Walking the Land Sedona, Arizona: In Search of Bololokan’s Path

WHO ARE WE?

Eileen Nauman (Ai Gvhdi Waya is her Eastern Cherokee name) is 1/8 Eastern Cherokee via her father’s side of the family. Her great-great grandmother was on the Trail of Tears and as a sixteen-year-old, escaped and ran into Kentucky, where she later married into the Gent family. We know only two things about her: that she came from a medicine family and was from the Wolf clan of her people. Her medicine was being a shaman. And this gene has gone down through our family. Eileen was the chosen child to be taught this ‘medicine’ (this means an inherited skill of healing) by her father. She trained with him from age 9 through 18. Later, she had other Native American teachers and in 1990 began training others for Soul Recovery and Extraction, the medicine of her great-great grandmother.

 

Terra Hill has written many books and has been an advocate of women being equal to men in all organized religions. She was born in Rangoon, Burma and lived in the shadow of Himalayas in India, always tied and close to the Earth. She is cosmopolitan and has many natural psychic skills. She met Eileen in the mid-90’s and since then, they have become a psychic team in search of understanding the energy of the land where they live in the Verde Valley of Arizona. This includes Sedona, but the scope is much wider than that. Please see our blogs from 2009 as they worked to bring the chakra system of Sedona back online.

WHAT IS WALKING THE LAND?

Eileen’s genetic knowing about the land comes through her Native American genetics. She simply sees Nature as symbolic and is able to interpret it so she that she understands the visible and invisible energy in an area and what it is doing. Further, she is clairvoyant and can see the spirits, the guardians of sacred places, vortexes and everything else associated with the land. Her belief is that if we understand the energy and beings where one lives, that you can live in a deep and positive harmony with them.

The land is fed by the human’s gratefulness and attention. And the land’s energy/spiritual beings, in turn, create a far more positive energy framework and environment for the human. They must work together for harmony. Otherwise, if one ignores the other, we are ignoring Mother Earth and all her relations. That is like ignoring your neighbors and pretending they aren’t there or exist.

This blog is dedicated to showing the fundamentals of Walking the Land in hopes that you will take the information and apply it to your own area. And if you will, then you will forge a positive and healing link as a result. And the energy of your area where you live will be amplified, lifted and online so that the positive applications of this teamwork will benefit all. Weather will return to what it used to be. There will be no more floods and droughts, as an example. Water can be cleaned up with prayer and attention to the spirit of it. And so much more. You will learn as we Walk the Land here in the Verde Valley.

TWO BLOGS: Eileen will post her blog on Walking the Land first and then the next day, will post Terra’s. Each writes a blog based upon her experience as they walk the land in search of the planetary water snake, known as Bololokan to the Yavapai Native Americans who live in the Verde Valley. There are many powerful planetary beings that work with Mother Earth. Humans can interface with them as well but it is always the planetary, regional or local spirit who decides that. You can’t work with one unless your heart is in the right place, you practice daily humility and understand that humans are a small part of the mighty woven energy that is here on our home, Mother Earth.

Their intent is to discover the natural energy geology of where Bololokan moves/slithers, through the landscape of their valley. In discovering Bololokan’s path, Eileen and Terra will then perform ceremony to reawaken this path. In doing that, the energy comes back online and it lifts and helps feed the area in a natural way as it used to be when the First People lived here in union with Mother Earth and all her relations. It will change the weather pattern of the area, which has been in a twenty-year drought. Bololokan is the WATER snake. There are three other planetary snakes for the other three elements: earth, fire and air. Bololokan utilizes the Verde Valley area as one of her many sipapu’s (emergence hole) to come up into our area. She has sipapu’s around the world and slithers inside Mother Earth in tunnels that connect them all. We’re fortunate to have her with us and we discovered her when we opened up the chakras of Sedona. She came to us and we had no idea she existed before that except in Yavapai legends who spoke of “Bololokan.” Once she contacted us at Rainbow Bridge, one of her sipapu’s, she has been with us ever since. This year in 2010, she asked us to discover her energy path throughout our valley and clean out those sacred points with human attention and ceremony. In doing that, her third dimensional energy in our valley will reawaken and bring harmony to it once more. We hope the drought will be broken and the rains that Bololokan brings, will once more, go back to its normal pattern. Join us on our journey and you can be a part of the discovery and education as well.

