Robert Sechrengost of Sedona, sometimes referred to as “Flute Man” or “Heart King” on social media, is recovering after taking a 30-foot tumble in Boynton Canyon on Monday, July 17.
Since June 2011, Sechrengost said he has handed out over 250,000 handmade sandstone hearts to hikers in Boynton Canyon and plans to continue his mission of spreading joy in the canyon.
“I quit believing in fear and anger and hate and prejudice and violence, excuses and judgments, and now just get to be of the universe,” Sechrengost said.
On July 17, Sechrengost had finished his daily flute performance at the top of Warrior Rock across from Kachina Woman on Vista Trail in Boynton Canyon and was starting his descent when he lost his concentration.
“There was a way to go up and come down that was perfect for me, but there was a big rock that came out about three weeks ago, so I had to go down differently,” Sechrengost said. “I wasn’t paying attention and I went down the wrong way. I went straight down and hit a ledge … it’s about a 30- to 35-foot drop and I was sliding and tumbling.”
Sechrengost originally thought he could walk off the fall, but found himself short of breath soon afterward and had to call for assistance.
“The pain just started going throbbing after a minute or so,” Sechrengost said. “I said call [911] to come out and get because there’s no way I’m going to walk out on my own. Sedona Fire took me to the airport in Sedona and a helicopter picked me up from there and took me to the trauma room at the Flagstaff Hospital.”
Sechrengost suffered nine fractures to his ribs, hip and pelvis as well as a punctured lung. His recovery is going well apart from insomnia, which he has found he can mitigate by breaking up his sleep schedule.
“One way or another, I’ll be back handing out hearts in Boynton Canyon,” Sechrengost said. “I don’t know if I’ll go up on top of Warrior Rock and play my flute. I might go out there and play my flute in some other places.”
“I traded in a timeshare week back in March of 2000 and fell in love with Sedona and I wanted to spend the rest of my life here,” Sechrengost said. “But I looked at real estate. And, well, the real estate was way over my head. So I went and bought into the timeshare system and kept coming back. Then when I turned 55, back in 2007, I found this 55 and older mobile home community where I could afford to pay cash for a unit and afford to pay rent on the lot for the rest of my life. So I did that and I’ve been here ever since.”
He started playing the flute a year before he moved to Sedona when he kept eyeing an instrument while on a visit, going into the same store three days in a row to play one for sale.
“Then last day, the owner says, ‘Let me just give you a two-minute lesson,’ told me how to play, showed me how to play the pentatonic scale,” Sechrengost said. “It was just magic. I paid for it and took it down to the creek down by Midgley Bridge. I went down to the creek and got on a big rock in the middle of the creek and I made up the first song I ever played in a half an hour and I still play back up on top of the vortex in Boynten Canyon every day.”
Sechrengost has been handing out sandstone hearts since the first day he moved to Sedona in July 2007. Immediately after unloading his moving truck, he went out for a hike and found a heart-shaped rock along the trail that he put into his pocket.
“A while later, a lady came along and I said, ‘Here, I found this heart on the trail, so I have a heart for you.’ She loved it,” Sechrengost said. “I did that for a four-year period and kind of hunted them out. In that period of time, I probably gave away 35,000 to 40,000 [hearts]. A message came into my heart, came into my mind. I was told to go up on top of the divine masculine vortex in Boynton Canyon and play reiki through my flute.”
He estimates he has been to Warrior Rock over 6,000 times.
“The people loved [the hearts]. Every time I found one, if was too clunky I’d take it or put it in a tree,” Sechrengost said. “I did that for a long time, and then I got a ticket for putting them in the trees. I had a choice. I could either go to a federal court and fight the federal government, which I figured didn’t make very much sense, or I could stop doing it, pay the fine and get them to leave me alone and go back to doing what I was doing.”
He also started to use rocks from along the side of the road because of the Forest Service.
Sechrengost’s friend Penny Gilbert said that what she finds inspiring about him is how he gives of himself and won’t accept money for the hearts.
“People would offer [to pay] and he would say, ‘No, this is my gift to you,’” Gilbert said. “They’re very few people who refuse. But especially during [the pandemic] he opened people up because they were so full of fear.”
Gilbert added that while Sechrengost has long refused to get a cell phone, he is reconsidering that choice after his injury.
Sechrengost’s view is that he is giving people ways to help themselves and added that everything a person needs is within their heart.
“Typically I’ll say ‘Hi, I’m a heartbeat for Mother Earth, the heart is filled with hundreds of special energies, including unconditional love and magic,’” Sechrengost said. “So the energy’s right in the [sandstone] heart, it goes home with you and it will be there whenever you want or need it. The whole idea is to spread unconditional love around the earth one heart at a time, and this is how we change everything on the earth.”
A GoFundMe has been setup for Sechrengost at gofund.me/187aa165.
