A good bloggy friend of mine, Shelly at This Eclectic Life, has come up with another of her cool ideas. It’s called “My Neck of the Woods” and she got onto the idea to write about cool places to visit in our own areas, that maybe people who visit might miss. I think some of it for her was to help dispel the kind of generalities that we have about places we travel. I’m looking forward to her posts on her area of Texas, because I have a friend, B., who is moving back there in a year or so, and now I have this Redheaded Bloggy friend I want to visit there someday, and the only damn thing I know about Texas is the Alamo!

Now, I’m not sure what kind of misconceptions about the High Desert of Southern California I might be able to dispel, and honestly, why would I want to?  If  thoughts of the California and Nevada deserts turn you toward stuff like Area 51, UFO’s and Nuclear Test Sites, sacred native people’s sites, ghost towns and haunted hiways I might be actually confirming your prejudice!  But really, don’t we witchy folk just love that kinda thing?  I don’t know about you, but when I travel I’m not just about hitting the tourist spots.  I mean, some of those are fine, especially if their art museums, historical places where I can tune in to the energies of the ancestors or visit with somelingering spirits, orreally good palces to chow, of course!  But what I really enjoy is finding the magickal spots.  Little known temples, places where ley lines converge, hot springs and other natural and magickal manifestations.

So if you happen to be traveling out this witch way, and are in the mood for something quirky and fun, or something ancient and artistic, or something thought-provoking and spiritual, I just might be able to point you in the right direction.

The Integratron

The Integratron is the creation of George Van Tassel, and is based on the design of Moses’ Tabernacle, the writings of Nikola Tesla and telepathic directions from extraterrestrials. This one-of-a-kind building is a 38-foot high, 55-foot diameter, non-metallic structure originally designed by Van Tassel as a rejuvenation and time machine. Today, it is the only all-wood, acoustically perfect sound chamber in the U.S.

Kinda trippy lookin’, huh? This place is amazing and interesting and historical, too. There’s some great articles at the site all about George Van Tassel, the creator of the integratron and how it came to be, articles on how after he retired from a long career as an aeronautics engineer for Lockeed he moved his family to 4 acres at Giant Rock, near Landers, California. Giant Rock is a 7-story high, freestanding boulder formerly sacred to the Native Americans who lived in the area. It was here that he received, from a spaceship full of aliens visiting from the planet Venus, the instructions and plans to build the Integratron, which was to be, in Georges own words, “a machine, a high-voltage electrostatic generator that would supply a broad range of frequencies to recharge the cell structure.”

Van Tassel referenced the Biefield-Brown Effect, the works of scientists George Lakhovsky, George Crile and the works of Nikola Tesla in relation to his work at the Integratron, and you can read all about the sience here if you like, (that Tessla was somethin’ else- wasn’t he? Pretty amazing stuff!), and about sacred geometry here, (the likes of which the pyramids and many holy buildings and tabernacles were designed with, not to mention Phi aka: the golden mean) but what I really want to tell you about is the experience of the place, and the two sisters who run it now.

We go out there at least a few times a year, for the sound baths and occasionally for special events. We went out a couple years ago for their “Unplugged Goddesses” event, which was a weekend of awesome women camping and meditating and doing some energy work together. We went with a group of several friends, the GirlyBoi’s mom and my daughter went, too. Some of us slept in the Dome, while others camped in tents or under the stars. A sound bath before bed the first night and another the next day; a trip to play along the ley lines at Giant Rock.  We did some past life work and storytelling, and had a video meditation of a sand mandalla that began with molecular images of a single grain of sand and then moved through the entire mandalla.  It was projected onto the side of the dome late at night.  So incredible and magickal and gorgeous! The entire event was so excellent!

