Real de Catorce
The Mountains of Mexico

“Once we left the Highway Signs and Black Top roads and shifted onto the 400-year-old hand-laid street everything changed. It was like we went through a time machine.  The road climbed 10,000 feet over 30 miles. I wondered how many men it took to build this road, must have been thousands. How many lost their lives while they building along the mountain cliffs? All to create the magical town of REAL DE COTORCE.”

An extraordinary time in John’s life. 2002 to 2004 when the business of his architectural designs was melting down. It opened up a universe of possibilities! He began weighing out the importance of life. Whether to proceed and pursue the success that he had been experiencing being published in Architectural Digest and other national magazines. Even on the cover of Country Living Magazine. His architectural business was based on intuition and a sense of vision that he was often told must’ve come from a previous life. It was based on Old World architecture. Even though he had never been to Europe at that time, he was designing and developing a residential architecture that was simply inspiring on the history and geography of European living. His success threatened many of the local architects who were driven by their own lack of vision to bring him down. He was faced with lawsuits and overwhelming challenges coming from that side of human nature. Realizing that it was not worth fighting such demons he began looking for an alternative way of living. He took a trip out to California to visit Linda‘s uncle in Calabasas California. He revisited the hitchhiking trips that he had done there 30 years before. All the while he had been meditating and practicing meditation while he was traveling. While out there he received a phone call from a filmmaker friend who was doing a scouting trip in Real de Catorce Mexico and was invited to join him during that scouting. Gratefully accepted and flew from San Diego to Durango Mexico.

They met there at the airport. Rented a car and drove up into the mountains 10,000 feet to Real de Catorce. This turned out to be one of the most inspiring and motivating trips and adventures of John’s life. Within a few days of their arrival, they commissioned a Mexican Indian to take them into the desert in the lower flatlands and to scout out peyote. The trip from the mountain top down into the desert was so frightening that John literally feared for his life and hung onto the lever of the door ready to jump out on the Mountain side of the road because he believed the car would eventually fall off the side of its thousand-foot cliff. Upon their arrival at the desert in Mexico, they were led to these special places where they picked peyote. Even among rattlesnakes. While John was reaching down to pick a peyote button the Mexican Indian grabbed his arm as he slowly focused he saw the diamondback wrapped around the Peyote button. Mexican Indian left them early in the morning in the
hot sun with one tree to find refuge in the shade. They rolled out their blankets set up their totems ate the peyote and fell into sleep. When John woke he began wandering through the desert. He was encountered by spirits That challenged his intentions. At one point John was looking for some totem he could take with him to prove that he was a spiritual person. To prove that he had these experiences that gave him wisdom. To prove something that would make him feel like he had reached a goal that was important to the meaning of life. In a moment there was a whirlwind literally spinning around him.

The face of the spirit stared him straight in the eye and said – STOP SCANNING!

That was a huge awakening for John he realized that in all his spiritual endeavors throughout life – he had had many. Having been an elder in a Presbyterian church, having been baptized three times – once in the Pacific Ocean with three halos around a full moon… all these different events that made him feel like he was something that was special all of a sudden dissolved into an instant moment where the spirit said STOP SCANNING!

It was over. After eight hours or more going through the peyote experience the Mexican Indian came back in his Toyota 4 x 4

They quietly rolled up all their blankets tucked away their totems and quietly piled into the vehicle and proceeded to go back up to the 10,000-foot refuge. As they climbed the same Incredibly Dangerous Rd., John with his legs hanging over the tailgate of the vehicle looked out and down the thousand-foot cliff and had absolutely no fear at all. Having been transformed! He had no fear of life ending – no fear of death – he didn’t even think about that. What he thought about was a pebble hitting water and seeing ripples
coming from it and spreading out over the distance of the water and realizing that every ripple was like a generation – and that everything that he had in him, all his DNA that was in him from all his traveling was a part of his children now.

Anything that it happened to him after they were born was no longer a part of their DNA. But anything that he had done – anything that he had experienced before they were born was in their DNA. And so it was with all the generations before them and for him.

Everything. John realized at the time that his grandparents and great grandparents his great-great-grandparents were ripples in the water of time. And that each ripple had the DNA memory of what the generations had experienced. This was life-changing for John! He came up out of that – he had an amazing beautiful meal in a wonderful restaurant that reminded him so much of Europe and he slowly faded back into the normal consciousness of humanity. The next week that went by was filled with revelations and thoughts that were life-changing.