THE TAOS HUM
By Toni Elizabeth Sar'h Petrinovich, Ph.D.

     It was going to be a marvelous trip to New Mexico. My friend, Marilyn, and I had it all planned out and awaited this time away with great expectation. Little did we know what awaited us as we ventured into mutually uncharted territory. Only our Spirit knew... and it was not telling!
     Our getaway adventure was part research, part education and part re-creation. Marilyn is the single Mother of three children... enough said about the busyness of her life. I have my own healing practice and business in which I am involved 24/7. Five days away in the sunshine was exactly what we desired.
     Leaving the Pacific Northwest through Seattle, we flew to Albuquerque, NM and rented a car. Marilyn had made the reservations for us in Santa Fe and also in Taos where we would go after attending a two day conference hosted by Zechariah Sitchin. Since I have spent years studying Zechariah's work and giving synopsis presentations on his many books, I was especially excited to hear him speak in person. Once the seminar was complete, Marilyn and I were going to drive to Taos, a must see in the art world.
     The Sitchin presentation was marvelous. We stayed until the last word had echoed through the hall including having dinner with Zechariah and meeting many new, wonderful friends. Yet, Taos called and so the morning after the conference ended, we packed our bags and settled in for the 1.5 hour trip. We knew we might visit interesting places enroute and looked forward to having nothing to do except relax and enjoy the beautiful countryside.
     Once we arrived in Taos, the real adventure began. Driving down Paseo del Pueblo Sur (the main street), we found our chain hotel where Marilyn had made reservations. Upon obtaining our room keys, we discovered our room smelled very heavily of cigarette smoke even though we had requested a non-smoking room. Back at the front desk, we requested a non-smoking room once again. Reluctantly, the desk clerk changed our room, gave us our keys. We proceeded around to the back of the building where all of the rooms had the usual No Smoking sign on the outside of the door. We were utterly surprised when we opened the room door the second time to find that it smelled even more strongly of cigarette smoke.
     "Let's get out of here," I said to Marilyn, who agreed immediately. "I saw a very quaint, small motel on this same street. Let's give it a try."
     Returning our keys without saying much except to ask for the deposit refund, we were quickly back in the car and down the street to a more local motel. The room was quaint, clean and comfortable. Perfect! Now we can enjoy our stay in Taos.
     We spent the first day downtown where we discovered the city getting ready for its annual Arts Festival. We talked with many artists, saw fabulous artwork and had a fairly good meal before deciding to retire early. After all of the traveling in the past few days, we were beginning to feel the tiredness.
     About 11:30 p.m., it all began. I awoke to Marilyn's screams as she knelt on her bed looking out the window and exclaiming, "No, no, no! I'm going to die! Can you hear that sound? What is it?" She was crying so hard I could barely make out her words. Now, my usual, natural inclination when someone is having a difficult time is to comfort them. I am naturally a nurturer. I know this intimately about myself so I was very surprised to hear my thoughts which went something like this: "The hard way! Why do we always have to do it the hard way! Okay, okay! If that is what it takes, then we'll do it!" Yes, I could hear a deep rumbling sound overhead. It sounded like someone was vacuuming the mountains around the Taos area. It was very, very loud.
     Meanwhile, Marilyn was asking me if I could smell the ozone in the air. My only concern was for myself. I had to use the restroom and that was where I was headed - leaving Marilyn sitting on the bed, crying and mumbling out loud. In the restroom, I noticed the ozone smell and kept hearing the same thoughts in my head. It felt like there really was nothing to do except surrender to what was happening and go back to bed. And that was exactly what I did. Looking straight at a very distraught Marilyn I said, "Do you want some Kleenex to plug your ears?" got back into bed and went sound to sleep.
     In the morning, I asked Marilyn what had happened to her the night before. She said that she did not know except that it reminded her of something that had happened to her when she was very little and sleeping in her crib. She said, "If I told you that last night, I know I would have died. What do you think we should do?"
