the Sacred Hoop
the focus of the ORDER of the WHITE SHELL
The Indigenous Change Process
Caretaker - Patricia Anne Davis
Patricia Ann Davis has translated Dineh blessedway ceremonial principles into an Indigenous Ceremonial Change Process to facilitate a healing process that is not coping, but correction of any out-of-balance conditions within people, society, or the environment. The Indigenous Change Process moves within the context of the natural order and Indigenous science, a concept from the literature to define a distinction between an Affirmative Thinking system and a Eurocentric Dualistic thinking system. The purpose is to reframe win-lose destructive and death-producing choices and decisions into win-win constructive and life-affirming choices and decisions. She designed an “Indigenous Ceremonial Change Process” to facilitate a reframe of thinking systems with these unifying principles:
Inclusive of all ethnic nationalities Cross-cultural • Inter-generational Restores resources to the next generation of youth Universal in practical life application and can be translated into any language.
Legend of the Whirling Rainbow:
One day... there would come a time, when the earth being ravaged and polluted, the forests being destroyed, the birds would fall from the air, the waters would be blackened, the fish being poisoned in the streams, and the trees would no longer be, mankind as we would know it would all but cease to exist -
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The Rainbow prophecy, as it has come to be known, refers to the keepers of the legends, rituals, and other myths that will be needed when the time comes to restore the health on Earth. It is believed that these legendary beings will return on a day of awakening, when all people will unite and create a new world of justice, peace and freedom, and they will be named the ‘Warriors of the Rainbow’. They will reteach the values and the knowledge that has been lost in time, demonstrating how to have wisdom and extra-perception, and how unity, harmony and love is the only way forward.
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Some say this legend is not real and some say it is. Whether or not it is, this is what is needed for the way forward in the world, so it will be embraced as such.
Aida-Wedo is the Lwa (spirit or Goddess) of water, snakes and the rainbow, represented by the rainbow python, a snake whose scales are iridescent. The rainbow serpent is the symbol of integration in many parts of the world, including Africa, Australia and America, and represents that which links heaven and earth, and encircles the world to unite her disparate elements.
She represents continuity and strength, integration and wholeness, as the rainbow contains all the colors, split from white light. Integrity, whether physical (structural), or moral, is the natural result of integration--weaving together elements that are very different. Her message is one of healing and strength for the whole of the world.
The rainbow serpent is a sacred figure found in many Indigenous Aboriginal cosmologies throughout Australia. It is thought by scientists to be connected to Australia's extinct, giant python - Wonambi naracoortensis. The rainbow serpent had control over water and water sources, creating waterways by its great movements through the land, and often creating mountains, outcrops of granite, and other rocky formations nearby as a result of its journeying. It is considered a sacred, water-creating being that can often determine the life or death of a community. It is considered a bringer of justice - bringing good things to those who perform good acts for their community, and malevolence down upon those who do not.
There are many symbols within the Lakota culture that represent convictions and spiritual beliefs. The Cangleska Wakan, Sacred Circle or Hoop, is based on the Sioux concept that everything in the universe is related. It exemplifies the compelling belief that all things that exist are connected in one continuous process of growth and progression. Perhaps, the most recognizable Cangleska Wakan is the medicine wheel.
A symbol of unity
The Sacred Hoop represents the shared values that bind the Lakota nation together in unity within their tribal system. These values include, amongst others, their language, ceremonies, storytelling, songs, religion, bravery, respect, wisdom, generosity, the four directions, Mother Earth, Father Sky, teachings from elders, and the common belief that everything which is good and holy is represented in the shape of a circle.
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The circle, or medicine wheel, is viewed as the foundation for every component of human and animal life, the earth, sky, and universe. It instructs us about the seasons, life, animals, and the earth’s compass. Each direction of north, south, east, and west encompasses the teaching of life for each individual and their place in society, while the center represents the earth and sky.
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Mending the Sacred Hoop Symbol
One of the most powerful Native American symbols for wellness and creative problem solving is the circle or hoop. This symbol represents wholeness, health, and harmony with one’s self, family, community, nation, and the universe. Perhaps the best example of consciousness of the circle can be found in the book Black Elk Speaks. Black Elk observes:
“Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars.
The wind, in its greatest power, whirls.
Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle.
The moon does the same, and both are round.
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
Our tepees were round like the nests of birds and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children.”
