“We’ll look for a spot to help activate the energy awaiting us,” Yona FrenchHawk wrote a few days before the ceremony.

First, Yona & Ebba went to the pavilion where the Cosmic Summit summer solstice ceremony location was assigned by the Pilot Mountain State Park for June 20, 2025. Further down the mountain from there, toward the west, on September 20, 2025 a series of quartzite slabs were chosen. The quartz singing bowls really seemed to resonate there sitting on the quartzite! It felt like nature was leaning into the ceremony.

This fascinating interview with Yona FrenchHawk was done shortly before the equinox ceremony on Pilot Mountain. The cover of this podcast above has images from the 2025 summer solstice ceremony where hundreds gathered on Pilot Mountain.

Singing bowl ceremony at Pilot Mountain State Park in the middle of where the airfield used to be in the 1930s and 1940s.

Bless the Frequency of Stone at Pilot Mountain

We call upon the mountain that breathes

We call upon the quartzite stone that remembers

We call upon the song that awakens when hearts are pure

Pilot Mountain, we stand in your presence

We are not visitors, we are kin

Our names are written in your bones

Our breath is one with your wind

Seal us in your resonance

Sing through our marrow

Let us be as steady as your granite,

as enduring as your roots,

as luminous as your crown at sunset

We walk in balance with your guardians

We honor the little ones, the hidden ones,

The watchers within and the Starman above

We honor the song that rises when we gather,

The song that will not be silenced

May every step we take be a step in your circle

May ever word I speak be an echo of your truth

May our work, though resisted

Become seed for generations unborn

So let it be, so it already is

(Anonymous Writer)

Looking south from Black Mountain Road in Pilot Mountain that affords a complete view of the iconic mountain. Andy Griffith called it Mount Pilot on his TV series, but it was never seen on the show. For many, this turned a real sacred mountain into a fictional place.

Twilight looking north at Pilot Mountain from Pinnacle, North Carolina on September 20, 2025.

Was this the same turkey buzzard from the summer solstice ceremony on June 20, 2025 that Yona FrenchHawk talked about in the “Ancient Cherokee Wisdom” podcast?

This time the buzzard stayed in the same place on the southwestern edge of the upper parking lot near the trail we took to the quartzite slabs in the picnic area at Pilot Mountain. The turkey buzzard stayed in the same spot for the entire equinox/eclipse ceremony on September 20, 2025.