December 1, 2010. Where to begin?

Terra and I decided that West Fork was a good place to start to find the serpent who wound around Verde Valley. That includes the Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona area as well. We had used Nicholas R. Mann’s book, “Sedona, Sacred Earth,” as our guide. That was two years ago.
We owe Nicholas much because it was his book that Terra had bought and read, that got us to Walking the Land. In 2009 we followed his map of Sedona’s chakras. In doing that, it introduced us to the spiritual planetary snake, known in this valley by the Yavapai people as Bololokan. If you are interested in Walking the Land, Nicholas’ book is indispensable. You can Google it and find a copy.

Since then, we have worked ceremonially with the entire chakra system of Sedona. And we’ve noticed some changes. Shortly after we got done with the chakras, there was a huge thunderstorm north of Sedona. It poured five inches of rain into Oak Creek. As it thundered down the canyon and into the town, part of Talaquepaque, a major shopping center on the creek, was flooded and a number of businesses were under water and destroyed. Everyone said it was a freak accident; that no one in memory had ever seen this happen.

For us, it was a clear indicator that Oak Creek itself (it runs from Sedona northward in a canyon that is roughly thirty miles long and ends up at Flagstaff and the Four Grandmothers mountains (known locally as Mt. Humphrey’s). I saw it as a cleansing motion. When chakras in an area (or indeed, a vortex is brought back online and/or repaired so it can work the energy) are working, there is a natural flooding/cleansing that occurs. Why? Because the energy has stagnated, blocked or stopped the natural flow of it in that area. Mother Earth uses whatever she must to unblock and unjam something on her crust that needs to be freed to work so the energies flow. If the energies flow correctly, she stays in good health and harmony.

The second thing we’ve witnessed is this past Sept/Oct 2010, we had rain. In the twenty years I’ve lived here, it has NEVER rained in those months. But it did and it was wondrous. The entire high desert in our Verde Valley bloomed with wildflowers. It was incredibly beautiful and completely unexpected.

Bololokan, one of four spiritual planetary snakes (the water element one) began working with us as we opened up the chakra system back in 2009. The Yavapai Native Americans called her by this name. We call her the Rainbow Snake. And she has been working with me off and on since that time.

Here is where Nicholas felt the water snake spirit resided. We did not. And so, based upon our intuition as well as working with Bololokan in 2009, we decided to ferret out where her energy moved in Verde Valley. We felt Bololokan’s path was much larger and spread out than this illustration.

Terra brought this to my attention and we talked about it over lunch in November. I told her I’d go home and look at my topo (topographical) maps I’d bought on our work with the chakra system. The more I poured over them, the less I felt his drawing was correct.

When we met today for lunch, we discussed the situation. Terra felt strongly it was much larger and encompassed some of the Verde Valley. I agreed. I drew a potential map on a napkin at Wildflower Bakery as we ate. I am putting it here:

Over lunch, I drew what I felt MIGHT be Bololokan’s path in Verde Valley for Terra. I strongly felt the birthing circle on Mingus Mountain was her coiled tail. The circle on the slope of Mingus is the birthing emergence of the first human in Verde Valley, according to Yavapai creation myth. Also, it has the ‘coils’ or circle around it to indicate it’s a snake’s tail, too.

I told her I felt the snake’s tail, that round coil, was one of the oldest symbols in the world from ancient to modern day. I told her that over on Mingus Mountain we’d discovered, via the Yavapai myths, that the birthing occurred on its slopes. And sure enough, we found it. The rounded, raised areas looks like a birth opening. It also has the circles around it, indicating the wrapped tail of the snake. We both sensed the snake’s tail started at that point, not up in Oak Creek Canyon where Nicholas had indicated the snake’s tail had begun.

