Mending the Sacred Hoop

Integrating the Theory of Process with
Native American Mythology

by Little Bear and Hummux

"In the beginning of time, Creator sat the children around in a circle on Mother Earth and told each race about its individual responsibilities and its roles in the great sacred hoop of life. The sacred teachings were divided into four equal parts and one given to each tribe. The four root races were then sent to the four directions, each given a special knowledge of creation.

The Yellow People were entrusted with Spirit and the element of fire.
The Black People were given Soul corresponding to the element of water.
the White People learned about the Mind and the element of air.
And the Red People had Body and the element of earth.

Each race was therefore given a quarter of the whole truth of creation. But as time passed, they forgot that their knowledge was incomplete. Each thinking their knowledge was the whole truth, they began to quarrel with each other.

The White People were told that they had a special mission to counsel the other races and bring them all together. In three previous periods, a different race had been given this task, but they each abused their privilege and so the creator destroyed all the people with their own powers. Volcanos destroyed the world during the period of fire. An ice age came and destroyed the world during the period of earth. the deluge came and destroyed the world during the period of water. and now this is the period of air.

The White People were told that knowledge of the Mind was very powerful and to be careful or this world would be destroyed by damage to the air.

Unfortunately the White People forgot the Creator's warning and as they traveled the earth, instead of counseling with the other races and incorporating their quarter of the knowledge into the whole truth, they used the power of the mind to dominate the other races.

The went to the Yellow People and brought opium addiction to enslave them instead of learning about Spirit. They went to the Black People and put them in chains and made slaves of them instead of learning about Soul. When they came to America, they brought with them the Yellow People and the Black People as slaves as they began their conquest of the Red People. They did not attempt to learn about the Body and caretakership of the earth from the Red People, but rather attempted to destroy them. And sure enough, in our time, the destruction of forests which produce oxygen and habitat, the pollution from fossil fuels, and the chemical destruction of the oceans and the ozone layer all lead to destruction of this world by the contamination of the air -- the White People's own special expertise, represented by the Mind.

There are many native mandalas with varying degrees of correspondence with Arthur Young's Theory of process. The one we will discuss is this:




The people of the Mind believe their knowledge is all that is needed. So they destroy the Body of Mother Earth, and ignore Spirit and Soul altogether:



However, we can still mend the Sacred Hoop and restore the world to balance. In this mandala, the Esselen Tribe teaches balance of the four elements. Each direction is associated with a special guardian:



We notice that Mother Earth (Body/earth) and Father Sky (Mind/air) are objective reality, representing the great drive-in movie of life. Earth is about materialism, all the physical stuff of the world, and air is something altogether different and abstract. They are truly orthogonal -- at right angles. On the other hand, Grandmother Moon (Soul/water) and Grandfather Sun (Spirit/fire) are projective. Projective reality, the internal projector of the drive-in movie of life, is ignored by Western science, which attempts to dictate the technology and sociology of our time.

Notice that the horizontal axis, consisting of Grandmother Moon choosing Mother Earth, is female, yin and physical, while the vertical axis, consisting of Grandfather Sun choosing Father Sky, is male, yang, and abstract. It is not surprising that these axes are at right angles, are utterly different and do not contain the other. That the vertical, abstract paternal axis totally dominates the horizontal, physical maternal axis is unstable, untenable and must change.

It is time to bring into balance the Body and Mind, and to include Soul and Spirit in our daily lives."