Some North America Circle Associations-4 Directions

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spiralwind

Some North America Circle Associations-4 Directions

Post by spiralwind »

This is just some of my personal notes of associations put together into an organised way. Thought might help some.

A circle is the symbol of Mother Earth representing endless time, the living world is in balance with no beginning and no end. Sun, Sky, Earth and Moon are round, is “The Great Circle“ also called the “Sacred Hoop”. The four elements are seen as each a complete circle or hoop. When a circle is cast, all four elements blend together as one circle. Each element is in perfect balance to the others. Whatever color correspondence is used for a direction, the hoop is called by the name of the color. The colors are chosen either to represent the element or one of the four races of humans. For example, Asians (Yellow Race); Indians (Red); Africans (Black); Europeans (White). At one time the elements and the directions were independent of each other. Now everything is consolidated to keep people from changing things too much. Often intents can be associated with two or three directions. Once the element could be moved if the basic meaning of a direction remained fixed. The center represents three realms:
1. Above
2. Ground level
3. Below.
The four directions plus center, make a complete circle. Directions make up the four seasons, the cross-quarters also have meanings. Is a symbol of peaceful interaction among all living beings on Mother Earth - Circles are walked in a clockwise direction (the direction of the Sun). It can show the stages in a person’s life or spiritual development. Life doesn’t end at the completion, walking the life journey causes rebirth or renewal. You just start all over again, a circle is continuous without end.

Correspondences in primitive form, US Native American Indians.
I’m giving you this, since it works for me and some might find interesting to compare associations. Please note: A few walk the circle backwards, this happened after contact with the Europeans. For example, for the South some Lakota, Pine Ridge-White (represents when we complete the circle of life, going to the Spirit World)

East Wind-The Teacher
EAST -Where Grandfather Sun begins his walk, a place for wisdom and strength of the mind Elders sit in the East and is where the stories of Indigenous people are told.

“The Red East is a place where peace, light and new life rise up each day. Blood and birth are from the East. The Spotted Eagle, being all these things, represents this direction and its feathers are said to bring insight and visions. “

March 21 - June 20
Air, Illumination, Wisdom, Clarity
Smudging: Tobacco
Season: Spring (Associated with morning)
Spirit Keeper: Spotted Eagle (Protection, spiritual guidance)
Medicine: Healthy mind
Relationship: Sun
Life Phase: Elder
Associated animals: Spotted Eagle, Wolf, Rabbit
Race Of Humans: Indians (Red)

Colors
Red (Wi-sun)
Red for the East, and enlightenment
Anishinaabe-Yellow
Lakota-Red (Most common)
Lakota, Black Elk-White (color of renewal and spirit, is linked to the East)
Lakota, Pine Ridge-East is Yellow which symbolizes the rising Sun and it is the beginning
Cherokee-Red (symbolized power and healing)
Apache-Black

South Wind-The Healer
SOUTH -Where a sacred tree “The Great Mystery” planted. Symbolizing the interaction or giving to humans (of tree, plant, and animal beings). Represents the breath of warm winds, gentleness, and caring ways. Children sit in the south.

“The Yellow South sees a Sun that is strongest when facing this direction. The representative bird is the Golden Eagle, the South stands for the peak of life, warmth, understanding, and ability.”

June 21 - September 21
Fire, Spirit, Trust, Love, Growth
Smudging: Sage
Season: Summer (Associated with daytime)
Spirit Keeper: Coyote (Intelligence, trickster, intellectual wisdom, and maturity. Note: Some tribes used the mouse as Spirit Keeper)
Race Of Humans: Asians (Yellow Race):

Colors:
Yellow (Inyan-rock)
Anishinaabe-Red
Lakota-Yellow (Most common)
Some Lakota (less common): White for the South (Black for the West; Red for the North; Yellow for the East)
Lakota, Black Elk-Yellow (associated with unity and quiet)
Lakota, Pine Ridge-White (represents when we complete the circle of life, going to the Spirit World)
Some Plains Indians use Earth as the element, with Black for the color of this direction.
Cherokee-White (symbolized blessings, virtue, the rains that fell from the sky, purity and all that was good)
Apache-Blue or Dark Green (same term in Apache)
Medicine: Strong human spirit
Relationship: Mother Earth
Life Phase: Childhood
Associated animals: Deer, Moose, Golden Eagle, and Buffalo

West Wind-The Visionary
WEST -Sweatlodge, sacred rocks, grandfathers, and balanced emotions sought through the braiding of the sweet grass. Women sit in the West.

