I’ve heard about UFOs, vortexes, and enjoyable family vacations. None are things I’ve experienced personally. But I live in hope. I booked a trip to Sedona because I was getting sick of our fibrillating Manhattan lives, each of us living separately, disconnected, and I thought we needed a little peace, togetherness, and beauty. My frustrated tears came from wanting to please everyone and pleasing no one. But maybe there was another reason. There were memories here. Did I want to explain that to my family? Not now. Maybe some other time. We were here for family fun, damn it. But I was also here to meet Esther Sternberg, a neuroimmunologist who worked for many years at the National Institutes of Health and is now at the University of Arizona’s Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, founded by Andrew Weil. She’s the author of Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being and has studied healing destinations to find what draws people to them. Sedona, AZ, is one of these spots. In a quest to experience these healing places together, our plan is to climb to the peak of one of Sedona’s famed “healing vortexes.” These piles of striated limestone and sandstone are where the “spiraling spiritual energy,” as the brochure puts it, “interacts with a person’s inner self to facilitate prayer, meditation, and healing.” I have no idea what that means, but I’m the queen of low expectations, so basically if sitting on a pretty hill helps me forgo a few hours of Xanax, I’m in. MORE: 5 Elements Of A Healing Home We decide to go up to the Boynton Canyon Vortex, allegedly one of the most powerful electromagnetic fields. While we walk, Sternberg tells me her own story. In 1997, her mother was dying, and Sternberg was having a crisis at work and experiencing terrible pain in her joints. Trained as a rheumatologist, she knew it was the beginning of inflammatory arthritis and assumed she would be living with it for life. She happened to be working on a book at the time, and some friends invited her to use their cottage on the beautiful island of Crete to write. She went to this tiny bougainvillea-covered cottage by the sea, and it was as if she’d walked into a movie. Every day an elderly neighbor with prostate cancer would bring her an orange as he walked up a steep hill to the local chapel to pray The church sat on the ruins of a temple to Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. Each morning Sternberg would swim in the Mediterranean and then walk up the hill to sit outside the chapel, where she would watch the birds, listen to the wind, and smell the burning candles. As the summer went by, the “chronic” pain in her joints began to subside. She still has flare-ups, but nothing like the pain that got her to Crete. And this wasn’t a woo-woo miracle, Sternberg concluded. She wanted to know the science behind what happened to her. Sternberg has visited the world’s famed healing spaces. And there are, she insists, two key universal qualities that all these destinations share. While I think I would achieve nirvana if I visited my beloved Edith Wharton’s home in Lenox, MA, that is not the kind of destination Sternberg is talking about. One universal: beautiful views. Not just because we can agree they’re pretty but because brain researchers have discovered that a spot, called the parahippocampal cortex, responds specifically to sweeping vistas. This area of the brain is rich in opioid receptors, which are connected to the parts where we experience pleasure. UCLA’s Irving Biederman, one of the scientists who discovered the function of this specific brain region, theorizes that we all like to look at a beautiful view because, as Sternberg puts it, “we’re giving ourselves a shot of endorphins.” And Sternberg says that study after study reveals a profound connection between pleasurable views, stress reduction, and strengthening the immune system. “So when you’re not feeling well, search for sights that please you,” she says. It’s also critical that a healing destination be spiritual, says Sternberg: “There are a million ways to define what’s spiritual, but they must have both awe and peace.” So, for example, if you go into Westminster Cathedral, you feel its greatness; at the same time, its beauty “releases endorphins, which make you feel calm and peaceful,” says Sternberg. She’s heard the stories about the vortexes having a special electromagnetic force that creates a healing energy but doubts that’s why transformations happen there. “Yet I do understand why the Sedona vortexes are considered healing—they have this sense of awe, the peace, and the beauty,” she explains. We reach a small outcrop right near the top of one of the formations. It is a cloudless day, and the breeze brings the distinct fragrance of gnarled juniper trees. “Do you smell that?” Sternberg says. “The dry earth, the juniper. . . that brings me back.” It just made me want a gin and tonic, but Sternberg grew up near a mountainous area of Canada. “Healing places often bring back sharp memories of childhood,” says the scientist. She inhales deeply and looks far away. Watching her, I feel I’ve stumbled onto something private and look away. We begin our descent and pause on a plateau to admire the cairns. These tiny piles of rocks are created by people when they pass by, a man-made mini model of the enormous red formations surrounding us. Esther and I each make a pile. “Making them is a ritual, a form of prayer even if you’re not a praying person,” she says. “We make them to pay respect to nature, just as a prayer is a form of respect to God.” I’m not a praying girl, no sir. But I want to make that cairn. I wanted to say thank you—to whomever or whatever. And what I don’t tell Esther or my husband or my children is that I want to give thanks to my mother. MORE: 50 Healthiest Eco-Spas In America She was a doctor. When I was 12, the same age my kids are now, my mother took me on this mammoth cross-country trip to America’s national parks, just the two of us in the cherry red Buick we called the Pimpmobile. This was 13,000 miles and her entire summer. Did I appreciate it? Not at all. All I did was lie in the backseat, reading, while occasionally she would get fed up and scream, “For God’s sake, Judith, look at the scenery!” My entire memory of the Grand Canyon is feeding the squirrels. But I remember my mother. She died 3 years ago. She wanted me to look at the scenery. Now I do. Later that day I return to our hotel, where my family has not left the room. “We’re going on a walk tomorrow,” I announce. “The electronics are not walking with us.” Stricken looks, groans all around. “Look,” I say, “if I tell you this walk is no big deal, it is no big deal.” Let me just say this: Without electronics, we made it up the “mountain.” John and Gus stopped halfway and sat on a log, gulping water. But they were content, glad to be together, glad to be outdoors. Henry and I continued up the hill; Henry, complaining sarcastically: “Oooh, Mom, look over there, a rock. And hey! Over there—another rock!” We got to the 360-degree view at the top, and my motormouth son shut up. We sat in silence for 15 minutes—probably a record for him. Finally he whispered, “OK, Mom, I will admit this is impressive. Well played.” It was then I mentioned the cross-country trip with my mother I’d made at his age. I didn’t elaborate. Like Henry, I’m not much for sentiment. “Do you think Grandma would have liked it here?” he asked me. “I think she is here,” I replied. MORE: How To Heal…Even While Holding Vigil For Your Sick Baby