If you are ever out here in the High Desert of Southern California you will love this place!  Even if you’re not here when there is a special event scheduled, the Integratron is available by appointment almost all the time year round.  You can book nearly any number of people, even book the whole place for gatherings, or you can just call for a sound bath and swing on by.   Have you ever heard a crystal singing bowl? Of course you have!  Duh!  This is my magickal blog. You know they are all pitched differently, but every one I’ve ever heard seems to sort of resonate in your body and mind and sounds at once sweetly melodic and somewhat haunting. They make the kind of sounds that seem to grab at your heart strings and fill you up.

 If you love the sound and vibration of one singing bowl… just imagine 9! The Sound Bath is the Integratron’s signature experience. It’s simply amazing.

The Sound Bath is a 30-minute sonic healing session that you can experience while resting comfortably in the Integratron’s highly resonant, multi-wave sound chamber. We play 9 quartz crystal singing bowls live, each one keyed to the energy centers or chakras of the body, where sound is nutrition for the nervous system. Imagine lying on comfy mats in the center of this relaxing and resonant high-energy field, while having your body bathed in exquisite sound for 30 minutes. The results are waves of peace, heightened awareness, and relaxation of the mind and body.

After being greeted by the sisters, Nan and Jo and enjoying a little visit that includes a bit of Integratron backstory in the charming courtyard, we head to the dome. Nan and Jo are  amazing, bright, magickal women who are so warm and friendly and always happy to chat and encourage visitors too look around.

The first thing you notice when you enter the dome is the beautiful wood interior, and the pegs upon which copper wires are strung that radiate outward from the central post. It looks like a big round harp.  If you can see your circle or coven doing ritual in here, just wait til you get upstairs!  The entire Dome is constructed of wood; there’s not a nail in the place. It’s so warm and welcoming. There are couches and chairs for lounging, a small library and scads of reference materials and articles on George and Tessla and Giant Rock. After wandering the downstairs a bit we head upstairs to the sound chamber of the dome.

Upstairs Jo will tell you about the special acoustics of the dome, and we always have to take a moment to enjoy the “whisper chamber” effect. Seriously; no matter how often we go, we’re like kids playing with a new toy; we can’t get enough of it. Have you ever been in a whisper chamber? It’s such a trip. I can’t say I understand how it works, but who cares?? Haha. If I stand on one side of the dome between the vaults and you stand across from me and I whisper… you will hear it as if I were right next to you. Somehow the sound travels along those arches or something.  And Oh my Goddess.  Just sit in the center and feel the energy as you Om or do a Ma or other chant. Your own voice resonates inside of you straight up your spine and comes out of you as if it’s amplified by a micraphone!  When you sit or stand over the core, you can feel the energy generated by the multiple crossing ley lines and especially the unique experience of a verticle ley line.  Seriously!  it shoots straight up!  It’s incredible!

Nan and Jo also have an assortment of percussion instruments available.  The drum jams in that Dome are intense!  Hehe.  I digress.  Back to the sound bath.

The mats and pillows are all arranged for you, whether you’re doing a private or group Sound Bath. We always stop at the small, multi-cultural altar and pay our respects to the local spirits before we have our meditation. We leave an offering and we like to look at the offerings others have left. Photos, saint cards, crystals and stones, tiny pyramids and sobriety coins, among other personal mementos.

Let me tell you that in all my travels (astral or otherwise… Hahaha!), I have never experienced anything like it. The sound of those 9 crystal bowls gets right into your body as well as your mind. It completely fills you up! You can feel the energies move between the chakras… the sound seems often to shift from one ear to the other and then blend and meet in a sort of vibration in your mind… you feel blockages in your body open, the sensation of a cooling breeze in the high heat of summer, warmth in your toes during winter… I almost can’t even describe it. It’s been described as:

“Kindergarten naptime of the Third Kind.”

Which is somehow apt; I mean, do you remember those kindergarden naps?! Haha! They were so great. So refreshing and revitalizing. After a lil nap I could get up and play in the sandbox all day! So, if you’re ever out here in my sandbox, go check out the Integratron! You’ll love it!

*For more history on George, Giant Rock and the Integratron check out labrynthina.

What kind of magickal places can be found in your neck of the woods?  Remember:

Ol’ Auntie wants to know!!

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