-Black Elk
Over a hundred years ago Black Elk had a vision of the time when Indian people would heal from the devastating effects of European migration. In his vision, the Sacred Hoop which had been broken would be mended in seven generations. The children born into this decade will be the seventh generation.
The Mending the Sacred Hoop logo represents the healing of our communities based on the teachings of the Medicine Wheel. Each section of the Medicine Wheel represents one of the four cardinal directions with a corresponding color. The outer rim represents the Sacred Hoop as being broken, yet with the ribbon symbolizing our work we are in the process of mending it. The turtle represents Earth, North America / Turtle Island, wisdom, longevity and woman. As women are at the center of our work, our families, and communities we place the turtle in the center of the Sacred Hoop.
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Black Elk
In cloud world, a bay horse greets Black Elk and tells him that he will tell Black Elk the life history of himself and others. The bay horse makes a circular turn in the four directions, north, south, east, and west. Twelve horses are in each direction, each group of 12 matching in color: the horses to the north are white, those to the south are buckskin, to the east, sorrel, and to the west, black. The bay tells him that the horses will take him to his Grandfathers. The sky then fills with dancing horses who change into diverse animals and flee as the bay and Black Elk walk on, leading a formation of the horses from the four directions. They come to a cloud that changes into a tepee with a rainbow for a door. Inside the tepee the six Grandfathers are waiting.
The first Grandfather tells Black Elk that his Grandfathers all over the world are having a council and that they will teach him. Black Elk then realizes that these are the Powers of the World. Each of the six Grandfathers in turn tells Black Elk something about himself and his people's future and gives him a symbolic object. The first Grandfather gives Black Elk a wooden cup of water that contains the sky, which is the power to live, and a bow, which is the power to destroy. He tells Black Elk that his spirit is Eagle Wing Stretches and then turns into a starving black horse. The second Grandfather gives him an herb that fattens the black horse, which becomes the first Grandfather again. The second Grandfather tells Black Elk that he will make a nation live and that he will have the power of the white giant's wing; he turns into a white goose. The third Grandfather gives him a peace pipe with a spotted eagle on it and tells him that he will make well whatever is sick. He points to a red man who turns into a bison and joins the sorrel horses that also turn into bison. The fourth Grandfather gives him a red stick, sprouted and with birds in its branches, saying that it is the living center of a nation and that Black Elk will save many. Black Elk thinks he sees in the shade of the stick a village of people lying like a hoop, the stick in the middle blooming like a tree at the intersection of a red road and a black road. The fourth Grandfather tells Black Elk that the north-south road (the red one) is good and the east-west road (black) is trouble and war. He says that Black Elk will walk with power on both and will destroy a people's foes. He then turns into an elk. The fifth Grandfather turns into a spotted eagle and tells Black Elk that he will have a special relationship with birds. The sixth Grandfather changes before his eyes, regressing in age until he is a boy who is Black Elk himself. He tells Black Elk that he will have his, the Grandfather's, power and that his nation will know great trouble. He gives him the name Eagle Wing Stretches.
After the Grandfathers finish speaking to him, a voice summarizes all he has been given. In his vision, he rides the bay horse until he comes across a blue man in a flaming river. White troops, red troops, and yellow troops try to charge the blue man, and are beaten. Black Elk succeeds in killing him, and knows that he has taken the form of rain and killed drought.
Black Elk sees a circled village and is told it is his. Everyone in the village seems to be dead or dying, but as he rides through, they revive. A voice tells him that it is the center of the nation's hoop that he has been given that made the people live. The voice tells him to give them the flowering stick, the sacred pipe, and the wing of the white giant. When he plants the stick in the center of the hoop, it grows immediately into a tree, under which all living things live happily. The sacred pipe flies in on eagle's wings, bringing peace. The daybreak star rises and the voice says that it will bring wisdom to all who see it. The entire group, including the spirits of the dead from the past, walk with Black Elk and the bay down the red road; the voice says they are walking in a sacred manner in a good land. They must climb four ascents, each one getting progressively steeper and more difficult. After the first, the people change into animals, and at the second, the animals are restless and the leaves are falling from the tree. The voice says that from here on, Black Elk must remember what he was given because his people will be in difficulties. They begin to walk the black road, and the nation's hoop is broken. The fourth ascent is horrifying, the people and their horses starving, and the voice that has been guiding them seems to weep. At this point, Black Elk sees a man painted red who changes into a bison near which a sacred four-rayed herb springs up. The herb blossoms in four colors that represent the four directions and is growing where the tree had been, in the center of the hoop. Black Elk sees fighting, gunfire, and smoke, and his people fleeing like swallows. His own horse is reduced to skin and bones, but he cures him with the herb.
