Rediscovering the Old Spanish Trail - Now it's a Freeway - 2009

 

Rediscovering the Old Spanish Trail - Now it's a Freeway

Traveling north on Interstate I-15, from Mesquite, Nevada, one must pass through the stark, but beautiful Virgin River Gorge.  Although a highway traveler would find it hard to believe, the river at the bottom of that steep, narrow canyon is navigable some years by kayak during April and May.  Because of the remoteness and difficulty of that transit, whitewater websites include stern warnings to enthusiasts contemplating such an attempt.  As the early Mormon pioneers discovered downstream at Mesquite Flat, the large watershed that feeds the Virgin River can also create huge flash floods.

 

Although driving through the gorge feels quite seamless and sinuous, when it opened in 1973, this section of I-15 was among the most technically difficult to engineer and most expensive ever built.  Because many motorists expect to navigate our interstate highways at well above the speed limit, I-15 through the Virgin River Gorge hosts many spectacular speed-related crashes.  As we traveled up-canyon in April 2009, I-15 crossed the river gorge on seven separate bridges before we lost count.  To us, it shall always be a “Seven Bridges Road”.

 

Forty miles north of Mesquite, beyond the head of the gorge, lays the City of St. George, Utah.  St. George’s mesas and buttes contrast with the dunes and alluvial fans surrounding Mesquite.

 

In 1861, St. George, Utah began as a Mormon outpost.  Elders of the Mormon Church feared that the Civil War might curtail their cotton trade with the Southern States.  Because of that perceived issue, the Mormon Cotton Mission traveled south past the earlier Iron Mission at Cedar City, Utah which had suffered greatly from lack of permanent shelter during their first winter there.  Known for their pluck, the pioneer founders of St. George named the area "Utah's Dixie”, a name still popular today.  Although those early settlers managed to grow some cotton, it never became a commercially viable crop.

 

St. George is the county seat of Washington County, Utah, and is the principal city of Southeastern Utah.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, St. George had a population of 67,000 in 2006, up from 49,000 in 2000.  From 1990 to 2000, St. George beat Las Vegas, Nevada as the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the U.S.  This trend continued until the mortgage crisis and financial meltdown of 2008 put at least a temporary end to growth.

 

Most observers of Mesquite, Nevada would say that the city has overbuilt its housing supply in recent years.  Unlike the near shutdown of development at Mesquite, St. George, UT continues adding to its excess housing stock.  At both the south and the north ends of town, the dominant feature is “for rent”, “for sale”, “for lease” or “auction soon” signs.  If there were enough jobs to go with this new housing, all would be well.  According to a resident that we met at the RV Park in Mesquite, St. George has experienced recession and job losses similar to the rest of the country.

 

As we drove from one end of the city to the other, we were amazed to see that building of new planned community infrastructure continues.  It seemed that the outskirts did not know that the core of the city was struggling.  In town, empty condominiums lined the freeway.  At one off ramp, several huge apartment buildings stood surrounded by weeds, silent, empty and unfinished. 

 

When I stopped to take pictures north of town, we parked at one end of a large highway overpass.  Standing at the west end of that bridge was a new community.  To the east, construction workers were grading parkways into gentle arcs across barren land.  If one takes a long economic view, this new infrastructure could make sense.  When growth returns, St George will be ready.  In the near term, other than keeping construction workers employed, these roads-to-nowhere were an economic mystery.

 

After allowing our disbelief to fade, we continued north to the junction of I-15 and I-70.  At their western ends, both I-70 and I-40, farther south, end at I-15.  In contrast, I-90, I-80 and I-10 each stretch from “coast to coast”.  Facing widely spaced services and desert terrain, continued travel on the interstate highway system forces both I-70 and I-40 travelers south along what once was the Old Spanish Trail, towards Los Angeles, California. 

 

Prehistoric animals such as the Mastodon utilized that route at various times during the Pleistocene.  Members of the early Clovis Culture found the route and used it for transit in both directions.  Scholars tell us that some languages found in the contemporary Indian cultures of the Four Corners region have their roots in the Ancient Maya Culture, far to the south.  In the past two hundred years, American trappers and mountain men found the trail and used it.  In the 1830s, the Old Spanish Trail became a formal, if multi-route commercial road.  Later, the railroad and highways adopted a similar route.

 

During the past two hundred years, a look at the seemingly endless desert was enough to turn prudent travelers south toward Los Angeles.  If early travelers tempted their fate in a trek west, a Great Basin of desert valleys, alternating with craggy mountain ranges greeted them along the way.  Not until they could wend their way up and over the high mountain passes of California's Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, could travelers expect help from settlers in the foothills on the west side.  Two famous parties tried to take separate shortcuts west to California.  Each lost members of their party, creating a warning for those who followed. 

