Sacred Circle/ Medicine Wheel/ 4 ShieldsSpirit, here I am All with one, one with all Circle returning

--Onandagan chantThe Earth, the Water, the Fire, the Air Return, return, return, return--ChantIntroductionPreparation for the Vision Quest takes place on many levels. The material presented here is intended to add richness and depth to your understanding, supplementing information found in the handbook. While it’s just a beginning, we hope that it will stir you to begin dreaming, imagining, connecting the natural world to yourself and yourself to the natural world. Remember that as you study the Sacred Circle, you are also studying yourself and your own sacred mysteries. As you read through these pages, ask yourself: Where would you place yourself on the Wheel? Which Direction or Shield seems to be your natural home, and which seems the least accessible? Where would you place yourself at this time? Which Powers speak to you? Which Shields are you wearing at this moment? Where are you stuck on the Wheel? When you meet with your guides, they will be pleased to help you to further understand these teachings and their application to the quest.The Circle of SelfLet us begin with the Circle, an ancient symbol of wholeness, unity, completeness, and continuation, having no beginning and no end. This Circle goes by many different names, including Mandala, Circle of Self, Medicine Wheel and Universe Wheel, and appears in widely diverse cultures. The Circle teaches us of the unity and equality of all things within Creation. As expressed by the fifth century B.C. Greek philosopher Empedocles, “God is a Circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”"The Circle is our Way of Touching, and of experiencing Harmony with every other thing around us, " writes Hyemeyosts Storm, a Native American who first brought these teachings to Rites of Passage.

All the things of the Universe Wheel have spirit and life, including the rivers, rocks, earth, sky, plants and animals. But it is only man, of all the beings on the Wheel, who is a determiner. Our determining spirit can be made whole only through the learning of our harmony with all our

brothers and sisters, and with all the other spirits of the Universe. To do this we must learn to seek and to perceive. We must do this to find our place within the Medicine Wheel....

The Vision Quest, or perceiving quest, is the way we must begin this search. We must all follow our Vision Quest to discover ourselves, to learn how we perceive of ourselves, and to find our relationship with the world around us.The Four DirectionsThe Circle can be divided into four quadrants, in which representation—as a cross within a circle--it is found within many cultures. The four directions of the compass can serve as a good starting point for understanding the Wheel. Each direction carries qualities of heart and mind that are rooted in the natural world, and which can be expressed through such aspects as color, season, and animal totems (see the section below on Four Shields for mapping more of these aspects). The essence of each cardinal direction can be described in a few keywords:South—Innocence and trust West—Looking within, introspection North—Give-away, adulthood, wisdom East—Vision, inspiration, spirit“Everything is my mirror,” states the old Vision Quest teaching. The Powers of the Four Directions, which we find in stones and sky, wind and sun, are also within each of us. The Direction of North, for example, becomes the North of me, reflecting those qualities within myself that can be associated with this Direction: adulthood, rationality, work, giving for the sake of the community.Steven Foster and Meredith Little wrote the following for Rites of Passage, focusing on the fundamental quality or essence of each direction. We will move around the Wheel sunwise (clockwise), following the natural movement of the sun through the day, beginning in the South.South (color: Red or Green)

South is the place of summer. Remember your childhood, the green, growing days, when you were filled with the warm, red sap building your bones, determining your gifts and your path? South is the place of innocence and trust. The truth is that we are always children, and the world we have been born into is filled with danger and unknowing. We trust ourselves and continue, one step at a time, touching with our hearts.2

In the South the quality of our heart is tried. We grow into our passions and emotions. We learn by touching and being touched. Through the

expression of our feelings and emotions we begin to acquire the innate wisdom of our ancestors.

Like the little mouse we poke our noses among the roots of things and learn what is and is not. One day we hear a roaring in our ears. We cannot be content until we find out what is causing the roaring. We go to investigate. When we stand trembling at the edge of the Sacred River our Vision Quest begins.West (color: Black)

The sun sets in the West. Mother Earth veils her face. Radiance fades from the horizon and we begin to steer by inner light. The moon arises and spreads our dreams with quicksilver. The illumination of the day is transformed into the reflected illumination of night. Look into an obsidian mirror. The darkness drinks in the light, yet an image is seen "as in a glass darkly."

The West is woman, mother and Grandmother Earth. The owl, the bear, and the rattlesnake live here. All living beings must come to the West, to the womb, to the placenta of change, to wait in the stillness of the eye of the hurricane for manna, the sign, the knowing--for the thing in the seed to break its cover of decay.

The West is the bitter-sweet of fall. The West is the maturing, the harvest, the decaying. In the West we learn to introspect, to look within, with insight to fact the monsters of our little sleeps, our little deaths. The West is our inwardness, our half- yearning to fall away from the flesh toward the gulf of spirit and eternity.

