presents
presents
By Virato
|
Why are People Being Mysteriously
"There is a speeding up, time seems to move faster here...and I can feel it." "I don't know why I'm here." "I felt magically or mystically drawn to this area." These are some comments people in a 50 mile radius of Asheville, North Carolina can be heard making. It happened to me the first time I drove here from Philadelphia. Heading southwest on Interstate 40, I "felt it" about 20 miles northeast of Asheville, as I approached Black Mountain, and I felt it again around Waynesville, and Magee Valley, about 40 miles to the southwest...it's a feeling of lightness and love that seems to permeate the physical body. Mystics say these are the vortex entrance portals...some say it is the cradle high valley between the mountain ridges...still others speak of extraterrestrials, and a heritage to Atlantis, to have landed here after their demise...stories abound. |
| On
the East and West, the area is embraced by two loving arms of the Appalachian range--The Blue Ridge Mountains and The
Great Smoky Mountains. The mountains are considered to the oldest range on the
planet, and thought to once be as high as the Himalayas.
In fact, Mt. Mitchell, outside of Asheville-rising to over 6,684 ft, is the highest elevation east of the Rocky Mountains. |
|
People who have spent time in the Rockies, the Himalayas, and other mountain ranges have said that although those other mountains are indeed majestic, they did not get "the nurturing feeling" they do from this area. There is something quite powerful, mysterious and wonderful happening in this area...and it's happening fast! CBS News, Eye On America did a feature on the area, calling us "America's New Age Mecca." Like most TV programs, it covered more of the tinsel, but the program did reach over 43 million people. Rolling Stone Magazine did a piece on Asheville in 2000, the New York Times did a feature on Asheville on September 8, 2002, and US TODAY did a 2 page feature in October 2003. The noted channel Kwan Yin also talks about Asheville. People from other so-called new age places like Sedona, Arizona; Santa Cruz, CA and Marin county, CA; Boulder, CO; Maui, HI; Seattle, WA, Ashland, OR, as well as many from Florida, and from all over the country, are flocking to the mountains of Asheville. Really flocking… In fact, since I've moved here, I would say that about half of the people I meet have been here less than a year, with many arriving a few weeks or days ago. In fact, it's the thing most everyone around here has in common. For those who saw the science-fiction classic, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, you know what I am talking about. People indeed are being "drawn" here. How I Got Here Starting with myself, a few years ago if you had said that I would be living in North Carolina, I would have said you were nuts! Me, a Brooklyn-born-boy in the bible-belt, no way! That was in October 1994. What transpired from then is indeed part of the mysterious and magical dance taking place in this....America's most powerful vortex, and the doorway to another dimension of Universal existence. |
|
In a one week period, I received over 20 pieces of correspondence
from North Carolina. I think only one piece was from Asheville itself. After calling all
of the people and companies, I was stunned to learn that they were all from
the Asheville area. Every last one of those pieces of correspondence. This was way beyond
coincidence. I shared this with a number of people in our Philadelphia office. I even had
a mystical experience with a magical fellow I met in Philadelphia only a week before I was
to leave that city. He was from Magee Valley, near Asheville! Like wanderers to a Promised Land, spiritually-minded people are being drawn inexplicably to the breeze- swept city of Asheville. For many, it invokes a sense of coming home. |
|
To Be… The North Carolina state motto is Esse Quam Videre, which means "To Be, Rather Than To Seem." It is as if whatever muse visited the early legislators who adopted that motto foresaw the region as a setting for the unfolding of a new paradigm of personal and cultural transformation. In the western portion of the state, where the French Broad River bends and winds through the startling beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains is Asheville, population 65,000 (185,000 within a 40 mile radius), rapidly emerging as one of the world's most dynamic focal points for the individuals and organizations coalescing into a new society with love, advanced consciousness, healing abilities, and creativity. The city's motto of course is "Altitude Affects Attitude." |
|
"If you feel impulsed to visit or move to Asheville, helping to build a strong Community of Light of the next Millennium, you will be welcomed with open and loving arms." |
