Southwestern College
Southwestern College (Santa Fe) Faculty and Students Visit Sacred Mountains in Colorado
WAHATOYA: The Spanish Peaks of Southern Colorado
For about five years, the Spanish Peaks (or traditionally Wahatoya, which is a native word meaning the breasts of mother earth) have been yelling at me. This happens
every time I drive by on I-25 headed toward Denver. It sounds something like,
“Hey. You. Pay attention.” So I usually stop beside the highway, pull out a ceremonial Pipe, and smoke it for them. This seems to quiet them down, and I then proceed on my journey.
This past weekend, as we traveled toward Boulder for a conference, Frank and I both noticed a lot of energy coming from Wahatoya. We couldn’t actually see the mountains very well (they are typically somewhat shrouded by fog or clouds whenever I drive by).
Nonetheless, these two mountains, which have been landmarks for travelers for thousands of years, were demanding our attention, but we chose to ignore them, since we were on a time schedule. We were soon bogged down in a traffic jam 10 miles long near Colorado Springs, which delayed us 3 hours. I don’t necessarily blame Wahatoya for the traffic jam which caused us to miss some meetings,
but something was definitely up. That night, in a Boulder hotel, I dreamed of a snow covered mountain, rounded at the top, with a huge wedge-like protusion down the side. In the dream, I tried to fly around the mountain to get a better look. At that point, I awoke, and thought, “I have no idea what mountain that is, but it sure has a strange shape”.
The next day I had time to hike up to Blue Lake , a high mountain lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness not far from Boulder. The mountain above Blue Lake is called Paiute Peak. I thought perhaps Paiute Peak was the mountain in my dream, although it wasn’t rounded at the top, nor did it exhibit any wedge-like protusion.
It was, however, gorgeous, so I did a Pipe ceremony there and felt very connected
to both the lake and mountain. Standing at the edge of Blue Lake at 11,500 feet,
well above timberline, and feeling a bit high from altitude and tobacco smoke, I concluded that this mountain was the mountain in the dream.
Later that night, Frank (who is very intuitive) said he was sure I was wrong. His feeling was that we should actually travel around Wahatoya on our way back to Santa Fe so we could get a good look at the two mountains and compare them to the dream mountain. So we turned off I-25 at Walsenberg and found ourselves staring into the huge almost pyramid-like West Spanish Peak , which sure enough had a rounded top and a wedge-like protusion down the west side. Frank found a dirt road which took us to a high pass looking straight into the south side of West Spanish Peak. We hiked out to a viewpoint and smoked a Pipe for Wahatoya.
The Spanish Peaks are in the Isabel National Forest and are protected as a Wilderness area known for its unique geological features, including tremendous
dikes of lava which create walls of rock a hundred feet high and up to ¼ mile long. Locals report many sightings of UFO’s here. Frank and I didn’t see any UFO’s, but we definitely experienced unusually powerful energy. We promised Wahatoya that we would be back soon.
Carol Parker Ph.D.
Director, Transformational Eco Psychology program
Southwestern College
July 31, 2012
About the Moderator
Jim Nolan was the President of Southwestern College from 2006 - 2018. He holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, and has a private practice in Santa Fe. He went to graduate school in Irish and English literature, too, and reads a lot of books, takes a lot of photos and plays guitar. Sort of. His best friend of all times, a Wire Haired Fox Terrier named Barney, recently passed into non-physical. Barney was a true guru. Jim is the opposite of a guru, whatever that is called. He doesn't know anything, and he knows that. It seems to work out...
