By John P. Milton Sacred Land Sanctuary
So here we are at the Sacred Land Sanctuary, just north of Crestone, Colorado, one of my favorite places on the planet. I thought today I might share a few things about the Sanctuary and especially about some of the archeological sites here. When I first moved here in the late seventies, nobody in the neighborhood knew about the existence of these archeological sites—meditation seats, meditation beds, and different kinds of places where you could sit and have a shift in your energy field and a shift in the way you are actually related to Nature and the Cosmos and Yourself. So these Sacred Sites support Outer Nature connection, deepening Inner Nature experience, and enlivening your opportunity to connect with Source. Some of the seats give you a really powerful support to connect to your pure Source Nature, your True Nature. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
When I first got here, together with a small group of friends, we formed a community called SunCircle with plans to build an ecovillage. We thought all the abundant local stones, called the Crestone conglomerate, would be an ideal source of heat. Our idea was that as the sun came into south-facing houses, the stones would absorb the heat and re-radiate it back, holding the warmth. A lot of the stones were a combination of metamorphic, igneous and sedimentary—mostly metamorphic meaning that many were originally sedimentary or igneous and then, with repeated cycles of erosion and uplift—and the exertion of a lot of geologic pressure, stones often formed within stones…. All that change and pressure created a very, very unusual kind of metamorphic conglomerate rock, which is what we have today, for the most part, here in Crestone.
Early on in life, I was taught by my grandma and grandpa. They passed along a number of indigenous influences, such as that it was very important to ask Nature for permission before you do anything to alter it. They also taught me to give thanks for what you’ve received, particularly from Nature where you live. Giving thanks to Nature for all the gifts that we were receiving was part of our daily life. So I suggested to my partners in this ecovillage that we were planning to build just north of Crestone, that it might be good to take a deep dive into asking whether this project would be appropriate for this place.
Most of my partners in SunCircle were not able to be here to quest with me, which would have been an ideal kind of thing—to have a small cluster of us who are engaged, do it together, and each one in a solo camp and do a vision quest or the equivalent like a Renewal Program (1 day), Nature Quest (4-7 days), or Sacred Passage (11-12 days) which are classic programs now offered through the Way of Nature. So I went up to the headwaters of the beautiful stream that flows through this land here, because watersheds are a very ancient way of delineating territories—how Nature really sets natural boundaries. The watershed provides that for us. So I thought, well, by going to the head of the watershed, I am going to the beginning of where much of this unique geology, and the water flowing through it, comes from. And it’s also high altitude. I chose a spot at about twelve and a half thousand feet and quested there.
When I went out, I went into a basin that has a gigantic, U-shaped cirque carved by glaciers. And in the middle of that there is a pillar of stone, coming up like that (John gestures an upward column with his hand), and at the base of the pillar were several small lakes. I put my camp at the base of the pillar and those small lakes. It was pretty dramatic because, if you know anything about Hindu mythology and spiritual practice, they have the Shiva Lingam and the Yoni, and they bring the two together, and it’s very tantric in its origin.
So you have this phallic-like shape coming up out of the middle of the Yoni, and the Yoni is represented by a more U-shaped, womb type of a configuration. And of course the phallic shape is rising up out of the middle of that.
And that’s one of the most important symbols in Hindu spirituality — unifying the Sacred Masculine and Feminine.
Especially in the Shaivite tradition, which I was a part of for quite a bit of time, and the devotion to the Sacred Mother, Divine Mother.
So anyway, I found a place where this incredible U of the Yoni and the Lingam configuration of stone came together—a powerful place to do a deep dive into solitude and deep connection to Outer Nature, Inner Nature, and True Nature. At the end of that quest, I was told that I would receive the information that I would need to bring back to our little community that was going to build the solar village.
I just had to go back and stay open and listen to the messages that come through from Spirit.
Join us next month for the continuation of this story, and find out what unique aspects John was shown about the land that led to the creation of the Sacred Land Sanctuary.