Chapter Fifteen

Noah walked barefoot across the room, wearing only his boxer shorts, and swept the curtains that covered the picture window aside. His toothbrush almost fell out of his mouth when he saw the crimson rays of sunrise stream through an unending range of red rocks. They seemed to wrap around his hotel as far as the eye could see, almost too magnificent to fully take in at once. He was grateful that his travel agent booked a flight that arrived after nightfall, which had enabled this sudden and dramatic unveiling of the early morning Sedona landscape. He couldn’t have planned it better if he had tried.

Noah found it most effective to eye the landscape in sections, in order to fully appreciate the details of this picturesque scene. He understood how Sedona got its reputation for being a mystical land. The rock formations were so extraordinary that the witnessing of them made anything seem possible. Even the sight of a unicorn outside of his window wouldn’t have surprised him while in such a state of awe.

His examination concluded only when he ran out of window. He turned away from the view to resume his morning routine and paused, turning to look outside once more. One rock in particular caught his eye. He laughed and sat on the bed in half-lotus to mimic the upright posture of the rock.

“Even the rocks in Sedona meditate,” he chuckled, brushing his teeth.

***

Noah explored the quiet mountain town in his rented luxury SUV. Every turn of the single lane highway brought an exciting new sight as his car slowly wove through the mountains on the south side of the city. A single mountain in the shape of a bell stood apart from the neighboring buttes.

Suna’s voice echoed through his head. Go up Bell Rock and you will find your answer. Remembering their encounter calmed him. Something about her presence reminded him of home. Not the home that he grew up in, not even the home that he had created with his wife and daughter, but an unnamed home that existed long before. This intuitive sense of knowing was impossible to quantify. That instinct compelled him to listen to the message echoing through his thoughts.

Bell Rock’s depth of color was marvelous; its red hue was much deeper than that of the neighboring buttes. Its porous texture was also unique, like refined lava. Noah sensed there was something special about the land. The higher the path led, the steeper the incline became. Scaling the mountain was physically strenuous, and the steep drop to the ground added another whole layer of psychological difficulty. Even so, he was determined to climb as far as he could. Approximately twenty feet from the top, he stopped to catch his breath, sitting next to an old juniper tree.

“This is close enough,” he said aloud, figuring that any healing energy that existed at the top of the butte could reach him here. He was close.

Go to the top. A voice echoed through his head, clearer than any thought he’d ever had before. It wasn’t his voice, but Suna’s. Noah looked behind him to assess the steep climb. He closed his eyes again, certain that he had gone far enough. Go to the top. The message rang through his mind. Noah took a minute to

contemplate whether this was a spiritual message or just a random thought emerging from his subconscious. If the heavens wanted to give him a message, shouldn’t it come from a loud voice of authority booming from the sky or perhaps a burning bush?

Go to the top, NOW! Suna’s voice boomed from one side of his brain to the other.

“Okay,” Noah said aloud. “Looks like I’m going to the top.” He assessed the almost imperceptible footholds and sighed in resignation. “Well, I’m gonna die anyway.”

One by one, he found the holds and pulled himself up. His heartbeat echoed loudly in his ears. He heaved his body over the final ridge and reached the uppermost landing.

“I made it,” he breathed. He maneuvered himself to a sitting position in order to scan the view from the top of the mountain. He took a long, triumphant breath in and exhaled. There was a profound stillness, a type of hyperreality that surrounded him. It wasn’t like a dream. There was nothing fuzzy about his perception; he was clearly aware of every aspect of reality with a type of nanoperception. He could feel everything.

He sensed the particles of the sun descend slowly through the air. A soft breeze tickled every hair along his body. The moist richness of the red rock beneath him seemed more like a sponge than a rock. There was nothing hard or stationary about it. It was alive, moving subtly with the breath of life. He sat in half-lotus facing east, but he could see the landscape of Sedona 360 degrees around him. Impossibly, he felt the 360 degrees of Sedona observe him. He understood the message that had been relayed a thousand times from the various saints and sages throughout the ages.

“I am . . .” His thought was interrupted by a small vibration from the rock beneath his seat. The Earth trembled, a precursor to his life being changed forever.