August 16, 2012
When I woke up, the sun had just come up over the horizon behind the Cultural Center on the Second Mesa. I was very excited about the possibilities of the day, but I was also a little nervous. I had no idea what to expect or if I should expect anything during this second meeting with Ahote and Tuwa. While having breakfast in the Hopi Cultural Center, Tuwa texted me to ask if I remembered how to get to their house and if I was ready to come over. I replied that I did remember the location and that I would be over as soon as I finished my breakfast. I arrived at their door approximately thirty minutes later.
Tuwa greeted me at the door and invited me in for a visit. Ahote sat beside me, shook my hand, and asked how my journey was going. I then had the pleasure of meeting Ahote and Tuwa’s son and their son’s girlfriend. Even though this was only the second time I had met Ahote and Tuwa, I felt like I had known them for a long time. We spent the next few minutes catching up with one another before heading down to the field to take photographs of their crops.
Before we departed, however, Ahote informed me that he felt that we should be cleansed before visiting the field. Ahote worked for the hospital and had handled a deceased person just four days earlier, and since I had been in different parts of the Four Corners area, he felt it best that we both participate in a brief cleansing ceremony. I told him I didn’t have a problem meeting his request and preferred it. I figured I could use a proper cleansing after everywhere I had been.
A few minutes later, Ahote and I headed down to the field in my van. Everyone else left in the pick-up truck. Right before we arrived at the area, Ahote had me pull the van over in the desert to perform the cleansing. Once the cleansing was complete, we returned to my van and drove to the field, where Tuwa and the others patiently waited.
At first glance, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was amazed to discover that the barren field we had planted on May 19 and 20, 2012, under the Annular Solar Eclipse, had gone from looking like this to this.
To this in just three short months.
This image is just one of Ahote and Tuwa’s fields.
While driving across the mesas the day before, on my way to the Cultural Center, I noticed that the corn in the fields appeared to be about as high as a person’s waist, so I was stunned when I saw Ahote and Tuwa’s crop.
Faces have been blurred out to protect their privacy.
These photographs were taken for their collection.
I was blown away not only by the crop’s size but the plants’ condition. The corn was extremely healthy. It almost appeared to glow. There was not one dry leaf in the entire crop. Standing at 6’5″, most of the plants towered above me. They must have been at least 8 to 9 feet in height.
Ahote and Chris | Faces have been blurred out to protect their privacy.
Ahote and Tuwa with the Second Mesa in the background.
Faces have been blurred out to protect their privacy.
After spending a long period in the field taking photographs, we headed back to their home on the Second Mesa. Upon our arrival, Ahote and Tuwa invited me back into their home, and we spent the next hour or so talking about me possibly returning in a few weeks to take more photographs, this time of the harvest. Ahote gifted me an arrowhead necklace and some of the sacred corn pollen that Tuwa had gathered during our time in the field. I hung the necklace around my neck, and Ahote told me to place the sacred corn pollen in the medicine bag he gave me on my first visit back in May.
They instructed me to use the sacred corn pollen whenever I needed to ask the Creator for a favor. I was asked to greet the sun just as it appeared over the horizon, sprinkle a little bit of the corn pollen on the ground as an offering, and then make my request through sincere, heartfelt prayer. They then mentioned the religious ceremonies that had started earlier that morning and were taking place over the next four days throughout Hopi. Unbeknownst to me, the Earth and our solar system were moving through some portal or new opening in the cosmos.
Ahote then said that if I returned to photograph the harvest, he would try to spend some time with me and show me parts of Hopi that most people didn’t get to see. I told him I would try my best to return for a third visit. A few minutes later, I left Ahote and Tuwa’s home, once again completely honored and blessed to have been part of the experience of sharing their home, their culture, and their love. Using the directions that Ahote had given me before I left, I then drove to Flagstaff, Arizona. I arrived approximately 1.5 hours later, only to find the town under siege by intense summer rain and hail storms. As I approached the outskirts of Flagstaff, my van was pelted by small pieces of hail. The surface of the road and ground is covered with a thin layer of ice. It looked as though it had just snowed.
When I finally reached town, I rounded a curve and came face-to-face with a flash flood. To prevent the car directly behind me from hitting me, I had to keep moving forward, forcing me and my van into the raging water. Luckily, I came through the other side just fine.
This entire event reminded me of Day 51 of my 72 Days of God journey after I spent a night camping on the Cherokee Indian Reservation and experienced a severe thunderstorm the following morning as I left the reservation. In Native American culture, these types of storms symbolize great change brought on by the Thunder Gods. Perhaps another transformation had occurred between the Hopi and me that I didn’t recognize.
Once I reached the other side of the raging water, I drove to a nearby Starbucks to take a break from the road and gather my senses. I eventually continued my drive back to Phoenix. As soon as I arrived home, I began unloading my van. I did several loads of laundry and then went to the gym to swim some laps. I knew this would help me unwind from the long drive that I had just completed.
That night at 11:35 PM, I sat down to invoke the “Happiness” angel. While facing east, I performed this invocation between 11:35 and 11:55 PM.
It was the two-year anniversary of my Akashic reading with Marie Friend, which informed me that I was one of the wise men during the birth of Jesus Christ. I had just completed my second visit with the Hopi on the Second Mesa. I went to bed extremely happy, mainly because I knew that over the last 2.5 years, I had been doing what my spirit had come to this Earth to do.
With just 23 more meditations, I couldn’t help but wonder how my trip would end. I ordered and mailed 8″ X 10″ copies of the photographs I took for Ahote and Tuwa on August 23, 2012. (08/23/12)