     I suggested that we sit in meditation for a few moments. I began to feel like we needed to be with the people of the area, become very grounded and stay present so that we would not get caught up in the drama of this situation. "Let's go to that neat little place we saw last night for breakfast... the one that reminded us of blueberry muffins. We will eat lightly and then go to the Tao Pueblo to be with the people who belong to this area." Marilyn liked that idea very much and finally allowed me to drive since she was in no shape to be behind the wheel of a car.
     On the way out of the motel, we stopped at the front desk to ask the clerk if she had heard the noise the night before or if anyone else had reported it. "No, I didn't hear anything because I don't live in Taos itself, yet when I came in this morning the keys hanging on the wall were on the floor and the file drawers were open." She didn't know why the office was in such a chaotic state.
     Once seated at the breakfast table, we asked the waitress if she had heard the noise the previous night. She didn't live in the area either so hadn't heard anything yet she believed she knew what we had heard. "It is called the Taos Hum," she said. "It usually drives people crazy." That was the end of the information she had for us. We made a quick job of breakfast and got on the road to the Pueblo.
     The Taos Pueblo is actually a place in which people live and do business yet you pay entrance admission to watch them doing so. At first it felt a bit odd, yet after a while, we were busy enjoying all that it had to offer and finally made our way to a table where an older woman was selling bread and jewelry. I told Marilyn to talk with the older woman since she felt grounded to me and I began a conversation with the younger one. She asked me what we were doing in Taos and when I began to tell her about our experience with the "Taos Hum", she said, "Oh, only bad, wicked people hear the Hum. None of our people ever hear it."
     I quickly informed her that we were neither bad nor wicked and this caught the attention of the older woman who, by this time, had sold Marilyn a wonderful bracelet and was having a deep discussion about animals with her. I suggested we move on since the energy was beginning to feel a little incongruous. We spent the rest of the day at the Drum Museum, marvelous restaurants and art galleries.
     That night, Marilyn asked me what we would do if the noise came back. I told her that I intended to follow it, in the car if need be, and she could come with me or stay. In any event, I wanted an answer to this mystery.
     Sharply at 11:30 p.m., the "vacuuming sound" started, yet it was not as loud and there was no ozone smell. I went outside to the parking lot and found the direction of the sound. It was coming from across the street from behind a large drugstore. "Put your pants on and come out here," I yelled to Marilyn. She did and we began walking through the motel parking lot toward the street with our focus completely on the drugstore's large parking lot in front of the store.
     Before we could reach the curb, a parking lot sweeper truck came from around the building toward us. It was not sweeping the parking lot; the brushes were up and it was simply traveling toward us with its headlights directly on us. We stood stock still and watched as it came to its side of the curb and turned parallel to us. Two men, one driving and a passenger, took a long look at us and, without saying a word, drove away, disappearing behind the drugstore. The sound of the sweeper was the same sound as the "Hum" from the night before.
     "What just happened?" Marilyn asked me. "Well," I said, "it can be one of two things. Either last night's sound was this sweeper cleaning the parking lot though last night's sound was much louder or, we created this experience just now because our minds cannot contain what really DID happen last night and we need to mentally protect ourselves."
"It's the last one," Marilyn said. I agreed. I truly believed, and still do believe, that what we encountered the night before was so far beyond our understanding that our unconscious created something to "make us feel better" rather than facing all of the options that loomed before us. Yet, this journey was not over. In fact, it had only begun.
     The next day we began the drive back to Albuquerque to fly home to the Pacific Northwest. Before we left Taos, we stopped at a snack shop to get coffee. This place had a television news program on about an oil truck that had been involved in a collision on I-25 spilling oil all over the road. The authorities were sending people through a detour route. Since we had little choice but to take that highway, we figured we would cross that bridge when we came to it, literally. Off we went toward I-25 and our eventual arrival in Albuquerque.