Four virgins enter, carrying some of the symbolic objects Black Elk has been given by the Grandfathers. They dance and the horses dance. He looks down upon his people and the earth is restored and they are happy once again. Still on his horse, he sees the whole world as one, the hoops of many nations united in one hoop, with one mighty tree sheltering everyone as the children of one father and one mother. He saw that it was holy. Two men fly in and give him the sacred herb to plant. The voice tells him he will go back to his six Grandfathers and he follows the two flying men who change into flocks of geese. Black Elk rides through the Grandfathers' tepee, made of cloud, rainbow, and lightning, and they welcome him in triumph. The Grandfathers tell him he will go back empowered and restore his people. They give him the sacred gifts they gave him before. He sees himself among his people, lying as if he were dead, which his Grandfathers call a sacred manner. As Black Elk leaves the Grandfathers, he is lonely and looks back to see the spotted eagle. The rainbow tepee disappears and he sees his own village and hurries toward it. He enters his tepee and sees his parents attending a sick boy who is himself. He then regains consciousness and is sad because his parents do not understand where he has been.
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As Black Elk told my grandfather:”Imagine a hoop so large that everything is in it – all two-leggeds like us, the four-leggeds, the fishes of the streams, the wings of the air, and all green things that grow. Everything is together in this great hoop.” Thus in a wide open space in her yard she made a large circle, representing the entire universe and all things included in it. She then marked the 4 directions, South, West, North and East in the large circle. She planted a hedge around the circumference leaving an open space at each of the four directions. Black Elk continued:”Across this hoop, running from the east where the days of men begin to the west where the days of men end, is the Hard Black Road of Worldly Difficulties. We all must pass along this road, for it represents the world of everyday life.” Mona fashioned a path of black rock starting in the east side of the hedge and going to the west edge. “if the black road were the only one along which we may pass, then this life would not mean much. but there is another road: It is the Good Red Road of Spiritual Understanding, and it begins in the south where lives the power to grow and proceeds to the north, the region of white hairs and death.” Now she made a path of red rocks that started in the southern point of the hedge and proceeded to the north edge. Black Elk speaking in Lakota and Ben earnestly and haltingly explaining in English what the old man said:”Where this Good Red Road crosses the Hard Black Road, that place is holy and there springs the Sacred Tree which shall fill with leaves and blooms and singing birds.” Mona then planted a flowering crab tree in the center of the garden where the 2 paths crossed. And in this manner, she built her Sacred Hoop.
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In one of his visions, Black Elk describes being taken to the center of the earth, and to the central mountain of the world. Mythologist Joseph Campbell notes that an "axis mundi, the central point, the pole around which all revolves ... the point where stillness and movement are together ..." is a theme in several other religions, as well.[6] Campbell viewed Black Elk's statement as one key to understanding worldwide religious myth and symbols in general.[6]
From DeMallie's book:
And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.[4]:intro., 97
By Jamie Samms (excerpt from Sacred Path Cards)
To the Navajo and the Hopi, the Swirling or Whirling Rainbow Woman is the bringer of friendly rains that nurture the Three Sisters — Corn, Squash and Beans — during the summer so that people will be fed. Many times an image of the Whirling Rainbow is created in Sand Painting, an ancient Sacred Healing Art performed by the Medicine Clans of those Nations.
The Whirling Rainbow Woman comes from all Four Directions and curves like a swastika covering all directions. The outside of the Sacred Circle is protected by another Whirling Rainbow Woman bending her body in the space below creating a cup-shape to catch the rain and protect the circle. Without the Rain, the Three Sisters will die and the People will not be fed.
The Rainbow Race stresses equality and opposes the idea of a superior race that would control or conquer other races. The Rainbow Race brings peace through the understanding that all races are one. The unity of all colors, all creeds working together for the good of the whole, is the idea that is embodied in the Whirling Rainbow. When all pathways to wholeness are respected by all cultures, the prophecy of the Whirling Rainbow will be completed.
When I lived in Mexico and worked with the Grandmothers, the Dreamtime Buffalo Society, or Sisterhood, had many prophecies derived from Seers and Dreamers that had come down through the ages. The prophecy of the Whirling Rainbow was very specific. When the Time of the White Buffalo approaches, the third generation of the White Eyes’ children will grow their hair and speak of love as the healer of the Children of the Earth.