The Great Serpent Mound near Dayton, Ohio clearly shows the coiled tail on your right. And this circular coil is found across the world. Where you find that, you will find an energy snake of one of the four elements. And in Verde Valley, this ‘circular coil’ is found on the slope of Mingus Mountain, the western end of the Verde Valley. It is clear and unmistakable.

I want to insert something here that’s important. Snake is one of our oldest symbols in the world, ancient to modern times. I had visited the Great Serpent Mound near Dayton, Ohio, many years ago. And I was familiar with that monolithic land creation by the mound builders thousands of years ago. The Great Serpent has a coiled tail at the end of her body. I knew that there would be a ‘coil’ here for Bololokanas well and pointed that out to Terra. Also, depending upon the area and country and beliefs, snakes were often seen as DRAGONS. China has a great history of working with dragons and dragon energy. And of course, Europe during the Middle Ages has many legends of dragons, as well. For other countries, this planetary energy takes a snake form. For the Yavapai Native Americans who lived here (and still do), Bololokan was seen as a snake.

I had drawn this for Terra to show her the Great Serpent Mound. I pointed out the coiled tail and that would be our starting point and also, confirmation in the landscape that Bololokan, indeed, did emerge into our third dimensional world from her sipapu—emergence hole—to inter relate with all of us energetically. And the snake’s head the mouth is open and she is going to devour an egg. The egg is symbolic of the birthing of our universe, another major ancient symbol. Terra felt that the Four Grandmothers (Humphrey Peak) up at Flagstaff would be Bololokan’s head. I didn’t disagree, but we had to have expert guidance from someone else to figure out the snake’s movement in our valley. That meant going to West Fork and following our wolf noses to see if we could be lead to someone who might know more about this.

At West Fork, the canyon, the walls were covered with magnificent “ice waterfalls.” I’d never seen them before and it was like a winter wonder land. We continued across Oak Creek and followed the main path deeper into the area.

The walls of Mother Earth’s womb in this area, as we refer to it, is sacred feminine energy of the highest kind. I was amazed by the ice waterfalls frozen on the red sedimentary rock of her sides. I’d never seen this in twenty years of hiking this area.

I wanted to hike to West Fork, up in Oak Creek Canyon because I told her that the Tibetan monks who came here went up the mountain. We thought we’d tried to find that place. As we climbed, relying on our senses and intuition, we found an amazing rock sticking up and out of the pine covered forest. I noted to Terra that it looked like a coiled snake like the Great Serpent’s tail was curled. We were on the right track.

When we saw this basalt lava rock popping out of the slope, I knew we were in the area of where we needed to be. This rock looks, visually, like a round pipe with a cap fitted atop it. And as we drew closer, we saw the actual “coils” of the snake around it…another clue. We gave offering to this rock and I contacted the spirit of it. It said it was the gate guardian for the Snake Clan Rock far above us. And that Bololokan emerged from this rock to speak to those who lived above. We both ask permission, telepathically, to continue our journey upward to find the Snake Clan rock. The spirit of the rock welcomed us and told us to continue upward.

Terra was drawn upward on a very steep, pine clad slope. Half way up this slope was a gorgeous boulder stick up out of the pine covered floor. It looked like a snake coiled up and resting. It was a ‘gate guardian.’ That means you go no further until you give an offering, introduce yourself to the being and ask permission to move on. The rock spirit told me that Bololokan came and went through this rock opening. Indeed, it did look like one! It said I could stay here or move on. I told Terra and she wanted to continue up the slope. So, up we went, huffing and puffing.

We passed two pine ‘gate guardian’s further up. These were two pines growing together and facing the area above. We each stopped and ask permission to be allowed to go further. When you see gate guardians as either two trees or two boulders (or someone’s one boulder), these are places to stop. One doesn’t tread into sacred ground like an out of control bulldozer. On the contrary, we’re reading the natural ‘signage’ in the area. Gate guardians are like a STOP sign to a driver in a car. It is time to stop, get permission to move on—or not. And if you get told “no” you turn around and go back. If you disobey such a decision, tree limbs suddenly break above your head and hit you, or you will be tripped and fall, or depending upon the season, bees may be sent to attack you and run you off. It’s not something you take lightly. There are always gate guardians and then a major guardian to such a site that we were looking to find. And you listen to each of them with great brevity and humility. It is THEIR place, not ours. We are visitors and must treat the situation as such. You would no more just open a person’s door without knocking first, would you? Of course not. These gate guardians are akin to the ‘knock’ at the door of the area energy or sacred spot. We got permission to move on.