“The Black West is the place where the rain originates, the direction representing the end or finality of things, and deeds done in the dark are here become final . The Bald Eagle is associated with the West. Having an affinity for this direction, may cause a person to become Heyoka, or Sacred Clown that does everything backwards, in a contrary manner.”

September 22 - December 21
Water, Emotions, Dreams, Experience, Introspection
Smudging: Sweet grass
Season: Fall (Associated with sunset)
Spirit Keeper: Grizzly Bear (Anishinaabe: Odawa, Ojibwe, Algonkin Clan System; Nooke group-Group clans include Grizzly Bear, Bear, Lynx, Wolf, in charge of healing and defense.)
Race Of Humans: Africans (Black)

Colors:
Anishinaabe-Black
Lakota-Black (Most common)
Lakota, Black Elk-Black (color representative of war and confrontation)
Lakota, Pine Ridge-West is Black for the setting Sun, signifying death, the end of our life.
Some Plains Indians use Fire as the element, with Red for the color of this direction.
Apache-Yellow
Cherokee-Black (symbolized the doorway to the spirit world, death, and the place of the thunder beings)
Medicine: Healthy emotions
Relationship: Moon
Life Phase: Youth
Associated animals: Raven, Grizzly Bear, Bald Eagle, and Orca.

North Wind-The Warrior
NORTH: Wisdom of the ages, rebirth, kindness, sustaining of physical life through prayer, and stamina.

“The White North gives a cleansing, purifying and strengthening power. Just as winter does when it cleans the Earth of the weak, the White North sends tests and teaches courage, endurance and wisdom that comes with the trials of life. The White Eagle is associated with this direction, and it is said that those who have a vision of the White Eagle become healers.”

December 23 - March 20
Relationship: Father Sky
Earth, Body, Physical Cleansing, Purity, Renewal
Smudging: Cedar
Season: Winter (Associated with midnight)
Spirit Keeper: White Buffalo (Abundance, power, strength, and balance)
Race Of Humans: Europeans (White)

Colors:
Anishinaabe-White
Lakota-White (Most common)
Lakota, Black Elk-Red (color of law and control, is associated with the North)
Lakota, Pine Ridge-North is Red, for the Red Road that Indians want to walk on.
Some Plains Indians use Water as the element, with White for the color of this direction.
Apache-White
Cherokee-Blue (symbolized adversity, struggle, and those things that harmed the human people)
Medicine: Physical body
Relationship: Father Sky
Life Phase: Adult
Associated animals: White Bear, White Buffalo, White Eagle, Caribou, and Elk
Elem
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Post by Elem »

How very insightful! Thanks for taking the time to share your information with us, spirit :). I can only imagine it took quite a while to organise all of that and put it up on here! I'm sure that it'll come in useful, not just to me, but to others on the board as well.

Thank you :). It's always interesting to read someone else's personal research / notes and observations!

Elem
spiralwind

Post by spiralwind »

Welcome! :D
Eretik
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Post by Eretik »

That was really interesting,a fresh perspective for me. I am born in the timespan of North wind,the description fits well with me and my life patterns/beliefs. Please keep posting your info. I am enjoying it too.
spiralwind

Post by spiralwind »

Eretik, ok as I get time. Some weeks am busy just as others seem to be right now. What things do you like?
Maybe just what is needed at the moment...right?

I might finish the legend of my signature. The version of it found on the Internet is so deleted, people cut out everything interesting. I will give you one of the original in quotes.