These children will seek new ways of understanding themselves and others. They will wear feathers and beads and paint their faces. They will seek the Elders of the Red Race and drink of their wisdom. These white-eyed children will be a sign that the Ancestors are returning in white bodies, but they are Red on the inside. They will learn to walk the Earth Mother in balance again and reform the idea of the white chiefs. These children will be tested as they were when they were Red ancestors by unnatural substances like firewater to see if they can remain on the Sacred Path.
The generation of Flower Children have moved through this part of the prophecy and some have remained on the Sacred Path. Others were lost for a while and are now returning to the natural way of being. Some were disillusioned and have forgotten the high ideals that gave them life when their hearts were young, but others still are waking up and quickening into remembering.
Grandmother Cisi would look at me with her obsidian eyes piercing my soul when she spoke of the Whirling Rainbow Prophecy, and I would feel my heart skip a beat and then fill with promise and love. She would tell me about the return of the Buffalo to Turtle Island and how the herds would once again be numerous. After the time when the Buffalo returned, the generation following the Flower Children would see the dawning of the Fifth World of Peace.
Grandmother Cisi called the beginning of this Fifth World the wobbly pony that on being born would try to use his legs. She said that the wobble would be felt by the the Earth Mother and the changes would occur in the soil and the waters. Inside the Children of the Earth, the wobble would create rolling emotions and feelings that would bring the quickening and the remembering. Colorful dreams would be brought into the Sleep time and Dreamtime dreams of these newborn Warriors of the Rainbow and they would begin to learn how to Walk in Balance. The changes in our Earth Mother would create fear in her children, which would later lead to the understanding and unity of Our Planet–One People.
Grandmother Berta would giggle when we came to this part of the prophecy because my eyes would be round as saucers and I could not sit still. Grandmother Berta would urge Grandmother Cisi to stop for the day and leave me hanging on the edge of the cliff just to tease me. Cisi would finally begin again and slap my knee to make me pay attention to the rhythm of the prophecy because my mind would be spinning with probabilities and my own projections. I wanted to ask so many questions about how, when, where, and why. I wanted to know details, details . I was twenty-two and very impatient, but I kept silent so she would The Whirling Rainbow will appear in the form of a Sun Dog to those who are ready to see. The Sun Dog is a full Rainbow Circle around the sun that has bright white lights at the Four Directions. The Sun Dog is a rare natural phenomenon that was named by Native Americans. The name is now used by scientists all over the world. Many Sun Dogs will be seen around the time of the White Buffalo, which will be the Sky Language sign that the Secret and Sacred Teachings are to be shared with all races. Enough of the Children of Earth will be awakened to carry the responsibility of the teachings and the healing process will begin in full swing.
Grandmother Berta would smile with a faraway look in her eyes, knowing that she would be on the Blue Road when the time of the White Buffalo came. Grandmother Cisi would also be in the Other Side Camp, but both promised they would be assisting me in bringing out the things they had taught me when the time was right.
Both Grandmothers spoke of the change in feelings the Children of the Earth would have during the wobble or healing process as the Whirling Rainbows permeated their dreams. They said, “Many will remember their purpose for being on this Earth Walk and will learn to develop their gifts to assist the whole of humanity. Truth will shatter the bonds of separation and goodness will prevail. Some details of Earth changes will come into the dreams of those who are being warned to move where they will be safe. Others will be told that their talents will be needed in areas where the changes occur. Everyone will have to trust their personal vision and follow their hearts in order to assist the whole. Each person will be able to use their gifts with joy and share equally in the bounty created by all those working together. The other teachings of the prophecy of the Whirling Rainbow will be released at a later time when more have awakened to the potential they carry.
In our Seneca Tradition, Grandmother Twylah has taught us many uses for the Whirling Rainbow of Peace. When we are having difficulty in any situation, we visualize the Rainbow of Peace encircling the situation, the people involved, and the disharmony. Then we twinkle our eyes with joy, sending our inner-peace to the situation. In using this technique and following it with ceremony, we place our intention inside the Whirling Rainbow of Peace.
Our intention follows the Iroquois Peace Confederacy Tradition that uses the Twelve Cycles of Truth to bring peace.
Ava Naihm
Purification Keeper