Then, about fifty feet from the stone area, there was a second gate guardian, a pine that had two trunks that had grown from the same seed. Again, we stopped and mentally asked for permission to move on or not. We got the green flag. I should note that these two tree guardians were in perfect alignment with the rock structure we wanted to get to. And, in fact, above this monolithic red sedimentary rock structure, there was a white dolomite cliff on one side and about twenty feet opposite it, another dolomite cliff. Where these two cliff came together and formed a “V” between where the energy was running full bore downward—was right into this red rock area we were aiming for. And if you drew a straight line from that V, it was in perfect alignment with the red rock formation and the two tree guardians. A sign that Nature was telling us, visually, that there was something here. Even if we didn’t have refined intuition and other psychic skills online to access, if we had been trained to simply “read the land” we would have known this place was sacred and powerful.

Up at the top was an amazing red sedimentary rock structure. As I stood there, I had a flash. I saw Terra and I as little Indian girls of five or so years old running and playing along the lower shelf of this rock structure. I told her about it. Terra had tears in her eyes. She said she remembered living here in another incarnation.

After getting permission to be at the Snake Clan Rock, Terra offered cornmeal and then took out her flute and played it for the invisible guardian who lived here. Frequently, drum and flute music are well received by the guardian and spirits who inhabit an area. They truly love music in the Verde Valley, but the clues for that are everywhere.

We climbed up to it, offered ceremony and sat down. I brought my snake drum, one that I had made and decorated with the Rainbow Snake symbol to honor of Bololokan. As I played the drum, I closed my eyes. I saw a tall, lean woman with white hair that hung to her hips appear before me. She was very old, her face tobacco brown, her dark eyes bright. Her hair was beautiful, silvery-white around her. She wore a white deerskin dress that hung to her ankles. I greeted her and ask who she was. She told me her name and that she was the snake priestess of the clan who lived here a long, long time ago. I got the sense of 10,000 years ago. She called me ‘granddaughter.’ I loved this woman fiercely and was mesmerized by her elderly age, her pride, her height (six feet tall), and the glowing white/gold power that radiated from around her.

She told me that long ago, the water snake (Bololokan—but she didn’t call the spirit snake by that name) had a specific path through the area. She told me to empty my mind so that she could show me the path of the planetary spirit water snake. I had a heck of a time holding it all. If I didn’t know this valley so well, I wouldn’t know what the guardian was showing me. Eventually, I recognized all points that she mentally sent to me. She told me that once a year she and her priestesses went down to the valley and gave ceremony to each of these areas. She was ‘feeding’ the land and therefore, keeping the snake energy moving and the area remained balanced. At certain seasons, she would go down to a certain area to perform ceremony. And in the year, each stop would be honored, cleaned out and running with harmony. I thanked her for the information and came out of my space.

I shared the info with my partner. Terra told me that I had come a long line of females from this grandmother, carrying the snake medicine and energy. I nodded and now understood my joyful and emotional reaction to meeting her…and why she called me ‘granddaughter.’ I’ve had snake medicine since I was thirteen years old in this lifetime. Terra’s message felt right to me. I told Terra that we’d both lived here as little girls. She nodded and had memories of this place; so happy to once again reconnect with it. We agreed it was ten thousand years ago. Grandmother told me that it was her people…. she called herself and her clan the “first people,” that sent the knowledge of snake medicine to others, later arriving people, among them, the Hopi northeast of the canyon.

I redrew my snake on another napkin, based upon what grandmother showed me. I showed it to Terra. We both agreed it felt right. My drawing wasn’t quite correct. But Grandmother’s really felt good to us, so we’re sticking with this. Let me draw it out for you in words.