 

The Donner Party Route

 

Not listening to the Wisdom of the Ancients and traveling south, along the Old Spanish Trail, they split the geographical difference between the northern and southern routes.  Not finding their hoped-for low pass across the Sierra Nevada, they “holed up” for the winter in the high desert.  The following spring, when a rescue party arrived from Los Angeles, they finally departed their cold, dry winter home.  Although stories about its naming abound, one legend has it, a woman from the party of Lost 49ers turned to look back at their place of peril and said, “Goodbye, Death Valley”.  Regardless of who first named it, Death Valley is what we still call it today.  Ironically, the survivors traveled overland to Los Angeles; the same city that they had earlier avoided as a waste of their precious time.

 

Today, you can travel by land across that section of the Great Basin, but it will be on secondary highways such as US Highways 6 or 50.  In the 1950’s, when engineers began planning the interstate highway system, they heeded both history and the spiritual message of the Ancients.  By the 1970’s, when the interstate highway system was completed, it left untouched a wide swath that stretched from Salt Lake City, Utah to Fresno, California.  For reasons that would be apparent to the historical 49ers or Donners, US-50 bills itself as “The Lonliest Highway in America”. 

 

After pondering that remnant of what was once called the Great American Desert, we headed east on I-70.  For the next hundred and fifty miles, we enjoyed varied terrain, starting with mountain passes and ending with the barren flats past Green River, Utah.  It is a beautiful drive, with unique land forms at many points along the way.  If you travel that route, plan to stop often and take pictures.  With so many unique geological features, some appear for only a few minutes at highway speeds.  If you travel straight through, you will miss unique features of the land too numerous to recall. 

 

 Our destination that day was Crescent Junction, Utah. 

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 07:00 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Mesquite, Nevada - Better Economic Luck Next Time - 2009

 

Mesquite, Nevada - Better Economic Luck Next Time

On April 19, 2009 I departed Los Angeles, California, heading north on Interstate I-15.  After almost 300 miles, I stopped for the night at Mesquite, Nevada, which lies eighty miles north of Las Vegas.  There, I spent a quiet night at an RV Park behind the Casablanca Hotel and Casino.  On my previous trips through Mesquite, I had ignored the town, assuming that it was not worth so much as a fuel stop in the desert.  After a quiet night at the RV Park, I drove through town, looking for remnants of its pioneer history.

 

While driving along West Mesquite Blvd., I saw contemporary buildings and businesses.  Even on a clear spring day, both traffic and business activities were light.  Like many Western towns, Mesquite’s proximity to open land and abundant water drove a recent economic boom.  Like Phoenix, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada, Mesquite rode a swell of economic exuberance which ended abruptly with the mortgage crisis of 2008.  As it had several times in its history, Mesquite again became a land of busted dreams.  Of the three casinos that recently called Mesquite home, only the Casablanca currently operates with full services. 

 

Midway on its journey from origins in Southwestern Utah and its submersion in Lake Mead, the Virgin River skirts Mesquite on its south side.  The early Spaniards named it El Rio de Sulfureo, after nearby hot sulfur springs.  In honor of John Adams, the second U.S. president, Jedediah Smith may have named it the Adams River.  Ironically, John Quincy Adams, the sixth president and son of John Adams held that high office at the time of Smith’s 1826-27 transit.  Some records claim that Smith named the river after Thomas Virgin, a member of his party.  Wounded by Indians near Mesquite Flat, Virgin later died in the fight at Umpqua River, along the California-Oregon border.

 

The Pleistocene Epoch dominated much of the Northern Hemisphere for 1.8 million years, apparently ending only 10,000 years ago.  During that period, repeated glaciation forced plants and animals from the north to share a migration route through the Virgin River Gorge, toward the more temperate south.  As the glaciers retreated, flora and fauna made their way back up the gorge and into new lands exposed by the melting ice shield.  Since the freeze-thaw cycle took between ten thousand and more than one hundred thousand years, some species may have traveled north and south many times, adapting to new conditions as they regained what had been their old territory.

 

In the 1830’s, the Old Spanish Trail, between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Los Angeles, California utilized the Virgin River Gorge as part of its route.  At the time of early Anglo exploration and commerce, the Southern Paiute (Nuwuvi)lived in the area.  In a unique adaptation to their environment, the Nuwuvi combined a hunting-gathering subsistence system with some flood-plain gardening along the river.  Although Thomas Virgin sustained injury during an altercation in that locale, I do not know which Indians he fought.  Was it the relatively peaceful Nuwuvi or the more aggressive Utes, who may have migrated south as encroaching Anglo hunters stressed their game supply?

 

In the 1880’s, the first two Mormon pioneer settlements failed at Mesquite Flat.  After flash floods along the Virgin River ruined the water diversion trenches of first two settlements, a third group rebuilt the system and succeeded.  With an abundant, if erratic water supply from the Virgin River, Mesquite became a subsistence farming community.  There was slow growth in the area until 1973, when Interstate I-15 replaced Old Highway 91.  Because of early twentieth century engineering challenges, Old Highway 91 avoided the gorge, instead taking a longer route to the west.  Once the I-15 route through the gorge became a reality, Mesquite began shipping farm products eighty miles south to Las Vegas and forty miles north to St. George, Utah.