People who arrive here, who are also involved in matters of spirit and consciousness, are quickly and pleasantly disabused of obsolete notions regarding the political and religious climate of the south, or at least this part of the south. To be sure, the large fundamentalist Christian organizations in the region do not lack influence or membership, but neither is there the tension or enmity that so often occurs in areas where change and transformation are in full and rapid growth... |
|
When
CBS News blazoned the words "New Age Religion Comes To Bible Belt" a few
years ago, conscious and new thought spiritual people across America took note of
Asheville, North Carolina. There's plenty here to attract aware folk... The temperate climate (society and geology), and the peaceful strength of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains have to some extent permeated the consciousness of both native and immigrant alike, rendering the place, as well as the culture, fertile ground for transformation. And, underlying the potent spirituality exuded by the place itself is a power that seems to reach far beyond these ancient mountains to draw kindred souls home. There is rarely anyone, even peripherally involved in New Age consciousness here, who does not have a story of remarkable synchronicities culminating in a move to Asheville. Few seem to have "moved" here, so much as they have "ended up," here as a result of serendipity, fluke or coincidence. And with few exceptions, they are people whose lives are at an apogee of creative and spiritual flux. They seem to arrive at a time when their spiritual energy is high and their creative juices are flowing. Perhaps that at least partly explains why in the last few years there has been a phenomenally prolific and largely successful surge of spiritual and creative endeavor, not excluding New Frontier Magazine's move to the area. I met an attractive woman at a Unity Sunday service, an active participant in the new community who moved here a few years ago. She, like many others I have chatted with over the past four years gave a story: "Everywhere I looked, I saw something about Asheville. Word on the 'metaphysical street' hinted that Asheville was fast becoming the new spiritual Mecca," she shared. Living in Sedona, Arizona at the time, she read an article in
Arizona's major new age paper by the noted psychic and author, Page Bryant discussing the Blue
Ridge Mountains of Asheville. Soon after reading the article by Bryant, she attended a
conference in Colorado where prophecy futurist
Gordon-Michael Scallion
related
an experience of flying over Asheville and seeing its future as one of the pivotal 'Cities
of Light' for the new Millennium. Page Bryant Moves to Area Since moving to Waynesville, NC, not far from Asheville, Page Bryant (who left Sedona to come here) has written the definitive metaphysical book about the area, The Spiritual Reawakening Of The Great Smoky Mountains. According to Bryant, there are many vortices (bioelectric energy points) spread across the planet. |
| These vortices could be compared to acupuncture points on the human body. They are junctions of crossings of ley lines, or meridians, that cover the earth's surface. Some of these vortices are dormant, much the same as dry river beds, while some are awake or awakening. There are twenty-four active vortices between Black Mountain and Waynesville, and many more power spots. This is one of the most concentrated number of vortices and power points anywhere in this country...over 24 major ones! A vortex has a very high level of energy projecting in a relative small area, whereas a power spot has a larger area with lower energy. Mt. Pisgah is the major power spot of the area, where the Watcher, or Guardian Angel of this entire area resides. Clingman's Dome on the other hand in nearby Tennessee is a vortex with very powerful electromagnetic energy. | The
most concentrated
number
|
"Underlying
the potent spirituality exuded by the place itself is a power Native Americana The summit of Looking Glass Rock is composed of pure quartz crystal, and has long been held sacred by the native Cherokee Nation. In fact, the town of Cherokee, which is also the largest Native American reservation in the East, is just outside Asheville. Unfortunately, most of the Cherokee culture has been usurped by Pizza Huts, Burger Kings, Saturday night Bingo, and now America's Big time gambling casino Harrah's. However, herbal medicine, the oral tradition of storytelling, ceremonial dancing, sweat lodges as well as shamanic practices also permeate this wondrous area. The Cherokee have said that one cannot have a true sense of self without simultaneously having a true sense of place. Other Native Americans have discovered the sacredness of the area. Joseph Rael, also known as Beautiful Painted Arrow, has selected a "sounding cave" near Linville Gorge as one of several sacred sites in the world. He makes pilgrimages here every year, and brings others with him to experience the healing force of the