I concluded the main article in last month's Newsletter with a bit of a mystery. We knew we were going to be linking together some of the sacred sites of the Pacific North West but were not sure exactly what that would look like. Ernie has the ability to go to the upper levels to communicate with the spiritual realms and was guided to send us in different directions. Our home port is Victoria and he was informed that Zia and I were to head south to Mt. Shasta and he and Shelley were to head north to Victoria Lake which is on the northern end of Vancouver Island near Port Alice. We agreed to synchronize our ceremonies on Michaelmas Day, September 29th, at 4.44pm.

 The significance of Victoria Lake is that it is outlined in the World Map of the 12 key sacred vortex sites in JJ Hurtak's "Keys of Enoch", one of only four spots under the descending dove over the contiguous continent of North America. There is a fifth on Hawaii. Obviously Mt. Shasta is known to be an important connecting vortex on the planetary crystal grid and we felt this guidance was placing us exactly where we needed to be. The connection also included Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands) a very isolated archipelago well north of Vancouver Island where Ernie and Shelley had just been, Crater Lake, Oregon, and Bainbridge Island, just west of Seattle, with Victoria somewhat in the middle.

We set off in opposite directions and Ernie and Shelley soon ran into challenges in the form of appalling weather conditions with heavy rain and fierce winds, catching the edge of a typhoon from the Pacific Rim. It was so bad that they didn't feel safe in the Victoria Lake area on logging roads with no people around at all and the danger of the roads washing out. They still did their ceremony at the Lake a day early before departing and tuning in to an alternative location west of Victoria near Port Renfrew on the appointed day. Shelley was guided there and later realized there was a direct north/south line linking the sites together including Haida Gwaii and Mt. Shasta. Still in very difficult conditions, they performed their ceremony, feeling a deep connection to the land in all of the different locations and to our ceremony on Mt. Shasta.

Meanwhile we had driven south to Mt. Shasta, arriving in the early evening to catch the sun going down on the magnificent 14,000 foot mountain. Just before leaving, Ernie had handed me a packet of maps and information about the Mt. Shasta area, including an article that James Tyberonn had written about Stewart Mineral Springs. In the article, he described his visit there and explained how he had discovered both a white spring and a red spring. The only other place he was aware of where there are both a red and a white spring was in Glastonbury in England at the Chalice well. I was stunned! We had performed ceremony in the hub of the Landscape Zodiac in Glastonbury around the fall equinox last year and now we had the opportunity to intentionally link Glastonbury and Mt. Shasta together through the Red and White Springs!

Tyberonn also explained a special cycle to go through while at the Stewart Mineral Springs as a purification process which required visits on three consecutive days. We worked out that we could complete the three sessions just before our Ceremony on the Mountain on Michaelmas Day. The white spring is tapped into a bath house where you lie in the silicate-rich hot water, fully immersed up to your neck, during which time your skin becomes entirely saturated with the highly-alkaline waters. You then go into a communal wood-heated, cedar-lined Sauna where your pores open wide and take in the rich supply of minerals. You then have the choice of a taking a quick cold shower or immersing yourself completely in the creek outside - where the waters from the white and red springs converge - which is at the frigid temperature of 2 degrees centigrade. We had read in Tyberonn's article that the creek was the only place where you had access to the Red Spring and therefore the only choice we could make was to take the plunge into the Creek, closing the pores, and sealing the minerals inside us. This entire cycle is then repeated twice more in the same session and so by doing this on three consecutive days, we plunged into the cold creek nine times in all. Requiring courage but very invigorating!

In the midst of this, we spent the afternoon of September 28th hiking on the mountain, acclimating to her and resonating with the powerful energies that she emits. We hiked for about an hour to an isolated and magical power area called Southgate Meadows (formerly known as Squaw Meadows) where we cleansed our ceremonial crystals in the flowing cold springs of the meadow and did a ceremony in preparation for the day to follow.

Michaelmas Day, the day Archangel Michael and All Angels are honored in the Christian Calendar, has always been a significant day for me. Having taught at St. Michaels University School for 20 years, I came to appreciate the role he played in helping and supporting members of our school, particularly the children. One Michaelmas Day, I even had the opportunity to go to the hub of the Archangel Michael Temple in the Canadian Rockies, as outlined by Starwalker, anchored with crystals in the form of a six-pointed St. David's Star. A very special opportunity! Michael and his Legions of Light are always available on this day to help clear shadow energy from the planet and assist us in sacred ceremony to raise consciousness and vibrational frequency for humanity.

The mists were down and the veils were thick as we climbed the mountain road the next day. As we drove the fourteen miles up the mountain, the mists got thicker and the temperature dropped from 12 degrees in town to one degree at the Panther Meadows Trailhead. There was no-one else on the mountain. Not one parked car anywhere. We hiked into Panther Meadows and on to Panther Springs where the vast majority of spiritual pilgrims perform their ceremonies and meditate. Zia found a beautiful Redwood tree just above the springs which had seven trunks arranged in a semi-circle so that there was a natural altar on the inside. This was the place for our ceremony! Zia placed 12 flowers in a circle representing the 12 sun signs, each accompanied by one of our new radiant beads. In the centre, she placed a stone that Shelley had bought back from Haida Gwaii, a quartz crystal that she found lying on the trail nearby, one of the radiant beads, and a heart-shaped flower petal. It was cold and wet as the rain and mist sleeted down, but we were not to be deterred as we carried out our ceremony, connecting to Mother Earth, through the mountain and linking in all of the vortex centres that we have been working with and feel responsible for over the last few years. Spirit does not always make the adventures easy and we were well aware that our resolve and commitment were being tested once again. We were not yet aware of Ernie and Shelley's considerable challenges, and yet we did accomplish our synchronized ceremonies.