 

The now defunct Peppermill Casino, opened in the 1970s, beginning the diversification of Mesquite’s economy.  By the mid-1990s, with other casino resorts open, Mesquite marketed itself as a getaway from Las Vegas and a more laid-back gambling option for residents of Cedar City, Kanab and St. George, Utah.  As its population grew, residents adopted the shorter “Mesquite” as the official town name.  The City of Mesquite incorporated in 1984.  The 2000 Census placed the population at 9,000.  At its 2008 peak, the population had ballooned to over 19,000.

 

As I made my way along West Mesquite Blvd. on that spring morning, historical remnants of Mesquite Flats showed through in vacant lots and abandoned businesses.  Although most of the historical architecture was gone, enough remained to give a feeling of what the town was like in earlier days.  The remaining buildings and signs were a poignant reminder of what happens to a Western town when its commercial base disappears.  Some landmarks, like Harley's Garage, look like they closed yesterday.  Others, like the Desert Palms Motel still operate normally, despite the missing paint and neon lights evident on their highway sign.

 

In one’s mind, it is easy enough to see how plant and animal life around Mesquite may have changed, yet we know that the underlying rocky landscape has remained unyielding for eons.  That morning, I pictured ice dams breaking to the north, sending a deluge down-canyon and across Mesquite Flat. 

 

Then, I saw conifers and other evergreens from temperate southern climates, moving north to colonize the mountainsides of Southeastern Utah.  As game, large and small moved up the gorge, so too did the Ancient Anasazi Indians, and later the Nuwuvi. 

 

The spirits of mountain men like Jedediah Smith and Thomas Virgin passed by my location, moving south, in search of big game.  Although they did not find the abundant game that earlier mountain men found in the Rocky Mountains, they did find the vast and abundant land called California, lying just beyond the deserts of the Great Basin. 

 

Soon, Mormon pioneers traipsed by my historical viewing port, followed by others seeking the excitement of gaming at flashy casinos.  Finally, the land speculators, golf pros and second-home buyers found their way to this “virgin territory”.  Many of them arrived just in time for the greatest economic downturn since the destruction of the original Mesquite Flats flood.  For many, their only choice was to migrate again, in search of greener economic pastures. 

 

Will Mesquite Flat grow again?  Will new residents at least occupy all the vacant homes and condominiums still waiting for buyers?  Can anything surpass Mesquite’s recent peak of growth and excitement?  As long as the waters of the Virgin River continue to bring live-giving sustenance to the bone-dry desert at Mesquite Flat, my answer is, “Yes”.  I wonder if there is a “betting line” at the Casablanca Casino as to when that resurgence might occur.

 

For a May 2012 update on Mesquite, Nevada, click HERE.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 11:02 AM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Larry L. Maxam - Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient - 2009

 

Larry L. Maxam - Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient

Recently, in my home town of Burbank, California, the city council voted unanimously to re-name Pacific Park in honor and memory of United States Marine Corporal Larry L. Maxam, a posthumous recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Corporal Maxam died February 2, 1968, at Cam Lo District, Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. 

 

The Burbank Veterans Commemorative Committee will dedicate the park in memory of Larry L. Maxam on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25, 2009.  Larry Maxam attended Emerson Elementary, John Muir Junior High (now Middle School) and Burbank High School.

 

 

Burbank, California 1963 – John Muir Junior High

 

In the ninth grade at John Muir, boys took Metal Shop.  Inside, the shop class was like a Gulag factory, with dark, grease-stained windows.  There were many obscure and dangerous machines placed around the room.  In the middle of the shop, there was a gas-fired forge, roaring away at an unsafe temperature.  At one end of the shop, there were long, shared workbenches, where we “slaves to the state” fashioned metalwork of questionable quality and value.

 

Our major project for the semester was to saw, forge, grind and buff a metal chisel out of steel bar stock.  Wearing heavy gloves, we held the red-hot metal with huge tongs.  Then we hammered the glowing bar against an anvil until an unknown alchemy was supposed to change it from a slug into metal-art.  As they say in the commercials, “Don’t try this at home”.  With my fear of the forge showing through, my chisel looked like a misshapen metal lollipop.

 

Sitting next to me at my workbench that year was Larry Maxam.  Larry was a handsome young man, with sweptback, dark hair and a movie star face that was mature beyond his years.  Soon after Mr. Bins, our shop teacher, had told me I was heading for a failing grade, Larry handed me his perfectly formed chisel.  He had ground, beveled and polished it into an object of metallic perfection.

 

“I already got an ‘A’ on this one”, he said to me with a smile.  “Go ahead.  You can use it”.  While my eyes widened in astonishment, I realized that Larry was the angel I had been hoping for.  I too received an 'A' grade for Larry’s chisel.  At the end of the semester, I was not sure if the chisel was a gift, or if Larry had only lent it to me.  Secretly, I kept it as a souvenir.  Almost twenty years later, I misused the chisel and damaged it beyond repair.  Angry with myself for again dishonoring Larry’s gift, I tossed it away.