site. Add to the native Americans the pagan culture, which also permeates greater Asheville. You can hardly go into any shop and not see a drum for sale, or hear of a drumming circle nearby. I have also heard that their are many witch covens, with thousands of witches here, right amongst a Baptist churches located just about every half mile or so. Pure magic!. Science or Mystery? Some have said that because this area's mountains are filled with quartz (several trillion tons of it!), a piezoelectric effect is acting as a psychic magnet drawing people. Others say the land is divinely blessed and that the Atlanteans once lived here, after fleeing their dying continent. The native Americans of course see this land as sacred. What is true is that people are coming. |
There is rarely anyone involved in mysticism who does not have a story of remarkable synchronicities culminating in a move to Asheville |
If personal and social transformation is about anything, it's about rising above appearances and assimilating the truth of one's own being, as well as that of the intricate web of consciousness that exists among individual place and culture. Around 400 BC, Hippocrates was practicing a kind of "relocation therapy," treating both mental and physical afflictions by prescribing a change of natural environment. |
|
The modern science of biometeorology has so thoroughly confirmed and expanded
upon what the ancient Greek doctor knew (as well as shamanic and natural healers
throughout history) that the profound connections between place and consciousness are no
longer seriously questioned. Not always on deeply subtle levels, what is essential about a place will become essential in the individual and collective psyches of the people who inhabit it. The land, climate and topography will find expression in the hearts and minds of the people who come to resonate with it, and it will attract such people to itself. Who's Here? So what has this area attracted? Newcomers are thrilled with the smorgasbord of events and places to choose from. While many restaurants in the Asheville area offer a vegetarian choice, new agers will find themselves attracted to a few special places such as Cafe Terra in Asheville's largest natural foods store, Earth Fare, with nearly 20,000 square feet of food for a conscious consumer. Recently another large natural foods supermarket, Green Life Grocer also opened downtown. Rumors around town say that Whole Foods, the largest healthy food supermarket chain in America is planning a move to Asheville. For a pleasant veggie lunch, there's Rosetta's on
Lexington Avenue, and Melanie's Juice Bar on Broadway are delightful. New Age music legend, Steven Halpern
conducted an event
here in 1997, then bought a resort in nearby Magee Valley, where he frequently travels.
At
Laughing
Seed Café on Wall St., you can also enjoy their own homebrew beer. You might me also
meet actress
Andie
MacDowell, who makes Asheville her home, or me, Virato, and
my wife Dhiraja when
we are not conducting consciousness expanding events in such cool
Into TM? No problem, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, bought the entire Princess Hotel in town! ...and 8,000 acres nearby! There are also countless other meditation places, and a dozen or so yoga centers.
Back to Eating… Bravo, an Osho sannyasin who is also a trained Viennese Master chef, offers a regional vegan catering service called The Organic Gourmet. And for the best salsa I have ever tasted, see Hector of Salsa's near Pack Square. The owner says that the place is a spiritual place. He says he eats a certain kind of mushroom atop one of the mountains and goes into a spiritual, creative state in which he makes his sauces, recipes and food combinations. Be sure and tell him "the swami" sent you. There are several food cooperatives in the area, the
two in Asheville are French Broad Food Cooperative
and Haywood Road
Market in West Asheville. West Asheville has become the defacto
New Age Shopping? Sure, why not? Looking for things new age from books to incense and environmentally appropriate gifts? Then you'll surely want to visit Silver Armadillo (right near Earth Fare, also loaded with goodies for the conscious shopper); A Far Away Place has a special energy (with a large photo of Sai Baba on the wall), and there's Mystic Journey, and Cosmic Connections bookshop, also downtown, and Crystal Visions in Naples, (about 20 minutes from downtown Asheville), also offers a potpourri of lectures. Also check out Light Works on Sweeten Creek Rd. Enviro Depot, Earth Guild, Karma-Sonics Music. Lexington Avenue and Biltmore Avenue have also become the streets for the young at heart with shops to please any card-carrying "new ager." At night, if you aren't at a metaphysical or spiritual gathering, Bean Street's coffeehouse; Asheville Pizza Co. & Brewery Melllow Mushroom and Barley's offer socializing and entertainment, and, at the rate this area is attracting new age folk, you can expect many more places to open soon. For the Haight-Asbury crowd, Lexington Avenue offers Instant Karma, Octopus Garden, Vincent's Ear (definitely NOT new age), and the Mystic Coffee house. There's often a whiff of interesting "herb" smoldering on this street. For Trance Dancers...look up what used to be Tribes downtown Recently West Asheville has seen the
