Serpent Mound, Ohio: More Than We Bargained For

Peebles, OH

August 15, 2011

11:26 a.m.

Serpent Mound, Ohio:  More Than We Bargained For

“What is Truth?” said jesting Pilate, and would not wait 

for an answer.                        --Sir Francis Bacon

Getting to Serpent Mound, Ohio, had some tension wrapped around it because Viveka and I were having our perennial standoff.  It goes like this: I keep wanting to pack up and move on and get on down the road, and she likes to arrive somewhere and start spreading out her art supplies, creating art, meeting and talking to people (at length) and taking stills and shooting footage for the documentary we are making about this adventure.  As a result of her leisurely style, my intention to arrive at Serpent Mound in the afternoon of the full moon, August 13 was frustrated, and we arrived well after 8:00 p.m.  We missed the sunset and the moon had not yet risen so I felt a bit angry and shut down, as though I had missed out -- and it was all her fault! (ha ha)  However, if I have learned anything on this trip it is that Divine Order is always operating.  We are always exactly at the right place and in the right time.  So what was really going on was that I clearly needed to examine some parts of my shadow. . . for I had given them the power to rob me of my tranquility. 

The gates to the complex, which are closed at dusk, were poised to shut.  As we drove into the parking lot there was a man standing by his car.  Viveka noticed that he had a leather medicine pouch around his neck.  

"There's our guy," she said.  She was right, it was as though he had been sent from central casting to be waiting for us.  His name was Chuck, and he had the assignment to close the gates that evening.  He had a scruffy white beard covering a face deeply lined with character and experience -- with Cherokee heritage, it turned out.  Chuck is a healer from Colorado, who is spending a lot of time at the mound this summer.  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_Mound)   

"We're so glad you're here!”  we admitted, relieved.  “We came a long way to get here on the full moon."  When we explained that we have been "Walking America" since last March with this place as a key destination, Chuck was impressed in his low-key way.  Clearly he was there for the full moon as well.  

About that time we began to be aware of lightening and thunder with rain threatening.  "You don't want to be here in a lightening storm," Chuck assured us.    The place has a lot of anomalies, and one is that lightening is attracted here.  Another one is that compasses are off about 8 degrees.  He showed us around the mound briefly, which is a quarter of a mile long in the shape of a snake with spiral tail and open mouth about to devour a mysterious oval object, which could represent an egg, or the sun -- nobody knows.  Oddly, there was a snakeskin in the coil of the Serpent's tail.  Chuck thought it might have been placed there by human hands, for there was another one in the "heart" area of the effigy.  Another mystery.  Chuck wanted to know if we were interested in “spirits.”  I didn’t know how to answer, for I am interested in “Spirit,” but am not particularly interested in “ghosts,” if that is what he meant.

We knew we would come back the next day to learn more, so all we needed was a bit of orientation.  He also told us about a gathering in a home in the hills nearby.  Still feeling the residue of my anger over being "late," I was "tired" and didn't feel like a party, but Viveka went and it turned out to be a local group featuring a fiddler, percussion, and didgeridoo that meets every Saturday night for home grown music and a potluck.  She fit right in, and was able to make them all laugh with some of her stories.  "You're welcome back anytime," they told her when the party was over.

Meanwhile, back at the RV, after a meal of buttered sweet corn I had a distinctly strange experience which I cannot explain.  As I was lying down to sleep I felt my "astral" body float upward about 6 inches and re-orient about 20 degrees clockwise.  This happened twice before I fell asleep, and I have never felt anything like this in my life.  I hope someday to learn what that was all about!  (On reflection, it does occur to me that the earth's axis is tilted about 23 degrees . . .)

The following morning we met a man named Bob Wallace in a convenience store where we had stopped to get ice.  I asked him about the Mound and he said his family had owned the property where it was found.  In fact, his grandfather had been born on it!  That led to a longer conversation about other Native American sites, and his experiences growing up in the area, and combing the land for artifacts.  Unlike many other locals, he had a keen interest in the site and other Native American archeological locations in Ohio and the greater Mississippi valley.  All the time I was talking to him he kept looking around a bit furtively and speaking somewhat “confidentially” as though he might be overheard, or discovered talking too much.  It was a bit strange, but later I discovered he was a mortician, and a guy who knew a lot about ghosts and spirits!  He was on his way to prepare the body of a friend for burial.  A man who had been the venerable historian of the area.  On the following day I saw a very long funeral procession involving a couple hundred cars -- a lot for this sparsely populated rural area -- and wondered if it might be in honor of that man.”  

He told us we should meet a man named Tom Johnson who, it turned out, was a world class paleontologist with a simple hole in the wall "rock shop" by the side of the road.  After a few minutes in conversation I asked Tom, “What is your passion? I often ask this question to deepen a conversation, for I don’t always have a lot of time to speak with people as we pass through.  I explain to them that I would really like to know what THEY would be willing to walk across the country for -- if they believed it would make a difference in a big or even a small way.   His answer took a few minutes to develop, but is one of the most powerful ones I have heard: “With patience and persistence,” he began, “and taking Free Will into account, I want to pass forward and make understandable -- especially to young people -- the science of the Universe.”  He seemed grateful for my asking, and happy that I had helped him to articulate it.

Clearly, Tom is a teacher, and all kinds of people "magically" find their way to him -- like us.  The day before some Native Americans had made a film about him.  A short time ago he appeared on Ancient Aliens TV program.  His exhibits have appeared in the Smithsonian.  (See:  http://www.aradias-garden.com/house-of-phacops.html ) It was from him that we learned about the crop circles that had appeared in the field near the Mound several years ago.  He gave me a colored picture of the crop circle which was oriented in such a way that its key feature pointed directly to the head of the Serpent.  The same crop circle appeared the following year in the same field, only this time as the reverse or negative of the design.  Tom had actually walked in it just after it was formed.  These were made in a field of soybeans, but he said he had walked in crop circles in corn fields and had felt such heat that the kernels in the ears had swelled as though about to pop.  

I spent some time in the field, trying to trace the design I could see from the photo, which appeared to be more in the shape of an oval than a circle.  Tom had told me that the crop circles are likely to appear in fields where there is water underneath.  According to him, the water definitely has something to do with the energy responsible for the the formation of the designs. 

This morning we got up before sunrise.  Viv spent a very early hour in the crop circle field across from where we were parked, and a bit later we walked up to the Mound one last time to watch the sun rise.  Viv found a beautiful snakeskin left in the road on her way up, which she will incorporate into her art somehow.

I am fascinated with the crop circle phenomenon and look forward to doing more research on the latest insights into the interpretations of what they might mean. . .  

*   *   *

With this Serpent Mound adventure we officially end the third of four legs of our journey as planned and on schedule.  Now we have an hiatus for a fortnight to go to our property in KY and celebrate Viv's birthday on August 19.  Some family will join us, and a few others we have met along the way.  In addition, one of the original Sole 2 Soul planning group, Sandi Thompson is flying in from Mexico to complete the last leg with us.  

Viveka's husband Richard, who has been holding down the fort at our family cabin at Cliff View Resort near Natural Bridge, Kentucky, told me in the very beginning, "Doris, if you get this far, I will walk the rest of the way to Washington D.C. with you!"  Clearly, he didn’t expect we would make it to Kentucky!  It remains to be seen if he will remember -- and honor -- his word.