Lakota Legend of the Chanunpa
One summer so long ago that nobody knows how long, the Oceti-Shakowin, the seven sacred council fires of the Lakota Oyate, the nation, came together and camped. The sun shone all the time, but there was no game and the people were starving. Every day they sent scouts to look for game, but the scouts found nothing.
Among the bands assembled were the Itazipcho, the Without-Bows, who had their own camp circle under their chief, Standing Hollow Horn. Early one morning the chief sent two of his young men to hunt for game. They went on foot, because at that time the Sioux did not yet have horses. They searched everywhere but could find nothing. Seeing a high hill, they decided to climb it in order to look over the whole country. Halfway up, they saw something coming toward them from far off, but the figure was floating instead of walking. From this they knew that the person was waken, holy.
At first they could make out only a small moving speck and had to squint to see that it was a human form. But as it came nearer, they realized that it was a beautiful young woman, more beautiful than any they had ever seen, with two round, red dots of face paint on her cheeks. She wore a wonderful white buckskin outfit, tanned until it shone a long way in the sun. It was embroidered with sacred and marvelous designs of porcupine quill, in radiant colors no ordinary woman could have made. This wakan stranger was Ptesan-Wi, White Buffalo Woman, also called Ptecincala Ska Wakan Winan. In her hands she carried a large bundle and a fan of sage leaves. She wore her blue-black hair loose except for a strand at the left side, which was tied up with buffalo fur. Her eyes shone dark and sparkling, with great power in them.
The two young men looked at her open-mouthed. One was overawed, but the other desired her body and stretched his hand out to touch her. This woman was lila wakan, very sacred, and could not be treated with disrespect. Lightning instantly struck the brash young man and burned him up, so that only a small heap of blackened bones was left. Or as some say that he was suddenly covered by a cloud, and within it he was eaten up by snakes that left only his skeleton, just as a man can be eaten up by lust.
To the other scout who had behaved rightly, White Buffalo Woman said: "Good things I am bringing, something holy to your nation. A message I carry for your people from the buffalo nation. Go back to the camp and tell the people to prepare for my arrival. Tell your chief to put up a medicine lodge with twenty-four poles. Let it be made holy for my coming."
This young hunter returned to the camp. He told the chief, he told the people, what the sacred woman had commanded. The chief told the eyapaha, the crier, and the crier went through the camp circle calling:
"Someone sacred is coming. A holy woman approaches. Make all things ready for her."
So the people put up the big medicine tipi and waited. After four days they saw the White Buffalo Woman approaching, carrying her bundle before her. Her wonderful white buckskin dress shone from afar. The chief, Standing Hollow Horn, invited her to enter the medicine lodge. She went in and circled the interior sunwise. The chief addressed her respectfully, saying:
"Sister, we are glad you have come to instruct us."
She told him what she wanted done. In the center of the tipi they were to put up an owanka wakan, a sacred altar, made of red earth, with a buffalo skull and a three-stick rack for a holy thing she was bringing. They did what she directed, and she traced a design with her finger on the smoothed earth of the altar. She showed them how to do all this, then circled the lodge again sunwise. Halting before the chief, she now opened the bundle. the holy thing it contained was the chanunpa, the sacred pipe. She held it out to the people and let them look at it. She was grasping the stem with her right hand and the bowl with her left, and thus the pipe has been held ever since.