addition of a food cooperative and other shops catering to an aware shopper. New Age Consciousness It's impossible in this small space to list all the holistic, metaphysical and spiritual organizations that are in the Asheville area. There are hundreds of meditations, UFO, paranormal and other groups that seem to meet daily. One worthy of special mention is the Unity Center, about 12 miles from downtown Asheville, in Fletcher. Chad O'Shea, the minister, is a mix between a Southern Baptist preacher and George Carlin. In fact, this center has become the area's meeting place every Sunday, with over 500 attending services there each week. |
| A visiting representative from Unity headquarters in Lee's Summit, Missouri described it as being "like a seven-foot Japanese man; it shouldn't be, but there it is." His reaction of delightful surprise at the size, energy and vitality not only of the Unity Center, but of the whole flourishing New Age movement in the Asheville, area was fairly typical. there's now another Unity group that meets at Earth Fare each Sunday morning, and another one on Shelburne Rd. | "Living in
Asheville has proven to be an enriching, healing and life-enhancing experience for thousands who
have been called |
Then there's Jubilee; The Church of Religious Science; The Light Center (housed in a geodesic dome located right on a vortex in nearby Black Mountain); the Center For Creative Living; Center For World Servers; and The Nepal Institute; Samasati Center, are some other open-minded, spiritual places. The famed herbal extract and
tincture company, Gaia Herbs,
Inc. has chosen to move from American Miso There are a number of dome structures going up all over the Asheville area, which seems to be in keeping with Gordon-Michael Scallion's (Earth Changes Report) predictions of the area. He foresaw many such domes housing healing centers, and saw people from all over the world would come here to be healed or to heal. The domes are starting. There's even a certified monolithic dome home manufacturer nearby in Concord, NC. Not yet in a dome, the Grove Street Healing Arts Center; Moving Forward Alternative Health; The North Carolina School of Natural Healing; the Society of World Healers, Energy Medicine Clinic; The Source For Healing; The Lighten Up! Yoga Center, The Center for Effective Living and Biltmore Yoga Center are only a few of the many other healing centers in the area. In nearby Black Mountain has a number of spiritually oriented holistic places, such as the vegetarian Green Life Café and Spirals. From Black mountain to Waynesville, holistic health places seem to be opening daily! There are hundreds of individual practitioners offering just about every possible healing modality, from massage to psychotherapy, acupressure to Zen. Asheville's The AHA Directory includes nearly 600 listings of them. One particularly interesting place is A Cup of Tea located in West Asheville. The climate of this area has long made it a place people come for healing. The town of Hot Springs, just minutes from Asheville, is fed directly from the earth's center with healing volcanic hot waters. Dr. Paul Fleischer, a transpersonal psychologist, came to this area from San Francisco. He and his wife were drawn to Asheville because of its reputation as being “the San Francisco of the South,” and because of the aura of the mountains. “We wanted to live in a place that has great natural beauty and a strong progressive community; Asheville was at the top of the list!” Asheville even boasts a holistic Drug Rehab organization, Oasis Mountain Wellness Center. Natural Living If you are into getting back to basics, there's the Mountain Barter Partners Network; Transformative Adventure Vacations; Nepal Institute, Earth Green Medicine Lodge; Southern Dharma Retreat; World's Edge Springs; The Organic Gourmet; Glade Mountain Retreat ; the Lake View Lodge in Lake Fontana (which offers yoga and meditations), and the Dillsboro Inn. All have a spiritual metaphysical atmosphere and essence. However, just five minutes outside of Asheville, in any direction, will place you in the loving embrace of nature on some mountaintop. Many new age seekers have moved into log cabins with no telephone, television or other connection to the grid. There are still some Cherokee who live on the land in tents, urts, lean-tos, and yes, even teepees. The rainbow nation is also deeply entrenched in these mountains,
or finding a crash pad downtown. Some, like Burton Smith, a former Krishna devotee, who
