A few years ago, I went to India to visit the mystic, Sai Baba. I had not particularly intended to go, but my native American elder, Mary Thunder, received a vision of him, and asked if I wanted to join her to go see him. I said yes, I'll go. I was ready for a break from Asheville, my new home of two years. Nothing has been the same since.

Asheville, North Carolina has received a lot of press in the past decade. A CBS Eye On America special put us on the map, as did a special piece in the NY Times Travel section. This place is teeming with holistic, or alternative healers, in a density population greater than anywhere in America. Many, such as myself, have gone through the ropes in formal training and are credentialed professionals, not simply the "woo-woo" types typical of Sedona (not to  say we don't have our share of all types). But what is uncanny about so many--hundreds--of these practitioners of the healing arts, is that most of us had some kind of spiritual experience that led us here. Story after story tells of how each person was guided. I, myself, had awakened one morning four years ago, after praying for guidance in finding my "new home," and had heard the words "Asheville."

"Asheville?" I queried aloud to the voice in the room. I sat up in bed. "Asheville," I heard audibly, for the second time in a row. And I packed my bags and left Houston within one month. I'd never even seen this city in the mountains of western North Carolina.

Going to India with Thunder was, I truly think, a visit to Heaven. Sai Baba permeated our beings with his Godliness. My first few weeks after returning home, I was lost; I couldn't seem to grasp how to integrate my other-worldly experience there, with facing daily tasks back in Asheville. Reentry into my everyday world was difficult. In those first days back, while my body was still in the time frame of India, I would sit by a window in the Blue Ridge Dining Room and watch the sun rise.

Slowly, it started with a pink dawn that first lit Mount Pisgah, then all the other mountains to the west, and finally …gradually, it spread its warmth and light over the forests and buildings in the valley below.

I would watch, and ponder global things, wondering how to bring heaven to earth. As the light crept slowing across the sleeping city, I would recognize that God had somehow led me to this new place, and that there must be some reason why I was here, and not back in Heaven. I wondered about my purpose in Asheville, and, thinking of all the others who, like myself, had been led here over the past few years, I wondered, also, what Asheville's purpose might be.

The dreams I'd first had when coming here were looking very difficult to fulfill. I had been doubting my strength and my ability to contribute the way I had first imagined. Many spoke of how hard life could be here. "Why?!" I asked the dawning day.

As the days passed, I noticed that I was seeing Asheville differently. It seemed somehow as if the veils between the dimensions were thinner, and more clarity seemed to be available. I sat early one morning--with my laptop planted on a table above the city--and asked Spirit to explain what was going on. These are the words that came, although I've added impressions that have been added since…

The jump in consciousness, long scheduled for the end of this millennium, is actually at hand. We are privileged, not only to be present for this event, not only to be involved in the evolution of this jump, but we in the Asheville area are privy to an even more unique experience. We stand at a pivotal point in time and space where our choices make the difference on a global level in how easily this leap in consciousness can be made.

We--now in the mountains of Western North Carolina and those who will be joining us--have a job at hand. We have been gathered here for a purpose.

How many people have come here because "they were guided," with no logical means of support and no known friends? It is too many to even list. Is Spirit gathering us here together? Many of us know this to be true, in the depths of our hearts, and others are beginning to resonate with the love energy. This truth seems to sparkle our very souls. Somehow, we are awakening to the very purpose of our lives.

From different spiritual traditions and beliefs, but with a common intent of peace on earth, we have come together. Loosely connected by our overlapping, almost-identical visions for a new world, we have come here to create a healing community. We have come here to host and heal the many who also recognize this area to be one of transformation and transition.

Somehow, we all seem to know that these mountains will spawn the kinds of communities of which we have all dreamed. Held sacred by the keepers of this land for many centuries, it is holy land. It is land where the native grandfathers hear the prayers, and where Jesus leads some of his most impassioned followers, and others see their Divinity.

These mountains are the antennae of the world, never buried over all of the eons of time. They are the place where the gates will begin to open to our new, higher frequency, evolved consciousness. We will begin to speak and think, to act and to create, in much more effective ways. We will live in harmony, for taking responsibility for ourselves means we are at peace with other's choices as well as our own. We will know in our hearts that when we look, we can see that things come out for everyone's greatest good.

From here, the jump is made. Like entering the wormhole on Star Trek, we move through time and space in our minds. Our bodies remain essentially the same, but suddenly we see life in a different way. We create all that is with our loving visualizations. There are solutions to life on the planet that are harmonious to all. Free energy changes the whole structure of economics, and life returns to simplicity. Like the days before the changes in Atlantis, we know an existence that is in balance.

Everyone has a role in this transformation. But in particular, in this area, as in other sacred places around the globe, we see a stunning array of highly skilled practitioners--therapists, spiritual leaders, educators, healers, and others who view life in a holistic manner.

Why Are We All Here?

Certainly not to glut the market and put each other out of business, which is what it may seem like at times when we fall back into the fear of old patterns of thinking. Who are we here for, and what are these mysterious roles for which Spirit has brought us?

Perhaps it is to start putting into practice that next level of consciousness. Perhaps it is to create that loosely connected community--a community bound by purpose rather than economics. Perhaps we are here specifically to discover why we were all brought here, and how we can fulfill that purpose.

What is your role? What is your purpose? What is your piece of the puzzle? Each individual carries his own seeds of magnificence. How is your special ability--your innate knowing, your unique expression--a part of what is unfolding in these mountains?

How much of your time is spent with those pastimes and people you love? How much of your energy goes into fulfilling the seeds in your heart? If Asheville were to become a new Shangri-La--a place of transformation high in the mountains--then how would you fit into that community? … or prepare your Self and your environment for the people who are coming to partake? … or express your radiance? How would you interact and combine with the radiance of others? Where are you in the rainbow?

...And The Angels Came

There is a big flurry these days of Angel activity in the area. Angel visions and sightings, angel stores, angel workshops, newspaper and magazine articles, etc.. Many have seen angel forms in the clouds. The veil is thinner, thinner than it has ever been before. You can almost see through it, like seeing the trees through the mist on the parkway, or the rivers emerging from the fog in the valley at sunrise. The mist clears through our own movement into living in a loving way that opens the gates.

We start feeling the angels around us, and they lovingly share their other-vibrational energies with us. We get used to these energies, and learn to duplicate them. As we think of the miracles and love that we experience with our connection to our angels and to those loved ones around us, we quickly step through the gateway into perceiving life this way as a habit. After all, it is only our perceptions that create us to be grounded as we are in the third dimension. As we shift into a higher view, so we step into that greater panorama as the reality of our lives.

And so, the gates in these mountains are starting to open. We have come here for this event. We are the ones who open the gates. Our own energy is how we open them. There are no special prayers or ceremonies that open these gates; they are opened by a frequency of love. The more time we spend in loving, the more this vibration will spread, and it will open a connection, like the opening in the clouds, through to a world that we create from our gratitude, our sharing, our courage, and our love. We become like a vortex, a spiraling dance, drawing all of the others behind us forward into the next level. We are in the process of doing this now. It is at hand.

Carolyn M. Ball, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist in private practice, who uses  psychology, intuition and spiritual principles in her work. She is the author of Claiming Your Self-Esteem and Blessings in Disguise.

Comment on this story: Letter To The Editor  Forums