     When we reached the scene of the collision, a policeman told us to follow the traffic detouring around the highway. I told him that we did not know the area and were not sure of the route. He told us that we had no need to be concerned because the traffic would simply go down the detour road, make a turn and end up on the highway on the other side of the oil spill. All we needed to do was follow the moving traffic line.
     We did as he told us, following the cars down the detour on road and when we made "the turn" we were right back at the beginning of the detour on Highway I-25 at the collision site where we had started. I looked at Marilyn and said, "Let's try this, again." We did. The same thing happened. We were on I-25 at the site of the oil spill.
     "Take the detour again." I wanted to feel in control of this chaotic event. "This time, stop at the gas station on the corner and I am going to ask directions from the station attendant." Marilyn took the detour and I got out at the gas station with our map. The young man behind the counter said, "Lady, put your map away. I was born and raised here. I can tell you anything you need to know without a map."
     I asked him how to get back on I-25 from where we were due to the oil spill. He gave me simple directions telling me what signs to look for and made it sound like it would be impossible to miss the exit again. We followed his directions and, you guessed it, we ended up at our originating point once again.
     "Marilyn, we are caught in a vortex. This has happened to me before. My ex-husband and I were caught in a canyon vortex when we were hunting years ago. The road did not take us out of the canyon. I literally had to get out of the car and promise the spirit of the canyon that we would not hunt there if we could find the entrance/exit once again. It worked. The next time we took the road to leave the canyon, we did, indeed, leave," I said.
     "Well, I am &*####**%% tired of this!!! I am going to take that road right there and it WILL take us to the other side of this accident!" Marilyn exploded. And she did take that next road and it did take us to the other side of the oil spill. We were free from the vortex and on our way to Albuquerque.
     Once inside the airport, we sat reading our books waiting for our flight. We were very tired, confused and wanting so much to simply fly home. Marilyn was reading a book about Christ Consciousness. The author was explaining at that point in the book that Christ Consciousness is pink. I don't necessarily believe that premise yet it seemed to fit the idea for the author and Marilyn seemed pretty taken with the thought at the time. She even told me and others around us about it. I knew it was meaning something for her.
     The flight home was uneventful. We were very quiet. We were sleepless yet dozing, awaiting the landing that would (we thought) put us back in a land that would feel more normal. Finally, the plane landed at Seattle's SeaTac airport and we were home except for a two hour drive back to Anacortes. I had parked my Jeep Wrangler at the airport so we loaded our baggage and then loaded ourselves into the Jeep. Very quietly, we headed north on I-5 toward the San Juan Islands.
     I-5 has a left hand lane commonly called HOV lane (Highly Occupied Vehicle). Any car with two or more passengers may use this lane to travel more quickly around the typically slow traffic. If you do use this lane, you usually have a concrete wall to your left dividing the highway in its north or south direction.
     This was where we were, having been on the highway about 20 minutes, when my peripheral vision alerted me to a car crossing the other three lanes of the highway to our right and headed right into my right front fender. There was no place to go; no place to turn since I had the concrete wall to my left. I braced for the "hit" as the light grew brighter and brighter. A nanosecond before the other car would have struck our Jeep, it turned parallel to us and I looked past Marilyn (who had not taken notice of this incident yet) at the lane to our right. Traveling along side of us was a parking lot sweeper truck with its brushes raised up exactly the same as the sweeper truck that we had seen in Taos - with one exception. This truck's brushes were a bright pink!
     "Look to your right, Marilyn. The brushes are pink now," I said. As Marilyn turned her head and saw the truck's brushes, we drove past it. "Don't pass them," she said.
     "I didn't pass them, Marilyn," I explained, glancing in my rearview mirror. "They are no longer there."

Toni Elizabeth Sar'h Petrinovich, Ph.D. is the author of The Call - Awakening the Angelic Human and its accompanying CD DNA Re-Awakening. For more information, see Toni's websites at www.sacredspaceswa.com and www.angelichuman.com. She can be reached through email at sacred@anacortes.net and by telephone at 360.303.0782.    

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