My Version of the Celestine Prophesy
I don't know how many of you guys have ever read any of the Celestine Prophesy Books, but I wanted to share one of those moments that afterward makes you think "hmm".

My first major job in Public Health was working for the San Bernardino County Health Department in California. I didn't stay long (culture shock of moving from a small southern town got to me quickly). However, while we were there, we kept visiting Arizona. We made a trip to the Grand Canyon and travelled through the Hopi Reservation. Now my experience with American Indians prior to that was a couple of trips to Cherokee, North Carolina. My exhusband (see previous post) and I were somehow drawn to the desolation and drama of the area. After growing up on the East Coast, Arizona is like an alien planet.

Well, when we had decided that we didn't belong in that West Coast Rat Race, I started scanning the LA Sunday times for jobs, when what should catch my eye? There was a job listing for a Health Educator for the Hopi Tribe, in Kyokotsmovi, Arizona. I sent my application in, not expecting to hear back. Yet, a couple of weeks later, I got a call asking if I could come out for an interview. So, we packed up the kids (just 2 at that time), jumped in our old VW Bug and drove to the "Res". The interview went well, and the health educator from Keams Canyon took us on a tour of the reservation.

Well, there aren't many trees out there, so as we were driving down Second Mesa, there were a few Cottonwoods by this old warehouse building, with a sandstone building across the street. We were informed that there was also a sacred spring, and right up the road were the "Corn Rocks".

I told my ex at the time--if I got the job and we moved to Hopi, I wanted to live in the stone building-with the trees.

Well, at the end of the interview they asked if I could bring a mobile home out with me if I got the job, because housing was very scarce. Me, just out of grad school, up to my neck in student loans--nah, if you don't have housing, I couldn't take the job.

So, we returned to California and figured that was that--

Well, two weeks later, I got a phone call--We have a house, will you take the job? My only question was "Indoor plumbing?", Yes it was, and I was moving to Arizona.

Well, they told me that they would have someone meet me at the Second Mesa Trading Post to take us to our new house. It was July--crossing the desert in a U-Haul pulling a volkswagon with two kids was loads of fun. As we pulled into Flagstaff, a thunderstorm came up and the temperature probably dropped 20 degrees.

We make it on over to the trading post and waited. Up on the top of the mesa, you could hear the Home Dance with the tortoise shell rattles echoing down to the folks pumping gas and buying grocieries. It was an amazing introduction to our new home.

A pick up truck pulls up and the couple inside motion for us to follow them. We started up the mesa, right up the same road that went by the trees, the sacred spring and the sandstone house. They pull into the driveway and indicate that this would be our home. The house I had seen during the interview, the one place with a few tall trees, and a sacred spring, just down from the Corn Rocks.

We lived there for 4 1/2 years. I have never been more aware of my ties with Mother Earth than my time on Hopi. It wasn't always easy, but some of my best memories still take me back in my mind's eye to that day and that house in the trees.