There is a light that shines in the darkness, a tiny spring of cool water hidden in the desert. This is the secret mystery of the West.North (color: White)

It is winter. All things are enveloped in snow. The wind blows cold, piling up the snow in drifts. Here in the North there is a dance all things must learn. It is the dance of the hammer of winter. Dancing in rhythm to the dance hammer we learn the steps of survival. Here we learn how to give so our people may live.

What we give is flesh, sinew, bone, brain, will, love and wisdom. We nourish others, by our lives and by our deaths. Whatever insights we attain, whatever gifts we bear, we shape into a living force of mind and purpose. Whatever visions we see on the sacred mountains of our Vision Quest are not for self alone, but for all the people.

North is the place of wisdom, rational thought and natural sense. The fruits of the mind grow here: science, philosophy, metaphysics, language, mathematics. The soil is nourished by discipline. The crop is grown by knowledge of natural law. North is a shield with white feathers on which are painted symbols of the hunter, the planter and the builder.

North is the adult in all of us. The buffalo and the bighorn sheep live here. They gave themselves with courage and abandon to the flint arrow, dying and giving away so that the people might live.3

East (color: Gold)

High in the East the golden eagle sheds a feather on the winds of dawn. Something that was rigid and frozen in the seed breaks apart. It is the root. As the sun feather drifts across the sky, the root takes hold. The name of the root is spring.

The spirit tugs at substance, saying "Come with me. Lift free from the black, frozen earth." We are drawn toward the blue distance of the sky, where the eagle flies high and sees far, where we can see into the obscured future. Aloft on the wings of morning, we are illumined, inspired.

The East is the spark, the flame, lightning. It is the fire of creativity in all of us. It is the artist, the poet, the visionary. In the East a little girl is born, a little girl with golden hair, a mirror image of the dark woman of the West. Her name is Muse. The song she sings goes: "Everything that dies is reborn."The Four ShieldsIf we follow the Four Directions into the specific realm of the human being, we arrive at the Four Shields. A shield serves dual purposes: to defend the bearer from harm, and to express, through its design and themes, the individual who stands behind it—the unique “medicine” of this person. The Four Shields represent the four archetypal components of a human being: Body, Soul, Mind and Spirit. The Shields can serve as a map of human development, reflected in the turning seasons: Childhood (the South/Summer shield) gives way to Adolescence (West/Fall), which yields to Adulthood (North/Winter), which gives birth to Elderhood (East/Spring). They can work as a diagnostic tool: which of your Shields is overdeveloped, and which underdeveloped? Are you stuck in one Shield, to the impoverishment of others? We need access to all four Shields in order to discover and claim our wholeness within the Circle of Self.The Shields allow inner being to be represented as mask or persona. Steven Foster and Meredith Little write:The four seasons, faces, personas, shields of human self-thus* correspond to and consist of the four seasons, faces, personas—shields of the earth. In humans, the four faces are: summer (the emotional, instinctive, physical, reactive body-child), fall (the inward, self-conscious, psychological soul of transition), winter (the rational, responsible, controlled, interdependent mind of maturity) and spring (the regenerating, healing, creative spirit of that which is born from death). Body, psyche, mind, and spirit. The same four faces are worn by all living forms of self- thus*: the physical, the psychological, the rational, and the spiritual.From The Four Shields: The Initiatory Seasons of Human Nature.

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(*Note: the term “self-thus” refers to essential nature, existing in/as each thing)

The following descriptions present images, concepts and metaphors for each Shield, taking the universal archetypes further into the realm of the human. You’ll notice that these descriptions contain aspects of the shadow/negative (stuck) capacity for each direction: The innocence of the Child of the South includes a capacity for cruelty. The introspection of the Adolescent of the West includes the capacity for extreme self- absorption and depression. The rationality of the Adult of the North includes the capacity for hyper-rationalism or workaholism. The illumination of the Elder of the East includes the capacity for spacey, ungrounded “mysticism.”South/Summer ShieldTrust in our physical connection with the world around us, and the direct experience of it, are necessary for wholeness. This is the place of emotion. If we grow up in a family where it is unsafe to feel or show emotions, we start to shut them down or mistrust them. If we are to become whole, we will have to learn about them later. The South/Summer Shield is about self-power, life force, abundance, and innate growth, reflecting the qualities of Summer. “I want what I want,” says the child. The body’s needs demand immediate gratification. It’s the place of erotic love, of hunger, of fear and aggression. The playground bully lives here, and the scared child. Violence and war are possible expressions of this Shield. The paradox is that, if we are to become whole, the innate innocence and trust of the child must survive in a world that contains violence. There are no feelings of guilt here. Following our curiosity like the mouse, we learn by “poking our nose in.”Stage Childhood Season Summer Animal Mouse Color Red (for blood, emotion), or Green (for growth in summer) Element Water 4 Aspects Body, Fear, Ego, Eros Activity Play Love Erotic Identity Ego, the “I” Indicators Automatic reactionSurvival instinct Fear, fight or flight reaction Flow of emotions Athletic prowess Instant gratification Sensuality Body focus5