 

I remember encountering Larry only once during our time together at Burbank High.  As we passed each other, Larry’s unassuming aura of self-confidence almost bowled me over.  My complicity in the "chisel incident" and the fact that I had secretly kept it made me shy.  After he had passed by without seeing me, I blurted out his name.  Larry stopped on the landing of the Main Stairway.  Frozen in the north light from the window above, he turned, looked up at me, then smiled and nodded.  After that, I lost track of Larry Maxam, until two years ago, when I discovered his fate.

 

As soon as he was eighteen, Larry dropped out of Burbank High and joined the Marines.  At age nineteen, Larry saw military action in Viet Nam.  During one major battle, North Vietnamese Army regulars threatened to overrun the position of Larry’s unit.  Despite taking several direct hits from enemy fire, Larry continued to maintain his position and fire a machine gun until reinforcements arrived.  One week after his twentieth birthday, Larry Maxam died on the battlefield. 

 

Larry Maxam became the only alumnus of a Burbank public school to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, as awarded posthumously by then President Richard M. Nixon.

 

Larry Maxam will always be my friend and my hero.

Email James McGillis, BHS Class of '66

For more information posted by friends of Larry Maxam, click on "Comments", below.

By James McGillis at 07:26 PM | Personal Articles | Comments (4) | Link

Winter Camping in the Deserts of Arizona and California - 2009

 

Winter Camping in the Deserts of Arizona and California

On February 9, 2009, I hooked up my rig and pulled to Quartzsite, AZ, where I would spend the night, prior to a midday appointment in Phoenix, Arizona the next day.  Being two thirds of the way to Phoenix from Simi Valley, CA, makes it a good stopping point on Interstate 10.  As always, I stayed at the bucolic, but efficient Holiday Palms RV Park.  With a reservation guaranteed for late arrival, Quartzsite represented my safe harbor for the night.

 

Although economic realities had diminished the snowbird RV-exodus to the Arizona desert this winter, the town was still alive.  Row upon row of large RV’s lay unwanted and unloved at the temporary dealership lots set up for a crowd that never arrived.  If Quartzsite were not on the interstate, it would have rolled up and blown away this winter.  Still, a quiet night’s sleep in the desert is always a good thing and I enjoyed my brief time there.

 

In the morning, I unhooked the utilities from my Pioneer travel trailer, raised the leveling jacks and drove toward Phoenix under a clear desert sky.  The clear, cold air outside was in stark contrast to my experiences the day and evening before.

 

As I left LA, that Monday morning, it was rainy and dark.  Across the LA Basin and until I reached the top of the Banning Pass, it rained.  Then, as if the rain had not yet earned its place in the low desert of California, not a sprinkle fell during my transit to Quartzsite.

 

Once I was in Phoenix, I needed to find my doctor's office in Scottsdale.  With help from my Magellan GPS, I arrived there rested and with time to take a few deep breaths before proceeding.

 

During my tour of the Phoenix freeway system, I noticed large roadside pools of water where I had not seen water before.  At the doctor’s office, water stood in pools throughout the landscaping and along the walkways.  When I commented to the office manager, she indicated that a storm had released drenching rain in Phoenix overnight.  It seems that the storm that I watched disappear in the low desert had rematerialized in Phoenix.

 

Leaving Phoenix on Tuesday afternoon, I traveled northwest on US Highway 93.  Other than one westward jog, where it shares a route with Interstate 40 to Kingman, Arizona, Highway 93 makes a beeline for Las Vegas, NV, 290 miles from Phoenix.  Having departed the Valley of the Sun in the late afternoon, darkness soon overtook me.

 

Although a long transit on a dark, desert highway might otherwise have been a problem, my prior stays at Burro Creek Campground told me that I had nothing to fear.  When I arrived at Burro Creek after dark, it took a while to find the water-fill, but once my fresh water tank was half full; I found a campsite adjacent to Burro Creek, itself.

 

Although the temperature fell towards freezing, I was safe and warm inside.  My coach is equipped with a forced-air, propane heater and a propane refrigerator/freezer to keep my food fresh.  Since I was dry camping, I used battery power for all other services.  With a quiet night outside and the sound of rushing Burro Creek reaching my ears, I experienced an easy transition from wakefulness to sleep.

 

Wednesday morning, I continued northwest on Highway 93.  I intended to take I-40 West and arrive in Needles, CA that afternoon.  Early in my day’s journey, Highway 93 climbed to higher elevations, displaying snowy mountains on either side of the long valley in which the highway lies.

 

Stopping north of Wikieup, AZ, I discovered separate entrances to Windmill Ranch on either side of the highway.  There, framed by the posts and crossbeam of the ranch entrance were mountains, fresh with winter snow.  Since the highway climbs until reaching a summit near Kingman, AZ, I was interested to see if I might climb above the snowline that day.

 

When I stopped for fuel at a travel center on I-40, west of Kingman, snow lay across the ground, although the roadway was dry.  The snowy landscape, juxtaposed with the big rigs entering and leaving the truck stop provided ample contrast for my camera.

