Find Your Flow

At specific points around the world, the earth churns with tangible, tingly energy at sites known as vortices, visited by those seeking connection, healing, or a good story to tell. Here’s your road map to six such hotspots in the Western United States—and what to do once you get there.

- By Hannah Lott-Schwartz

MOUNT SHASTA, CALIFORNIA

Homelands Of: Karuk, Modoc, Pit River, Shasta, Wintu

The term “vortex” wasn’t used to describe geographic energy centers until the 1980s, when the metaphysical movement captured the West’s attention. In this sense, a vortex is a cyclonic flow of energy. Think of the sea, how it churns; now remove the water element, with only the force remaining. That’s an energy vortex, and they’ve been documented all over the world. Though there are myriad theories to explain and chart them, in many cases the explanation can be traced back to physics—electromagnetic fields, to be precise.

Thanks to the molten lead at its core, Earth is a giant spinning magnet. In physics, a moving magnetic field produces electricity, and a moving electric charge produces an electromagnetic field—the same type found surrounding humans, due to the nature of DNA, says biophysicist and certified energy medicine practitioner Christina L. Ross, PhD, a research fellow at the Wake Forest School of Medicine’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine. “Energy medicine researchers call the human energy field a biofield, while geophysicists call the earth’s energy field a protection from cosmic debris,” she says. “But it’s obviously more than that.”