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The Cult of Trader Joe’s, Sedona Vortex Hoax, and What Kids Really Learn on a Road Trip

4/18/2012

11 Comments

 
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Sedona Vortex--A Hoax?
I’ve just returned from our seven-week road trip to the Southwest where I discovered it’s hard to keep a blog on the road. All kinds of ideas for blog posts kept springing up but since I was living in a camper van without internet access, those ideas pretty much stayed in my head.

For instance, I was going to do a post on my love of Trader Joe’s, the funky grocery store outlet in the Southwest (and rapidly expanding elsewhere) full of cheaply-priced organic gourmet food (peanut-butter-stuffed pretzels, yummy three-dollar organic wine, peach-chipotle salsa, Thai cilantro pizza, chocolate-covered cranberries, chocolate-covered mangoes, chocolate-covered potato chips, chocolate-covered roasted cashews…you get the chocoholic idea.) The place has a cult following—it was started in the 60s by a Californian who noticed his friends returning from backpacking trips abroad with an appreciation for Europe’s shopping habits of buying fresh and local. Although Trader Joe’s has expanded massively from his hippie days, whenever I arrive in a town with one, I head there immediately for a fix. I run from the parking lot and down the aisles, grabbing golden cheery tomatoes and perhaps, chilli-lemon pistachio nuts, until I find the most mind-blowing aisle of all—the eclectic-chocolate-snack aisle. Once there I float my way down with my fellow crazed disciples choosing Trader Joe’s latest offerings. Then I buy a bunch of stuff and eat it in the parking lot.

So that was one blog post.

Another was my new impression of Sedona, Arizona. Several years ago I wrote an article for the L.A. Times and other papers making fun of Sedona’s New Agey people and their vortexes (spots where creative energy supposedly seeps out of the earth). I also made fun of their crystal-tarot-angels shops and their gurus on every street corner who promise to open up your third eye. That part hasn’t changed. It’s still a New Age Disneyworld on the main drag. However, they’ve toned down the vortex idea considerably since it was revealed it was all invented as a publicity hoax. But New Agey people aside, Sedona is as stunning and red-rock-gorgeous as ever, full of more hiking trails per square mile than anywhere else in the U.S. We spent most of our days there hiking and trying not to spend money. Sedona is also one of the most expensive small towns in the country. So bask in the red rock hiking trails and eat a picnic lunch at Cathedral Rock.

The post I really wanted to write was how I was trying on our road trip to create some kind of educational experience for my nine-year-old son Quinn. Although he was reading books and I was reading aloud a lot, I still felt vaguely guilty about taking him out of school for so long and was forever searching for ways to enhance his knowledge about our experience. When we hiked through Arizona’s Walnut Canyon full of ancient cliff dwellings I kept asking him what he thought life was like for the cliff dwellers 1000 years ago, what the kids might have done there. Quinn seemed more interested in jumping from one rock to the next, also in collecting rocks off the trail. At the Grand Canyon, my feeble geology lesson on how the canyon was carved met with a glazed look. Quinn was more intent on watching the other hikers on the trail as we made our way down, finding a walking stick growing out of a cactus, and examining the vehicles in the parking lot. In the continent’s tallest sand dunes, he couldn’t care less about how they were formed but had a blast running down them. At the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado, I decided to shut up and let him do his own thing: leap with glee from rock to rock, and collect cool sparkly stones. I realized you can’t force a kid to learn something. As long as they’re out in the world, they’re learning stuff themselves all the time in ways adults could never imagine—picking up on every passing conversation of strangers, watching their parents read those boring historical markers—wonderment creates wonderment!—and devising ways to get hold of that one shiny rock embedded in a cliff.

It all beats sitting in a classroom any day.

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Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate
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Quinn at Sedona Airport Vortex
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Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado
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Earthship Houses, New Mexico
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One of many delicious Trade Joe red wines
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Leaping at Airport Vortex
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Great Sand Dunes
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Did Quinn retain any of this?
11 Comments
julie
4/18/2012 08:33:23 pm

Great Pictures Laurie!

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kids party sydney link
5/28/2012 08:51:42 pm

Road trips are really a wonderful experience for the kids. They know all the problem and face a different problems

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Baba Ganoouch
6/29/2012 09:44:08 am

Yeap, when it comes to exploiting naive people's ignorance and delusions, Sedona is at the top of the list. Unfortunately the 'vortex hoax' invented by a very large 'psychic' (Paige Bryant) in 1987 has only grown bigger thanks to Oprah's endorsement of 'snake oil salesman' that even end up taking no only people's money but lives. (James Arthur Ray) to name a few. Take a compass or look up "sedona Vortex' in Wikipedia, nothing will exist because there is no geological or scientific proofs that they ever existed. Even the Yavapai Indians laugh at that New Age crap. Amazing what lies people will cultivate when it comes to money. PS. Did you know that a 'Historical Buddha' never existed? (look it up) All according to 'legends' mostly written by poets and story tellers. It is just another human invention (bondage and liberation) to cultivate follower i.e. faithful customers. Another Vedic hoax imported to the Hindus River Valley originally by migrating Indo-Aryan people that brought with them the language and stories of Sanskrit and when they split like a branche of the same tree, they developed monotheism (Zen-Avesta) and polytheism (Rig-Veda), the root of all Vedic and Abrahamic Religions cultivated today by billions of worshipers of fables and superstition can be traced by to Proto-Indo-European people having their source somewhere around modern day Ukraine. (Oldest Swastika was found there in a cave dating about 10,000 BC).