 

Leaving the travel center, I descended the long grade towards Kingman.  Along the way, a tour bus zoomed past me at seventy miles per hour.  It was the tour bus for the Harlem Globetrotters, rocketing towards a Las Vegas exhibition match.

 

At Kingman, the two highways diverged, with Highway 93 heading northwest towards Las Vegas.  Interstate 40, which was my route, turned almost due south.  With few roadside attractions on that sixty-five mile strip of arid desert, the trip to Needles became a moving meditation.  Approaching Needles, the interstate turns west and finally north, avoiding mountain ranges and seeking a good river crossing along the way.

 

Near Needles, there are separate bridges across the Colorado River for motor vehicles, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and natural gas transmission pipelines.  A concentration of electrical transmission lines follows this route, as well.  At that crossing, conduits for almost all of our Old Energy and transportation services converge.  The reason for this convergence of services is the topography on either side of the Colorado River. 

 

In 1890, the Santa Fe Railroad built the first bridge across the Colorado River, near Needles.  Since railroad surveyors plan rail lines with minimum elevation changes, the steep and solid riverbanks at Needles helped the railroad reduce both construction and operating costs.  When the railroad bridge was relocated just upstream in 1945, a new Route 66 bridge soon replaced the original railroad bridge.  At that time, the 1916 highway bridge, known as Trails Arch Bridge, was decommissioned for vehicle traffic.  Now used as an oil and gas pipeline bridge, the nearly one hundred year old structure looks like a contemporary industrial icon.  When I-40 replaced Old-66 in the 1960s, a new highway bridge again spanned the river.  Not ironically, the current I-40 bridge occupies the same space that the original railroad bridge did in 1890.

 

Once I arrived in Needles, I proceeded to the Desert View Mobil Station, where I had twice bought tires for my trailer.  That second set of tires coincided with complete replacement of the brakes and active suspension linkages on my coach.  With Desert View’s lifetime warranty, I hoped to get my brakes fixed free.  Not only had one brake stopped operating, loose parts clanged away inside the brake assembly.  When I rolled in, the regular crew was there to greet me.  Before nightfall, they had replaced the faulty brake assembly and diagnosed a separate electrical problem with my trailer brakes.

 

Once the wheels were back on the trailer, I headed west, up the long grade on the California side of the river.  My destination was the Hole in the Wall Campground at the Mojave National Preserve, campsite for my last night before returning to LA.  Since the campground is twenty miles off the interstate, it takes a while to get there.  As twilight turned to darkness, I arrived at the sparsely occupied campground.

 

In the spring and fall, the campground is busy, with many of the thirty-five campsites occupied.  At an elevation of 4400 feet, with remnants of snowfall still occupying shaded areas, it was a cold 34 degrees f. when I arrived.  Unaware of how cold it might be at that elevation, I had thawed a steak earlier that day.  Unwilling to let my steak go uncooked, I bundled up in a heavy jacket, gloves and muffler before I ventured outside to grill the meat.

 

Once I was back inside for the night, I watched a DVD movie, did some writing on my laptop computer, ran the heater and enjoyed the lights.  Around bedtime, I realized that I had drained at least half of the available electrical current from my house batteries.  “Whoops”, I said to myself.  “I hope there is enough life in the batteries to spin the furnace motor when I need it.” 

 

The next morning, it was cold in the coach.  I checked the monitor panel and found the batteries in a critically low state of charge.  I was too cold to go outside and set up my portable Honda generator, which could easily recharge the batteries.  The only other power source was my Nissan Titan truck.  Braving the elements, I sprinted outside and started the engine.  Soon, electricity flowed from the alternator on the truck to the house batteries.  That allowed me to restart the furnace and warm the coach.

 

Well warmed, with a mug of hot coffee in my gloved hands, I then ventured out to set up and start the Honda generator.  After turning off the truck engine, I retreated inside to make breakfast while the generator recharged the batteries.  In less than an hour, the house batteries were full and operating properly.

 

In a flash of late brilliance, I remembered that a quiet night at Burro Creek's 1,960 foot elevation was not like a deep-freeze night at 4400 feet.  This was especially true after running all of my electrically powered services.  Since electrical systems operate less efficiently at low temperatures, it is a lesson I will recall next time I winter camp in the California desert.

 

On Thursday morning, as the Sun began to warm the air, I ventured out to take pictures of canyons, mesas and mountains shrouded in snow.  Snow typically lasts only a few days in this arid land.  This being the third day since the winter storm, it was indeed a treat to photograph a vast, yet intimate bit of desert.  I felt as if I were going back in time, to epochs long forgotten.  There, I viewed a winter scene, much as it looked before ancient climate changes created my spiritual home, the desert.  As always, The Great Reflector stood guard over all.

Returning from my New Earth, I departed the campground, stopping at the RV dump along the way.  When I opened the valve to release the gray water from its holding tank, nothing happened.  After about fifteen seconds, the gray water, warmed by my recent hot shower, released and dumped down the hose.  Next, I opened the black water valve.  It dumped immediately.  Luckily, the previous owner of my coach had installed a heater on the black water pipe.  That heater had been the unseen energy thief, draining my batteries overnight.  That thief was now a godsend.  If that pipe remained frozen, I would face a long drive home with a full holding tank, which meant both a heavy and noxious issue to deal with later.

