APRIL 24, 2011

There are tales of a Wichita Vortex located around the area north of Central Riverside park since the 1960s. I did not know about this when this incident happened. My family is a follower of the guru Sri Sathya Sai Baba. He died on April 4th, 2010 and was in a coma two weeks before he passed (India is 12 hours ahead from our time…for context). I had just left a bad marriage and moved to a place in the Riverside section of Wichita, Kansas. I was walking daily around the neighborhood, through the parks and the Little Arkansas River. It is really the best neighborhood in Wichita. I found two large Sycamore trees on the river bank just off the walking path that I loved to go to and meditate under. I was doing a lot of self reflection and healing at that time. A couple days before, I would have these flash memories of something that hadn’t happened. I saw myself sitting under those trees and a dog walking up to me. I couldn’t shake that visualization. So, on Sunday morning, I went out for my walk and meditation. The pathway is north of the park with a West River Boulevard separating the park from the thin strip along the river and the walking path. It’s Kansas. Flat, wide open spaces dotted with trees. Not many bushes and none in this area. As you walk the path, you can see all the way down the road to the traffic circle and if you turn around the other way, you can see all the way to the four way stop and Nims bridge. It is wide open spaces. So, I sit under my trees at the river bank and start my meditation. I heard a scuffling sound behind me. I look and see nothing. I hear the scuffling again. I turn my body around and look toward the sycamore trees that were behind me. I see a dog nose peek out from behind the tree. I thought, wow! Here is that dog I have been thinking about! I talk to animals, so I said to her, “Hi there! I have been waiting for you!” I get up to get a look at her. She is white. All white. She has extremely saggy breasts like she is currently nursing a litter of puppies and like she has had several litters before. Not a young dog. She has a yellow caution tape tied around her neck like a leash. I look around to find anyone that may be her owner. There was no one around. Not a soul. What struck me was the fact that she looked like the dogs I saw the three times I traveled to India. I’ve been to the ashram of Sri Sathya Sai Baba and the dogs are tame yet wild. She didn’t look like any mixed breed dogs around the Riverside area of Wichita, or anywhere in Wichita. She was an India dog. Those dogs are a breed by themselves from generations of breeding together. Pointed ears, muscular bodies. Short hair. Pointed muzzle. I talked to her and pet her and convinced her to follow me. I was going to take her home. We walked about 50 feet to the west. She followed behind. I did not use that yellow plastic caution tape to walk her for some reason. She was intelligent and I didn’t want to spook her. I saw that in her eyes. I wanted her to come with me on her own free will. I heard her stop and I turned around. We looked each other in the eye and she basically indicated to me she had to go. She turned around and dog trotted east on the sidewalk/path, back toward the trees we came from. I thought okay, maybe she belongs to someone. I took only a few steps and realized it was quiet suddenly. I can’t explain the energy shift. I thought maybe she changed her mind and stopped walking. I turned, and she was gone. She was just behind me. Just started walking in the other direction. And just disappeared. In the vastness of the grassy park, she disappeared as quickly as she appeared. I knew instantly something strange had just happened. A dog couldn’t have vanished like that so quickly. Or run fast enough to a place where I wouldn’t see it. I went home and not long after, my mother called and said she got word that Sri Sathya Sai Baba had died. I told her about the dog. She said it was him. I’m not sure, but it was something from India. Just a few years ago, I found out about the Wichita Vortex and the poem by Allen Ginsberg in 1966. When he came back to Wichita from San Francisco, he lived very near that spot, just on the other side of the Little Arkansas River. Odd things like this happen here.

Submitted by Janaki