. In it she addresses the shadow side of faith and art. She quotes psychologist and theologian Gerald May:

“We have this idea that everyone should be totally independent, totally whole, totally together spiritually, and totally fulfilled. That is a myth. In reality, our lack of fulfillment is the most precious gift we have. It is the source of our passion, our creativity, our search for God. All the best of life comes out of our human yearning—our not being satisfied. Certainly Scripture and religious tradition point out that we are not to be satisfied. We are meant to go on looking and seeking.”

Never before had I thought of that nettlesome sense of internal dissatisfaction as a precious gift, that the best things in life might in fact come from it. Our pervasive hunger and search for something more is perhaps the strongest evidence that there is something more, that our life’s purpose is perhaps to find, connect, and unite with it. Luci Shaw’s poem “What We Say We Want” beautifully speaks to this longing for what she describes as a “supreme and burning intimacy”:

What do we say when 
that hunger harrows our bodies?
I desire you. But it’s not
that, or not only that.

Desire is the word we use as an excuse
for all the pain, a white flag
dropped into the battle that rages
between urgency and fulfillment.

A time of exhaustion comes
when nothing is left to want;

or when what we still want
is too large to name.

I’m not suggesting we should wallow in our restlessness or dissatisfaction. These uncomfortable emotional states can be the very impetus we need to seek a positive change in ourselves, in our world. But nor do I think we should grow impatient or weary when “hunger harrows our bodies.”

A man's face is his autobiography.  
A woman's face is her work of fiction.– Oscar Wilde

There are things all of us tuck away inside us, pieces of us we want to, or feel we must, hide or nurture or protect. We women are especially good at this. Maybe experience has taught us how judgmental and harsh people can be, especially women toward each other, and so we choose silence over sharing. Maybe we’ve had our hearts broken too many times and are afraid to open ourselves up again. Maybe we have given so much, for so long, that we finally decide to hold something back for ourselves. Maybe we don’t want to be understood entirely. Maybe, just maybe, our mystery is our greatest source of power.

I always appreciate when a male artist can tap into this mysterious and elusive essence of Woman; when he doesn’t judge or fear it, doesn’t try to understand or name or define it, but simply honors it.

Henri Matisse liked doing portraits of women because he apparently believed they held the key to the mystery of life. In hisPortrait of Mlle Yvonne Landsberg (1914), for example, the subject’s mask-like face hints of her impassiveness, her unknowableness. The arcs radiating from her body, like wings, and the protective placement of her hands seem to draw attention to both her etherealness and sexuality.

Rilke, who had a remarkable empathy for women, was also able to capture a woman’s mysterious, interior world, as seen in this poem:

WOMAN’S LAMENT I 
And the last perhaps will not return 
And knows me not although I burn.
Ah the trees overhang glowingly
And I feel no one feeling me.

Bruce Springsteen’s “Secret Garden” is another great example:

SECRET GARDEN
She'll let you in her house
If you come knockin' late at night
She'll let you in her mouth
If the words you say are right
If you pay the price
She'll let you deep inside
But there's a secret garden she hides

She'll let you in her car
To go drivin' round
She'll let you into the parts of herself
That'll bring you down
She'll let you in her heart
If you got a hammer and a vise
But into her secret garden, don't think twice

You've gone a million miles
How far'd you get
To that place where you can't remember
And you can't forget

She'll lead you down a path
There'll be tenderness in the air
She'll let you come just far enough
So you know she's really there
She'll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She's got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away

CLICK HERE FOR BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN PERFORMING "Secret Garden"