Inner image Little boy (for a man), little girl (for a woman); child of same

gender Function Sensation Archetype The Child; the Lover Stuck in South Caught in the whirl of emotions; helpless; immature; egotisticalWest/Fall ShieldThe innocence of South/Summer must be lost if we are to grow up. Here we enter the labyrinth of dark interiority, to discover ourselves and our relations to others. The “fall from childhood” is mirrored by the season of Fall. Depression—as grief, as memory, as entering our depths—is necessary for growth. The father/mother, the opposite of our own gender, is the first teacher of how we feel about ourselves. This Shield holds the power to look within, to find oneself, resulting in the ability to accept and love oneself. Here we learn to steer by our inner light, intuition or inner feeling. This is the shield we must pass through to enter into adulthood. Here we ask for a vision for our life, praying for the strength to make it through the long dark night. Despite the darkness, this is where the personal treasure, the priceless gift, lies. This is also where inner strength and tenacity come from.Stage Adolescence Season Fall Animal Rattlesnake, Bear, Owl Color Black Element Earth 4 Aspects Death, Memory, Soul, Dream Activity Rest Love Of self Identity Soul, psyche, “I am” Indicators Becoming aware of, and taking in, emotions and sensations; becoming aware of oneself and others; relating to others; passing on myths and values; introspection; presence of unconscious urges; “poor me” / victim attitude. Inner image Woman (for a man), man (for a woman); parent of opposite

gender Function Feeling Archetype Shadow (unaccepted parts of ourselves) Stuck in West Victim mentality; anxiety; chronic depression; addictionsNorth/Winter ShieldWe express ourselves by bringing our abilities—the gifts we found in the West/Fall Shield—into the North/Winter. Here we bring them forth. Having gone through the rite of passage, we bring forth the vision that was obtained for all to see, for the benefit of6

the people. This is the place of the initiated ones, those adults that recognize their responsibility in loving and nourishing the whole community.

Community life is rooted in interdependence, and cannot be sustained when individuals carry the illusion of separation from the whole.Stage Adulthood Season Winter Animal Buffalo, bighorn sheep, tule elk Color White Element Air 4 Aspects Work, Discipline, Mind, Community Activity Work Love Of others Identity Mind, “We are” Indicators Self-discipline, self-control, ability to take responsibility; ability to do, to act, to plan, to prepare, to get ready; mind power, ability to organize rational thought; delay of gratification; personal value system; diplomacy, peacemaking. Inner image Man (for a man), Woman (for a woman); parent of same

gender Function Thinking Archetype King; Queen; Emperor Stuck in North Workaholic, lack of emotions, difficulty being playful, aloofness, hyper-

rational, brilliant mind but self-centered, lacking soul or psychological depthEast/Spring ShieldWe have learned about ourselves, and about life, by direct experience of each of the Shields. Now we are ready to pass on that information, to share the wisdom we have found. We are able to step back, to step outside of ourselves and see the bigger picture, to look with “eagle eyes.” As a result, we begin to think in bigger, more visionary ways, considering the impact of actions not only on ourselves and our immediate family/community/country/nation, but also on a global level and on future generations.Stage Elderhood, infancy Season Spring Animal Eagle, hawk Color Gold Element Fire 4 Aspects Birth, Inspiration, Spirit, Vision Activity Prayer7

Love Of Spirit, or God Identity Spirit, “Thou art” Indicators Illumination, mystical experience, spirituality, connection

with things, transformation, creativity, rebirth Inner image Little boy (for a woman), little girl (for a man) Function Intuition Archetype Spirit; the Muse; Angels Stuck in East Airy fairy, wanting to stay in the light, no shadow, magicalthinking, “flying boy/girl” (puer aeternus)Two further directions: Above and Below

We are surrounded by six directions: the four cardinal points, the Sky above, and the Earth below. The Skyward direction touches the heavens, the realm of Spirit, spirit guides and sacred ancestors. The Earthward direction touches the the ground, the source of all life (everything is made from the body of the Mother Earth), the bones of our ancestors, and our own bodies. The sacred center of our Medicine Wheel is always here, just where we are standing/sitting/walking. We are like a gyroscope, surrounded by a living sphere represented by the six directions.When you claim your circle, you symbolically take your place at the center of the total universe, at the center of your purpose. You acknowledge the ancient truth: “I am what I perceive, and I am what perceives me.”--Steven Foster and Meredith Little8