 

Travel trailer manufacturers design their coaches for spring, summer and fall camping, not for freezing weather, parked far away from a reliable electrical supply.  By stretching my own limits a bit, I realized that winter camping in the desert is gloriously fun, if different from warm weather camping.  Still, the rare opportunity to travel almost 1000 miles and camp in three different desert sub-climates was, for me, yet another trip of a lifetime.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 06:04 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Seeing is Believing - Basic Geometric Shapes Occur in Nature - 2009

 

Seeing is Believing - Basic Geometric Shapes Occur in Nature 

Like the double helix of our DNA, light and new energy arrive on Earth bound together in inscrutable mystery.  In order to solve this mystery, our intuition tells us to review all aspects of light energy.  This morning, we sat on the back lawn, looking closely at a dewdrop shining on a blade of grass.  When we focused through one eye, we saw a microscopic reflection of the Sun.  The chromatic image of the rising Sun reminded us that new energy potentials often appear as anomalies on naturally occurring hyperphysical surfaces.  Allowing the lens of your camera to capture a single a ray of direct sunlight will provide a 2D representation of the Sun's 3D chromosphere.  If our viewing lens induces both chromatic and spherical aberrations, the visual result will be a holographic, or 4D chromatic hypersphere. 

 

Our astigmatic vision derives from corneal or internal lens shape irregularities, or both.  With both eyes open, we can detect seven to nine different points of focus.  To verify our multi-point vision, we entered a dark room, lit by a single LED light.  Closing one eye, and then the other, while focusing on the LED light, we made mental note of focal points available to each eye.  Focusing with both eyes, we could see their combined and overlapping focal points.  Typically, we wear eyeglasses, which negate the described holographic effects.

 

While stopped in traffic one rainy afternoon, we removed our eyeglasses and observed automobile taillights on LA’s 405 Freeway.  Whether for redundancy or style, many autos have twin taillights displayed at each rear corner.  Viewing one pair of lights created for us a stack of lights in a two-three-two array.  Using our uncorrected vision, two lights manifested as a seven-light crystal array.

 

Occasionally, we drive at night without glasses.  Then, the lane-marking reflectors look as if sliced by a meat slicer, with each slice loosely stacked upon another.  At their apparent full height, each reflector looks like a lighted pylon.  As we approach, each reflector retracts down to its expected terrestrial size.  While night driving on a road with well-maintained reflectors, it appears that we are steering between a pair of 3D reflector-fences.

 

This afternoon, we shed our eyeglasses, sat on our yoga mat and faced a mirror.  Taking our own advice, we offered love and appreciation to All that Is.  As if performing a prayer, we closed our fingertips before us, then raised them overhead.  A window was to our back, its half-closed shutters allowing light in from outside.  We gazed into the mirror image of our self, the shutters and the window.  Light, reflected through the half-closed shutters, came to us masked into horizontal strips.  As we starred at the light pouring around our upraised extremities, we perceived it as a display of diffuse, triangular lights.  Their effect was reminiscent of the taillight arrays previously described.

 

As our eyesight translated the image, a three dimensional moiré effect appeared where the horizontal shutters and our angled limbs crossed paths.  By moving our fingertips up or down, we could merge or separate these stacked dimensions of light.  Part of our 4D light-array existed here and part of it penetrated the veils of illusion, extending into another dimension.  Lewis Carol’s “Through the Looking Glass” and our own theory of energy bridges came to mind.  In the spirit of Thoreau’s Other, the image existed somewhere between here and there.

 

Much like the All Seeing Eye on the reverse side of the dollar bill, our "pyramidal limbs" had intersected the Akashic plane.  Between the slats, we could see an energetic aura emanating from the top of our head.  Although our physical hair is mid-length, our aura-hair more than filled the gaps between the slats, creating a glowing array of amorphous light.  In our mind's eye, we saw how the All Seeing Eye bridges universal energy, in what Albert Einstein called negatively curved space.

 

In her classic book, “Kundalini and The Chakras”, author Genevieve Lewis Paulson relates a similar phenomenon, known as Kundalini energy release.  To quote, she says, “the red-orange Kundalini energy rises up through the body and out the crown chakra.  It mixes above the head with divine energy (radiant white or silver) and the mixture showers over the body in a luminous glow or silver sheen.”  The glow of new energy emanating from the top of our head contained shades of gray, green and silver.

 

To access new energy, we sit with eyes closed, facing the morning Sun.  By moving our face like a satellite dish, we can tune our reception of the Sun’s energy.  For a time, we allow the Sun’s energy to penetrate our closed eyelids.  If we limit our heliotherapy sessions to less than three minutes, we avoid the risk of sunburn. 

 

As we gaze through closed eyes, we can see new energy patterns form and evolve on the inside of our eyelids.  After a minute or two, we slowly open our eyes, allowing in more of the Sun’s energy.  As we thin the veil that is our eyelids, we allow in higher levels of vibrational energy. 

