Native Circles

I am going to try not to post a lot of things that are not original, but I got this in an email a couple of days ago, and it really spoke to me.

My ancestors are Cherokee and Creek Indian, and my spiritual path is broadening out to embrace Native American Spirituality. Over the last few months the spiral symbol had been jumping out at me all over the place.

It never really occurred to me why until I started studying about Native American Spirituality more. Then I came across this in my email and it sums it up nicely!


You have noticed that everything an Indian does in a circle,
and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles,
and everything and everything tries to be round.



In the old days all our power came to us from the sacred hoop
of the nation and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people
flourished. The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop,
and the circle of the four quarters nourished it. The east gave peace
and light, the south gave warmth, the west gave rain and the north
with its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance. This
knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion.



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 teepees 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, Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux 1863-1950



That piece just spoke volumes to me for some reason and I wanted to share. Soon I will be posting about my path a bit and how it is shifting, stay tuned!