The Sacred Pentagram of Sedona by Nicholas R. Mann

The ancient Yavapai legend of the beginning of human time sees the People emerging from the lower world by climbing stalks of corn growing up through the waters of the Great Flood.

So all the people go up on the corn. They go around, go around... and where the ears of the corn come out, between there, they sleep. After some time, the water goes down. The girl has a dove with her and she sends that dove out. The dove comes back with a little weed. So the water has gone. There, at Sedona, is a high place. It is the highest place all around. And when the water went down, the log hit that high place. It stopped right there, and the girl came out from the log. That girl was called Kamalpukwia. She was First Woman, and we come from her. She came out at Sedona, and that's where all Indians come from.

Adapted from
The Yavapai of Fort McDowell,
edited by Sigrid Khera

The Sedona area, location of February's Sacred Geometry Conference, is in itself a giant temple, laid out in the proportions of Sacred Geometry. Sedona's vortex portals and interdimensional spaces are evident in the landscape itself, and also are referred to in Native traditions of the emergence of Humankind.

The mathematical location and shape of interdimensional and vortex portals in this region are as meticulous as though, like the Great Pyramid, the whole thing had been planned by human agency. In effect, a much greater-than-human agency is responsible for the miracle that is Sedona.

Before we talk in more detail of the Sedona area and its sacred proportions, we need to first understand some of the basic shapes and ratios that govern them.

The Golden Section and the Pentagram

Perhaps the most dynamic vortex for the creation of life on Earth appears in the ratio known as the Golden Section (also "Golden Mean" or phi). The Golden Section appears naturally in many ways. A repeated manifestation is in five-fold geometric forms like the pentacle or Pentagram — the five-pointed star.

The property of the Pentagram is that its lines bisect each other according to the ratios of the Golden Section. In other words, the relationship of AB to BC and of BC to AC is phi. And all other internal divisions of this figure produce the same proportional relationship.

The ideal human proportions lie in the ratio defined by the Golden Section, those ratios occurring, for example, between the arm, the hand, and the digits of the fingers. Phi also appears when the human body is placed within a Pentagram: The head and limbs reach out to the points, and the sexual organs lie in the center.

According to tradition, "Man is the measure of all things." But humanity takes its place within a vast and beautiful Creation. So perhaps it would be more accurate to say, "Phi is the measure of all things — including Man."

And wherever the Golden Section, the Pentagram, or repetitions of the number five are found in the pattern of the natural world, conditions are most beneficial to health, beauty, and creation. This is the ratio that governs the emergent, dynamic vortex of biological life.

Vortex Effects

There are two basic kinds of motion within a vortex: centripetal, and centrifugal.

A centripetal vortex — that is, the inward-spinning vortex that Nature seems to prefer over centrifugal ones — achieves maximum momentum and energy at the center (or, more precisely, the edge of center). As a centripetal vortex approaches the center, the maximum amount of energy becomes theoretically infinite (not taking into account energy loss through friction, sound, waste heat, etc.).

Any forest is a prodigious example of the power of the energy vortex in motion. The vortex of energy that manifests in a forest increases the forest's biomass to the order of hundreds of tons every day — silently, effectively, for the benefit of all life.

The Alchemical Pentagram

The use of the number five in the Pentagram, or Pentagon, is historically reflected in magic, alchemy, architecture, and landscape temples like Sedona. It has been used throughout history in order to imbue physical form with sacred energy.

Pierre Charles l'Enfant, architect of the United States Capitol building in Washington, DC, used the Pentagram to express the bursting new ideals of the young American republic.

The ancient Greeks and the Renaissance artists used it to express the ideal forms of the temple and the human body.

Geomancers look for its five-fold resonance in star patterns and in the natural and artificial landscape.

The Sedona Pentagram

The diagram at right shows a Pentagram emerging from out of the natural features of the Sedona landscape.

The points of the Pentagram lie on (1) Courthouse Rock, (2) Cathedral Rock, (3) the two small hills in the Airport Mesa known as the Airport Vortex, (4) one of the buttes in the prominent row behind Camel Head at the foot of Mund's Mountain, and (5) the summit of Lee Mountain.

The center of the Pentagram falls on the spire known as the Madonna Rock, beside the Twin Buttes (see title illustration of this article). Bell Rock, the Airport Mesa, several peaks of the Seven Warriors, the line of buttes behind Camel Head, and several peaks of Mund's Mountain lie on the circumference of the circle formed by the Pentagram.

Other prominent features in the area lie on lines defined by the arms of the Pentagram or by additional lines drawn through the center point to the five points of the star.

We can assume, through its ability to integrate so finely with the predominant features of the area, that the Pentagram figure in Sedona embodies a kind of intentional order. The statistical probability is very low that such a Pentagram, correlating to the placement of equivalent natural features, could have occurred by chance.

The Emergence of the People

The Yavapai emergence legend envisions the People climbing up from the underworld on cornstalks. It also describes the spiral around the stem of the plant, where the cob grows. This legend thus reflects the energy of the vortex of life, each successive generation emerging out of the other in the unfolding and infinite power of Creation.

If the Madonna Rock and the Twin Buttes, located on the sexual organs in the figure in the Pentagram, are seen as figures from the emergence legend of the Yavapai — Kamalpukwia First Woman, with her daughter and her grandson — then their entrance into this world from the previous one is through the center of a vortex governed by phi. The Postdiluvian world of the Yavapai and Apache emerges from the center of the Pentagram, symbol of human life and regeneration.

Natural Temples and Spiritual Practice

The Pentagram and the formula revealed within it constitute an emergent proportion rather than a fixed numerical term. The formula yields a progression that is continuously evolving. Yet the outer manifestation is in a constant proportion to the inner pattern, as Nature continually reproduces herself from out of the original form.

Through attunement and spiritual practice at the sites in the landscape where this power is apparent, it is possible, for the well-being of all life, for us to manifest and increase the available energy.

Nicholas R. Mann was born in Sussex, England, and received his BA with Honors in ancient history and social anthropology at London University.

He is an artist and a prolific author of books on earth mysteries, Sacred Geometry, and the Celtic tradition.

His book Druid Magic: The Practice of Celtic Wisdom, co-written with Maya Sutton, PhD, has been described by the British Druid Order as "the single best work on the practice of modern Druidry in existence today." Nicholas also wrote Reclaiming the Gods, The Isle of Avalon, and, due out in 2004, Energy Secrets of Glastonbury Tor.

While living for thirteen years in the American Southwest, Nicholas wrote Sedona: Sacred Earth, and The Sacred Geometry of Washington, D.C., which is due to appear in 2004 along with an updated version of the Sedona book.

Today, Nicholas lives in his native Glastonbury and works at the Chalice Well. His email address is DruidWays@UKOnline.co.uk.