 

Please remember that the Sun has powerful effects.  Therefore, we do not recommend looking at the Sun with eyelids open.  Most adherents to sun gazing look directly at the Sun only near sundown, when the atmosphere filters ultraviolet light. 

 

On Earth, the Sun is our most important Source of new energy.  Since the Sun and we are elements of All that Is, we share divine consciousness.  As Earth’s provider of light and life, the Sun is a good place to look for indicators of new energy.

 

Each time that we commune with Nature, we connect with divine energy.  On the New Earth, divine energy flows simultaneously in all directions.  Through conscious invitation, Source is always with us.  Using Thoreau’s concept of self and Other, our connectedness and our consciousness merge.  As we tune ourselves to universal consciousness, we create an ongoing exchange of love.  When we share our Love with All that Is, we experience our divine presence.  With that as our point of attraction, our long-held beliefs in shortage, fear and danger slip away. 

  

A fascinating aspect of new energy is that each of us experiences it in different ways.  Even for a single individual, new energy will manifest differently on different occasions.  If we rehash our old-energy story and beliefs, we lose access to new energy.  If we enter a state of belief or allowing, new energy becomes available to us.  Although we can prove none of this, our intuition and experience provide sufficient reason to believe.

 

As children, we pray to God for signs of recognition or favor, but rarely do those requests manifest.  Even now, miracles are rare.  Personal alchemy and sacred geometry combine to support and describe that which we see as miraculous.  To learn more, you may refer to the Hart Sacred Geometry Oracle Deck website.

 

The deck has pictorial and written descriptions of the Platonic Solids, which are the among the basic shapes of nature and sacred geometry. Included are sacred geometric shapes in nature as diverse as a double helix of human DNA and a nautilus shell.  Each card offers an energy bridge to higher consciousness.  Through these cards, we can connect to Nature and therefore the universe.  By allowing two-dimensional picture cards to represent a universe that supports multiple dimensions, we diminish our collective amnesia about the human tragedy associated with the fall of Atlantis. 

 

Whether through sacred geometry or our alchemical experiments, we thin our veils of perception.  Using backward beam tracing of light and water interactions, we shall visit our cometary Rosetta Stone, from which we will learn how to translate new energy.  Personal alchemical experimentation with light and water will lead each of us to the discovery of our own passion.  Once we know our passion, we free ourselves to manifest our most cherished dreams.

 

Shortage mentality and “market pricing” characterize old-energy.  Unless shared freely with All that Is, new energy has no inherent value.  It cannot be sequestered, stored, rationed or sold.  However, if we neglect our personal connection with Source, our disconnection acts to filter out any and all new energy potentials.  In short, we pinch off our ability to experience the presence of new energy.  As with this article, when anyone feels like they have broken through the 3D veil, it behooves us to share such information with All that Is.

 

All indicators tell us that universal consciousness is possible.  If such a concept is not impossible, by definition it then is possible.  Once, we viewed dolphins leaping across pools of new energy along the coast, near Malibu, California.  Another day we observed the crystalline rainbow energy of light reflected in a drop of water.  Each day, if we choose, new energy manifests as love within us.  That love is for our self, the Other and to All that Is.

 

Credits: Sacred Geometry images are from the Sacred Geometry Oracle Deck, by artist Francene Hart.  Celestial Images are from the Astronomy Picture of The Day website.  All other photographs are by the author. 

 

This is Part 4 of the Theory of Everything. Return to Part 1 or Part 3 of this four-part story.

 

In Love, light and Life.

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 07:13 PM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link

In Nature, Our Dreams Become Reality - 2009

 

In Nature, Our Dreams Become Reality

 

In our dreams, whether sleeping or awake, we churn our past lives and visualize our future, including the myriad outcomes available to us.  Each night, we travel beyond, confront our demons or take actions in pursuit of our desires.  As a service to All that Is, our dreams become training classes for non-physical beings who will soon come to Earth for the first time.  As our dream-bridges connect us to new energy, we envision ourselves living a beautiful life on a New Earth. 

 

Recently, these words came to us: “You are God also.  Love yourself.  Offer your love to All that Is.  You are of the God you seek, so rejoice in your knowing.”  On Earth, few humans recognize their own divinity.  Most would say that, “God is up in heaven, looking down”, “God is dead”, or “God is everywhere”, meaning everywhere but inside our souls. 

 

If indeed, God is love, would God withhold love from All that Is?  If God is love, and we are God too, then we are love.  As more humans come to see God in their souls, love abounds. 

 

Ironically, many humans scorn the potential for love to overcome hate and fear.  Employing shortage theory, they see love as a rare commodity, with not enough to go around.  After all, when did each of us last feel loved?  Many cannot remember such a time and therefore cannot allow that we are the embodiment of love.  During the late twentieth century, irony, skepticism and cynicism ruled both popular culture and rational discourse.  With those days behind us, we can unashamedly offer our love to both ourselves and to All that Is.