Here is what I scribbled on a napkin with a pen. Terra and I forgot to pack in our notebook/journal. So a napkin and pen from Wildflower had to do in that moment. The Grandmother guardian of the Snake Clan rock gave us the information we sought. You can compare my original napkin drawing and see that it is different. It’s so vital to contact local/regional guardian and/or spirits of the land to find out what’s REALLY going on energy-wise in their area. It is the guardian’s lifetime job in the 4th dimension to care for the place where they reside. They do this willingly and are caretakers for a higher purpose: by taking care of a place in our third dimensional world, they are responsible for keeping the place cleaned out of etheric dross and keep the moving energy moving as it should be. In many areas, human pollution, building or poisoning the water/land/air, have clogged these vital invisible channels and weather changes as a result, among other things. Earthquakes can occur where human poison has really truncated the energy of an area, so that it is released and can move, so the energy can then move. Walking the Land is about keeping your local area cleaned up and the energy alive and moving…then harmony, health and balance return to your area.

TAIL of the snake: starts at Mingus mountain birthing circle. It then travels to Sycamore canyon where the headwaters of the Verde River begin. Then, it moves down to Vultee Arch, to Isis Rock (Crown Chakra of Sedona), to Rainbow Bridge (where we first met Bololokan coming out of her sipapu—emergence hole) to Airport Mesa vortexes/Grandmother Turtle, to El Shadai, the volcanic vent (created by the volcano known as House Mountain), to House Mountain, the volcano in the valley, to Montezuma’s Well, to the Petroglyphs north of there, then to Grandmother Bell Rock, and then up into Oak Creek Canyon, following Oak Creek, and then finally, the head of the snake comes to the four Grandmothers up in Flagstaff, to the four mountains that tower over this town.

When I climbed up to Snake Clan Rock, I gave my offerings and began to drum my Bololokan drum. My brother Gary and his wife Debbie hold classes in drum making in their home in Grant’s Pass, Oregon. I made this drum with their help and then later painted my water snake friend on it. This was the first time she was played and how eloquent that it is at the Snake Rock Clan! I love the synchronicity of the universe. This drum will accompany me for the entire journey of exploring and awakening Bololokan’s path through our region.

I have found over the decades that serious, powerful energy always follows water courses. When Grandmother showed me the water snake’s winding through the valley, it included a very important place known as the headwaters to the Verde River which is found in Sycamore Canyon. And of course, Oak Creek is an important water course to the area as well. And from Montezuma Well, past the petroglyphs, that is Beaver Creek, another major source in our valley.

As we left the Snake Rock Clan area and hiked back down the trail that would lead us to the parking lot, I realized that the ice waterfalls on the sides of the Womb looked EXACTLY like Grandmother’s hair! It just stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t know by looking at hiking in, that it too would synchronistically be a part of our coming discoveries. When you are doing it right in your heart/intent, things like this are constant and double checking you all the way. And we look for things like this to tell us that we’re doing it correctly.

After a hard day’s psychic work, we left West Fork. Terra suggested we go to the Heart of Sedona coffee shop for a latte…excellent idea! Work hard. Play hard :-). We’re not sure where to begin our work with the water snake’s movement, but Terra said it was up to me…unless she got a sense about it. Next Tuesday, December 7th, we’ll begin to work along the amazing Rainbow Snake chakra system. Who knows where it will lead us? :-)) Stay tuned.

I just love synchronicity! It’s always present when you are in your FLOW with the Great Spirit and with the land you live upon. Marchiene had suggested Heart of Sedona coffee in Sedona on our way home to celebrate our success in contacting the guardian spirit, Grandmother of the Snake Clan rock. And look at this design on my mocha latte!! It is the four directions, north, south, east and west. Not only that, for me, it is a flower that is UNFOLDING its petals. What a wonderful synchronistic event! We will, in the weeks and months to come, walk Bololokan’s energy path through our valley. And you will be with us as we do so. Blessings.

Tomorrow, Dec 6, 2010, Marchiene Reinstra’s Blog here. Don’t miss it!