A Meditation Journey to Sedona

In the spring of 2005, while working at an IT company in Korea, I sprained my ankle during a business trip to Indonesia, the region I was responsible for at the time. There is a saying that an ankle injury often symbolizes stepping onto a new path in life—a moment of redirection and profound change. At the time, I assumed the injury was simply the result of neglecting my health, so I began looking for a place near my office where I could exercise and recover.

By chance, there was a yoga and meditation center directly across from my office. That is where I encountered meditation for the very first time.

As I continued practicing, meditation became increasingly captivating. With deeper stillness came vivid inner experiences—unexpected images and messages that unfolded like scenes from a film. One image, in particular, stayed with me. I saw myself standing on a vast brown rock, teaching qigong and meditation to foreigners. Small trees dotted the rock, and the landscape reminded me of Mount Kilimanjaro, a mountain I had seen on the National Geographic Channel.

Africa? Teaching qigong to foreigners? The image felt strange and symbolic, so I shared it with my meditation friends. One of them pulled out a calendar and showed me a photograph of a sweeping expanse of red-brown rocks. “Have you ever seen a place like this?” she asked. The image was identical to what I had seen in meditation.

She laughed and said, “This isn’t Africa. It’s Sedona, Arizona.”

Sedona. That was the first time I heard the name—in 2005.

I had visited the United States many times, but only major cities on the East and West Coasts. Arizona had never crossed my mind. To me, it sounded like a remote desert—perhaps a place of cowboys and endless highways. Yet after that meditation experience, I began researching Sedona and discovered that it was known as one of the most spiritual places in the United States, home to sacred red rocks believed to carry the energy and wisdom of Native American traditions.

I became deeply drawn to its mystery.

In 2006, I finally decided to travel there. After visiting Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, I arrived in Sedona. By that time, the same meditation image—the brown rock, the teaching, the people—had appeared to me three or more times.

Bell Rock is known as the most powerful vortex in Sedona, so meditating there was essential to my journey. Halfway up Bell Rock, I sat down, centered my breath, and entered meditation. In that moment, the same image appeared again—for the fourth time. I was teaching qigong and meditation on a brown rock.

When I slowly opened my eyes, the landscape before me was exactly what I had been seeing inwardly for a year and a half. The red rocks, the trees, the vast openness—it was all the same. It felt as though my spirit had been visiting Bell Rock long before my body arrived.

In that moment, clarity arose without doubt: This is where I belong.

I knew I would live in Sedona.

Soon after, I left my IT career and devoted myself fully to training as a yoga, qigong, and meditation instructor. In 2008, I returned to Sedona. From 2009, I spent three years in New York, and in 2011, I came back once again—to stay.

Every healer I know in Sedona has received a personal calling from Bell Rock before settling here. It seems to speak differently to each person who listens.

I invite you, too, to Bell Rock—the most powerful energy center in Sedona.

What message might it have for you?