As the ancients knew, some places on Earth are graced with high-vibration energy. Wise and intuitive people often built their holiest institutions over energy vortexes. They knew that bathing in these elevated vibrations was beneficial to raising their consciousness and facilitated their spiritual development. There are numerous such power places around the world, and you don’t have to be highly sensitive to feel them. Haven’t you ever walked into a church or cathedral and felt something extraordinary? Or visited one of the mysterious sites like Stonehenge and felt the power of the place?

When you arrive at one of these sacred sites, you may very well feel the kind of shift in energy I’m describing. Each place will most likely feel different from the others, but they all feel different from the rest of the world. When you stand on the main plaza at Machu Picchu, surrounded by the towering peaks of the Andes, gaze up at the mighty pyramids of Egypt, or visit the ancient holy cities of Banaras or Jerusalem or Mecca, each lets you know in its own way that you are on sacred ground...

Munich

When I was holding a workshop in Munich, someone said, “Oh, you’re really going to want to see this local country church; it has a great feeling.”

So my host drove me all the way to the site, two hours outside the city. It was well worth the time. The moment I stepped into the church, I could feel its high vibration. The structure was old and had been built on a hill overlooking a beautiful lake. My guess is that the local inhabitants erected it there because their predecessors knew from the indigenous people before them that this was a sacred location. It clearly had a special energetic feel to it, much as Sedona, Arizona, does.

Sedona

In fact, one of the very first experiences I ever had with a high-energy place happened when I was first in Sedona. As mountain climbers, my husband and I were interested in scaling the area’s famous Red Rocks. To us, it sounded like a great place for climbing—we had no idea that it was also heralded as a location of strong spiritual energy.

Eric and I pulled into Sedona with a carful of climbing gear and our mountain bikes mounted on the back. Eager to do some biking, we stopped at a spot that looked like a nice place to ride. It was a beautiful area, with amazing, towering red cliffs.

We got on our bikes and rode for a long time, getting farther from town. Suddenly, we saw quite a few bikes lying at the bottom of a hill. Curious, we parked there, too, and headed up the hill on foot, as we presumed the other riders had done. At the top were dozens of people sitting on the ground in the middle of a geometric design. I didn’t know what a mandala was back then, but everyone was meditating.

We like to meditate, I thought excitedly. Let’s join them!

So we sat on the ground, cross-legged, at the outer edge of the group, and meditated for about an hour. A few minutes into it, I could tell that the area was especially conducive to deep meditation.

Once we were done, my husband and I walked down the hill, got back on our bikes, and headed to the car. That’s when it struck me that I had undergone a major transformation.

As we made our way toward the car, it seemed as if I was flying! I couldn’t get over how light I felt.

Taken aback, I kept trying to figure it out. What is it that happened to me up there on that hill? Why am I so filled with this buoyant energy that I don’t even need a bike? I could run above the street if I wanted!

It was an extraordinarily, uplifting feeling, and it lasted a couple of hours before eventually wearing off.

Back at the hotel, still intrigued, I bought an armful of books and started reading all about Sedona. I learned that it is known for being a very special, incredibly energetic place, as it’s located over a vortex, a place of spiraling spiritual energy on multiple dimensions, often including water.

The Native Americans in the region have always known about it; in fact, there are all kinds of petroglyphs and other evidence of ancient life in the area. And many people, not as ignorant about it as I was back then, continue to go there in droves to experience the unusual energy.