Message from Black Elk Speaks:  "The Holy Circle of Unity"

Preface from "HEALTH AND HEALING" by Andrew Weil, M.D. :[highlights added - CR]

     "The link between the holy and the healthy is the common ground of religion and medicine. In many cultures, the two have never been separate.
    
"Native American medicine men are religious leaders as much as doctors, treating spiritual and physical ailments at one and the same time.  They often speak of the Medicine Wheel as the basis of tribal health, drawing on the circle as a universal symbol of wholeness and perfection. One great medicine man who spoke very eloquently about this symbol was Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux, born in 1863.  At the age of nine, during a severe illness, he had a vision that was to be the source of his healing ability in later life. In one sequence of it, he related, a "great Voice said: 'Behold the circle of the nation's hoop, for it is holy, being endless, and thus all power shall be one power in the people without end.'"
    
"At the end of his life, Black Elk told his story to a white historian, who recorded his words.  Black Elk said:

From "Black Elk Speaks" by John G. Neihardt [highlights added - CR]

"You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.  In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, 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... 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, whirlsBirds 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 to where they were.  The life of 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."
 

This ‘Great Circle’ of which Black Elk speaks is the "" in the  Model -- the "spherical" (non-linear) frame of reference / state of mind / process of consciousness whereby everything is centered and connected to universal law language of, by and for the "Great Spirit".

This attitude of co-measurement and co-operation as co-Creators with the Great Spirit is the beginning of wisdom.  In a free-will universe, we "go to" what we "ask for" via our personal and collective intention -- what we want.  It's not aptitude as much as attitude that determine our "altitude"; whether we soar with the eagles on the thermals of the Great Spirit... or scratch with the earth-bound turkeys.  Inspired visionaries, ‘dreamers’ and enlightened Netizens know what I'm talking about. 

In the cosmic scheme of "free will", we get what we ask for whether we know it or like it or not. The question at issue is what we REALLY want for human kind... for oneself, our tribe and all tribes in the "mandala " of Net reality – the gathering of the tribes of ALL that IS REAL. ~ CR