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Laurie Gough
4/12/2013 04:21:22 am

Someone just wrote a long comment here and since it was so hostile and strange I automatically deleted it as spam but now I wish I hadn't. It would be interesting to read it again and for others to read. Please write your comment again whoever you are. You were very upset that I hadn't believed in the energy vortexes and thought I was pretty stupid not to 'get it'. Write again, thanks!

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Todd
4/21/2013 02:20:51 pm

I can only speak from my personal experiences and I can assure you not only are there many places of extreme focused energy present in Sedona... it's in many places (in the world) and takes different forms and this very "vortex" energy is present within each and every one of us. Though "yes" we are comprised of "cells" each one of our billions of cells are all charged and have polarity and contain a "spark" or "light". Our bodies also resonate and form electrical wave form patterns. There are those of the Heart/Brain/Body. These energy patterns form what is referred to as "chakra" points or energy centers. Science describes the human form using terms such as bio-electrical/bio-mechanical and as containing many systems designed in an amazing integration of not only physical matter (cells) but containing magnetic and electrical properties. Brain surgeons comment that they observe a wave of energy pulsing through the medulla oblongata and that this "pulsing" is NOT a result of the heart beat and refer to this phenomenon as "life force energy". In Sedona this "force" is referred to as a "vortex". Furthermore we find ourselves on a planet containing polarity/magnetism and it's an engine creating electricity measurable as our ionosphere. The earth also resonates singing a song in space. Its surface contains measurable lines of intersecting "energy" patterns referred to as lay lines. And we find many of the "wonders of the world" located on these intersecting points or electromagnetic "hot spots". My point being our bodies are not all that different from the very earth we inhabit. Again I can only speak from experience and present myself to you with words on a screen but I can assure you I experience these "energies" I interact with them moving with them. For centuries Eastern cultures have referred to this "vortex" energy of the body and Earth as "Chi". So what you're saying in effect (since Sedona vortexes are a hoax and you believe you don't experience them nor do they exist) is that billions of individuals over thousands of years don't really experience Chi and so all forms of martial arts are "hoaxes" as well? Perhaps a little more "sensitivity" on your part and being a little more open to such things will aid you in your own personal discovery of your own energy fields? Also a little more sensitivity when deciding to publish or post your opinions might help your readers to not react so emotionally - like the writer of the "deleted" post?

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Angela Park
4/22/2013 04:56:01 am

Good grief, Todd. You are entitled to your silly flaky opinions but please, don't criticize the writer for giving her opinion. It's her blog and she can say whatever she wants. She's obviously a nice, open person and even though she said she got that hostile message from a reader, she asked the person to write in again. The writer is entitled to her opinions and by the way, she is talking about the beauty of this Sedona place and just by saying in one sentence that she learned the vortexes were a hoax (which they are, see comment above by reader who tells us about Paige Bryant inventing the hoax) you tell her she's not sensitive? Are people supposed to cater to every single religion and flaky religion out there not to step on the toes of people like you? Writers aren't supposed to tell readers that something is a hoax even if it is? Todd, start using your brain!
Angela

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Derek
6/3/2013 02:57:22 am

I don't think it's a hoax at all. I think what turned me off about this blogger is her 'case closed' attitude to something that is truly a phenomenon among many people, including the native Americans. Last year I might have agreed with her, but I recently visited Sedona this past week, and I was literally changed by the experience of visiting a vortex. We skipped the town and vendors. My experience was deeply personal and undeniable. It helped me release grief over my mom passing away a few months ago. I wasn't expecting it but it hit me quick and hard. I consider myself to be highly analytical, non-religious, and science based. But I acknowledge there are things we don't know about or understand fully. The take away is that while I respect the blogger for her opinions, I feel she has pre-judged this place in the face of the profiteering. I can see how she got to her conclusion, but she is being a bit harsh in her assessment. I can be added to the group of people who feel there is something there and something that can be beneficial to one's soul. We are emotional creatures, and anything that uplifts our hearts can't be such a bad thing.

Jane Doe
5/31/2013 08:23:37 am

Sedona has been a cult magnet for quite some time. They come in under their nonprofit status and buy up tons of expensive real estate in the area. One particular cult is now selling all their land and buildings and have relocated in southern Arizona. It is frustrating seeing so many people swindled and brainwashed as it is a beautiful place to live.

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go to this site link
7/23/2013 09:15:14 pm

You don’t have to daydream bout the perfect place to live, Laurie. You will surely find it if you keep on travelling. I can say that because I’am a traveler myself and I decided to settle in Hawaii after my trip around the globe.

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Randy
8/21/2013 06:40:46 am

Dig a little deeper into the hippie who created Trader Joe's. ah, that which we perceive as truth was often created for just that purpose.

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Dating in Waukegan link
10/7/2013 08:14:32 am

Great information and site

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    Laurie Gough

    I'm an author of books about my travels, a freelance writer, an adventurer, a mother of a little boy, an environmental activist, and someone who daydreams about finding the perfect place to live.

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