 

Gnost, or “knowing” derives from Source and expresses itself in the metaphysical plane that we call intuition.  As our lifetimes pass, we remember more of who we are and why we came to Earth.  We recognize patterns that played out in other dimensions, in what some call “past lives”.  Since the time is always Now, we recognize that past lives are the alternate outcomes of our dreams, residing in other dimensions. 

 

In his writings, Henry David Thoreau created the “Other”, a term that he used to identify a physical or imagined companion.  Was Thoreau’s Other his brother, and thus external to him, or was the Other a forgotten part of Thoreau, himself?  By sharing our self with the Other, we merge divinities, here on Earth and across the universe.  When love is our dominant emotion, our relationship with self and the Other experiences a rapid evolution.  Our love for the Other may evolve to a love for All that Is. 

 

We Now remember when we first met beautiful woman, external to our self.  Our first meeting transpired in Ancient Egypt.  In previous clairvoyant episodes, we had stood alone atop the Great Pyramid at Giza.  Now, our mind’s eye sees us standing at that place with the Other, our arms linked from behind.

 

The top of the Great Pyramid is where the Eye of Horus bridges energy from Earth to the universe and back again.  If you look at the reverse side of a U.S. dollar bill, you will see a crudely realistic view of Horus's left eye, staring back at you.  On the dollar, we see the Free Mason version, known as the All Seeing Eye looking at us through a cosmic hole in the paper bill. 

 

Two-dimensional printing cannot convey how the Eye connects earthly energy to All that Is.  In our dreams or via clairvoyance, we who stand atop The Great Pyramid connect to the universe through the Eye of Horus.  In so doing, we are blessed with universal consciousness. 

 

Remembering more clues about our self and the Other, the historical characters, Antony and Cleopatra came to mind.  Had we once intertwined energies with that storied couple?  Although Antony and Cleopatra lived in the First Century BCE, some of The Masters’ ethereal energy then still prevailed across the land.  As the world’s first “power couple”, Antony and Cleopatra played out their human lives as lovers, warriors and sovereigns over both Rome and Egypt. 

 

As our consciousness drifted further back into the time of Ancient Egypt, we felt a familiar connection to Osiris and Isis.  Osiris walked the Earth as a man-god.  Isis was an archetype woman-goddess.  According to legend, supported by carvings found on temple walls, Isis and Osiris held coequal status as deities, manifested here on Earth.  Their gift to humanity was co-creation of “husband and wife”.  Devoted to themselves, each Other and to All that Is, they showed humans how to connect with their own divinity. 

 

In their time, the Ancient Egyptians loved and worshiped Isis and Osiris as Masters of advanced consciousness.  As former Atlanteans, the couple knew not to struggle for power.  Rather than holding power over their subjects, they taught by example, expressing universal love from their hearts.  The populous recognized that their sovereigns’ wisdom was divinely inspired.  Isis and Osiris discovered that by blending their energies, they could co-create states of consciousness transcending that which either of them experienced separately.

 

Our birth erased memories of who we are, giving us the illusion that our human minds began as clean slates.  During life on Earth, we receive reminders about the Nature of love.  Our hearts ache with a desire to share our love.  Those who learn to love themselves and to offer love outwardly will find love reflected back to them.  Those who eschew self-love will not find love with the Other, nor will they feel the reflected love of All that Is. 

 

During our spiritual quest, our life path takes many twists and turns.  As if living in a labyrinth, we see a discernible path, but destinations seem dreamlike or obscured.  Since many believe that “the unknown” is synonymous with fear and terror, it remains for the lovers among us to create love for others, both to observe and feel.  As our consciousness rises, through love we experience and share the best that life has to offer. 

 

In a recent Esther Hicks’ Abraham CD, they tell a story about a woman who lived an unpleasant and unfulfilled life.  After many years, she reconnected with her emotions, transcended her negative mindset and discovered what Abraham calls her “vibrational escrow”.  Like a treasure hidden in an ancient pyramid, she found the better feelings that she had long ago set aside.  “I’m in.  I got in”, she cheered.  We too are Now “in” on the manifestation of all that we wish for in this life.

 

Belief is the flip-side of disbelief.  If you find yourself in a state of belief, take note of any trends that you may encounter.  As new thoughts arise on any given subject, we use our intuition to project ourselves into our potential futures.  If we believe that we are uniquely gifted, our intuitional gifts shall grow. 

 

Only ignorance of our spiritual nature prevents us from accessing our gifts.  As Thoreau told us, in Nature, that which we seek waits just outside our door.  One need not enter a trance to access higher consciousness.  All that we need do is be in Nature, asking our questions with an air of hopeful expectation.  Then, as our minds become still, our destiny shall find us. 

 

Credits: Sacred Geometry images are from the Sacred Geometry Oracle Deck, by artist Francene Hart.  Celestial Images are from the Astronomy Picture of The Day website.  All other photographs are by the author. 

 

This is Part 3 of the Theory of Everything. Return to Part 2 or go forward to Part 4 of this four-part story.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 12:17 PM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link