September 2019
What brought you to Crestone?
Deva Serene
Last summer we were in New York at Alex and Allyson Gray's place called Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), and a local artist who lives here in Crestone, Domé Moon, invited us to visit Crestone on our way back home to Portland, Oregon. So we came to Crestone and stayed with her. When I was here, I was standing on this big rock and recalled this vision I'd had 2 years earlier where I was doing Qi Gong and looking out across a vast expanse with mountains behind me. And I'd been traveling around the US and I'd been to lots of places with mountains but none of them had been the place until I was here, and I thought, "Oh! This is the place." This huge giant valley and these mountains. And my husband, Gary, felt so inspired by his art and was able to paint epically here. We'd been looking for a place to support our expansion and to raise our child in more conscious ways. And so we're like, "All right, we found the place!" So we went home and started putting things in motion to come here, and here we are! Once we got here, we were excited to discover this opportunity in Moffat to develop some commercial land. So, we're creating a mixed use business park and eco lodge down there. We currently have a mushroom cottage underway, so anyone driving to Saguache on County Road 60 is probably wondering what's going on with that, and that’s what's happening!
Cassey Graef
Love. I started dating Seth over a year ago and he lived in Crestone. I knew about Crestone probably two years prior to that and when I met him, it was just destiny and really aligned for us to come together here. So the greatest thing was love. Another part of it is for my spiritual awakening, my soul and my healing. I think that's been a really big part of me being here, specifically, and the two of us have worked through a lot since I've been here, so that's been a blessing, too. Obviously, we have our baby now, Kit. And we're doing pizza, so things are really line for us here and it's been wonderful. I'm very grateful for it. Hopefully, it'll be a forever home, and if it isn't that's OK, too! I'm originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I was living in Durango for about two years and Mancos after that before I moved here. Really, the main reason I chose Crestone is love and destiny.
Sarah Hines
I was in Alamosa last year for the first time in my life. My boyfriend had gone to a conference there and I got a really strong spirit message to look up Universal Dances of Peace in Crestone, and that link took me to a Wonder Bob site and they were doing an event that weekend. So, I came to Crestone a year ago in August, then I went back down the hill and suffered some more for a year in Taos, and then came for a day visit this last May and I've been here ever since. I'm on my fourth month here. I lived near Sedona for a while, so I was used to dealing with vortexes and tourists and I never imagined I'd move into a community that had people coming to it for any reasons of famous church stuff or religious organizations. But I came here and I could see energy coming out of the mountains. I was having trouble driving because I'm watching the mountains with giant clouds and pillars of light, going, "Can anybody else see this?" And then I found out other people here could see this and then I was told later that this was the birthplace of truth, and it really resonates with me, because I had wanted to live someplace where people told the truth.
McGregor Gaines
The first visit here was to see my sister, Stephanie, who came here to teach at Crestone Charter School in the late 90’s. My prior experience in the valley was in November, 1974 as a 20 year-old coming up from Arroyo Hondo and Taos looking for a place to settle and camping out at the Great Sand Dunes, driving right past Crestone with no idea it existed. So, it was deja vu that Stephanie ended up in the same valley. At that time in my life, after almost three decades in the guitar manufacturing business with 25-27 employees, this was my exit plan for me and my wife, who passed away shortly before moving here. It was a new chapter in my life, going back to a lot of my desires, getting back into my fine art background and involving myself with community type projects. It was a time for rejuvenation, reflection and contemplative lifestyle that I wasn't getting with so many responsibilities from my involvement with the corporation I co-founded. It was time to unplug from what I was involved with in central California. And my spiritual practice – I’ve been a longtime devotee of Satya Sai Baba and found likeminded people here. And I've always been very in tune with the natural world; gives me a sense of calmness. Also, what's attractive here is the beauty of the silence! That is such a gift because you get so used to white noise and the distractive static energy of being in urban metropolitan areas. And I've always had more spirit guide connections with animals, and I've done a lot of journeying, so the kinship I have with my animal being friends is very strong here, too.
Mike Maverick
Well, I just kind of landed in Crestone. I'd set off from Dallas, where I was living before, and decided I was going to live life completely by faith and just go without any kind of direction, except I had a feeling I needed to go to Colorado. So, I headed off to Denver, which is the only place I knew in Colorado, on a bicycle because that's all I had. I wanted to take some stuff with me so I was pulling a trailer behind me. It was a little bit daunting, a little bit scary, but that's what living by faith is - you don't really know where you're gonna go until you go. I ended up getting stuck in New Mexico. I was on the side of the road. I had an achin' behind. I had no water. I had two flat tires and I was just about at my wits end when a red truck pulled in front and immediately I was elated to see, not only that somebody stopped, but that it was a truck that could possibly pick me up. And so out hopped this man with no shoes on and I thought, "Oh this guy's gotta be really cool. He's driving around with no shoes!" So he said, "Are you having a bit of mechanical trouble? I said, "Well, yeah!" He's like, "You need a ride?” And I said "Yes!" And this was Alder, Matie Belle's son, who stopped, and he was coming back from somewhere down in Texas, I believe. He had the kids with him, and he loaded up our stuff and we were off and he was going to take me to a town just beyond the border. I forget what it's called. But then we got to talking and he asked, "Are you into meditation, yoga, spiritual type stuff?" And I was like, "Well yeah!" So he said, "Well, you might want to come to Crestone." And immediately, my intuition told me, "Yeah, you need to go to this place." So I said, "Well, yeah sure. Why not?" So, we headed off to Crestone. And when we got here, he gave me some food and a camp stove. He taught me how to build a fire, helped me find my first campsite up at North Crestone, and pretty much the rest is history. I've just been here, made friends and found work, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon. So, that's how I got here.