spent a winter in his teepee at Gypsy's End, a former witch hang-out in nearby
Weaverville. Many, many dormant gurus live in mountain cabins, some as small as a single
room, and some quite luxurious. They are beginning to come to town of late… The Media & Networking As for the media, not only has New Frontier Magazine relocated to the area, but there's also Spirit In The Smokies; New Life Journal, Asheville Magazine, Unity News, Asheville Holistic Alternatives , and Asheville Global Report, and a poorly written Asheville Disclaimer. There are several local new age publishers. Ironwood Productions, an award-winning film and video company and a few other film companies have nested in Asheville as well. A year after I arrived on "mountain time," I hosted New Frontier On The Air, a new age talk radio program on WSKY, the city's CBS affiliate, and got rave reviews until the owners decided to sell to some conservative fundamentalists; however, I've come back and now have a new age radio show on Clear Channel Broadcasting's 880 AM The Revolution called VIRATO LIVE! There is now an Asheville Chat Room. There's even a Chamber of Consciousness in town, right along side the Chamber of Commerce (a number of whose members are also into new age thinking), and an Asheville Conscious Business Association where hundreds attend the 3rd Monday of the month for networking. Space & Beyond… For the space and metaphysical folk, CSETI, The Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence; the Human Dimensions Institute; The Star Foundation; the Council of the Empyreum; and Dr. Colette M. Dowell, leading international researcher on Crop Circles, have relocated to this area. Colette Dowell, author of Circular Times has been seen on Fox's Sightings, Encounters, NBC's The Other Side and other national TV programs. In addition to here Crop Circle work, Dr. Dowell also claims to be an alien abductee, and MRI scans have shown an implant in the center of her brain. Most others are quite quiet about their UFO and "other dimensional" work in this area as well. Nearby Brown Mountain has been internationally examined for its "Brown Mountain Lights." Mysterious balls of lights that seem to come of the ground and move around. These have also been documented on shows such as Sightings. So, What Is Happening? What is afoot here extends far beyond what has been termed by the more traditional local media as "a subculture of consciousness." Where business and political leaders of an Appalachian mountain town are being offered--and availing themselves of--such things as meditation classes, Sufi-based conflict mediation, or group consciousness training via therapeutic drumming circles, things have progressed beyond the transitory self-interests of a subculture, into the community at large, and that is the bright glint of a shifting paradigm. Evolution isn't always gradual and steady. It's sometimes a sequence of relatively sudden mutations alternating with protracted periods of adaptation. Those mutations almost invariably occur in hospitable environments, in places where successful adaptation is most likely. This holds in biology as well as in social structures and matters of individual and collective consciousness. That which is approaching its time of mutation, or transformation if you prefer, will be attracted to a place conducive to that process. Asheville is such a place, a spiritually potent context in which many are making the transformation from what seems to be to what is: Esse Quam Videre. Living in Asheville has proven to be an enriching, healing and life-enhancing experience for thousands who have been called to this area. You are invited to listen with your heart and soul. |
This is a living article and may change from time to time as
the
area grows, changes, transforms.
If you feel your business or information should be included contact us.
Keep checking it for updates….
Comment on this story: Letter To The Editor Forums
Find
out how you can obtain a FREE banner
in Asheville Magazine, and to become a part of this story!
If you find any of the links not working
here, or
new places opened or old ones closed
send us
e-mail and
let us know.
Magazine | About | Calendar | Directory | Forums | News | Asheville/Yahoo Site
© 2003, 2004, 2005 New Frontier Magazine. All rights reserved.
New age musicians that have relocated to these mountains include Steven
Halpern, 
places as Moscow and St. Petersburg,
Russia, the 
purchased property in Asheville
and Andie MacDowell can often be seen
shopping at Earth Fare, a 24,000 sq. ft. natural foods
supermarket and restaurant
new age section of the city. One favorite place is the 
up in Massachusetts to nearby Brevard, NC, Red Moon Herbals
is in nearby Black Mountain, and many Wiccan folk have their own cottage
industry herb businesses. This is ideal plush country for growing all
sorts of herbs.
Company has been near here for 24
years (now a part of 
company,
Morganic Herbals, in West Asheville.