Again the chief spoke, saying:
"Sister, we are glad. We have had no meat for some time. All we can give you is water."
They dipped some wacanga, sweet grass, into a skin bag of water and gave it to her, and to this day the people dip sweet grass or an eagle wing in water and sprinkle it on a person to be purified.
White Buffalo Woman showed the people how to use the pipe. She filled it with chan-shasha, red willow-bark tobacco. She walked around the lodge four times after the manner of Anpetu-Wi, the great sun. This represented the circle without end, the Sacred Hoop, the road of life. The woman placed a dry buffalo chip on the fire and lit the pipe with it. This was peta-owihankeshini, the fire without end, the flame to be passed on from generation to generation. She told them that the smoke rising from the pipe was Tunkashila's breath, the living breath of the great Grandfather Mystery.
White Buffalo Woman showed the people the right way to pray, the right words and the right gestures. She taught them how to sing the pipe-filling song and how to lift the pipe up to the Great Spirit, up toward Father Sky, and down toward Mother Earth, and then to the four directions of the universe.
"With this holy pipe," she said, "you will walk like a living prayer. With your feet resting upon the earth and the pipestem reaching into the sky, your body forms a living bridge between the Sacred Beneath and the Sacred Above. Wakan Tanka smiles upons us, because now we are as one: earth, sky, all living things, the two-legged, the four-legged, the winged ones, the trees, the grasses. Together with the people, they are all related, one family. The pipe holds them all together."
"Look at this pipe," said White Buffalo Woman. "Its stone represents the buffalo, but also the flesh and blood of the red man. The buffalo represents the universe and the four directions, because he stands on four legs, for the four ages of man. The buffalo was put in the west by Wakan Tanka at the making of the world, to hold back the waters. Every year he loses one hair, and in every one of the four ages he loses a leg. The Sacred Hoop will end when all the hair and legs of the great buffalo are gone, and the water comes back to cover the Earth.
The wooden stem of this chanunpa stands for all that grows on the earth. Twelve feathers hanging from where the stem- the backbone- joins the bowl- the skull- are from Wanblee Galeshka, the spotted eagle, the very sacred, who is the Great Spirit's messenger and the wisest of all who cry out to Tunkashila. Look at the bowl. Engraved in it are seven circles of various sizes. They stand for the seven ceremonies you will practice with this pipe, and for the Ocheti Shakowin, the seven sacred campfires of our Lakota nation."
The White Buffalo Woman then spoke to the women, telling them that it was the work of their hands and the fruit of their bodies which kept the people alive. "You are from the Earth Mother," she told them. "What you are doing is as great as what warriors do."
And therefore the sacred pipe is also something that binds men and women together in a circle of love. It is the one holy object in the making of which both men and women have a hand. The men carve the bowl and make the stem; the women decorate it with bands of colored porcupine quills. When a man takes a wife, they both hold the pipe at the same time and red cloth is wound around their hands, thus tying them together for life.
Eretik
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Post by Eretik »

It's all good,Spiralwind,thank you.
[ForestWitch]
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Post by [ForestWitch] »

Of course, you'd darn well better not touch that sacred c'anupa during your moon time or you are in big, big trouble! Apparently it doesn't bind men and women together in a circle of love then.

I don't mean to take away from the beauty of the White Buffalo Woman legend at all, but I have many times been sick and tired of the outrageous sexism of Lakota spirituality.

I have never heard of dates being associated with the sacred directions and colors; just seasons. I guess the dates would fit being solstices and equinoxes, but I don't think it's like the Zodiac where the time that you were born has significance for your personality traits. At least not among the Lakota; maybe among some other nations that I don't know about.
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Post by jcrowfoot »

I used to know a Lacota woman who did woman-only sweats for the moon-time... the idea is that the energy during that period is dangerous to men. I have heard the reasons... but I don't know if I'd be breaking taboo if I explained. :-( I wasn't happy about that either, and some of it originates from the times *after* white man showed up... but they are still traditions. I had to leave at a critical time in my education so there is plenty I don't know.
[ForestWitch]
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Post by [ForestWitch] »

Yes, as in many other religions, I think some things got added along the way that were never the original intent at all. I understand why moon time is considered dangerous to men, but I don't buy it. In the old days, women were routinely consigned to a separate tipi or lodge for moon time and moon time sweats were the norm. Given the back breaking labor they were otherwise expected to do, I guess it had its advantages for women back then. But these days there are few advantages to being exiled once a month from the few spiritual events women are allowed to participate in.

But yes, just because I think some of these traditions are BS doesn't mean I would ever break them.
Eretik
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Post by Eretik »

Wakan Tanka - The Great Eagle Spirit?I find this fascinating,I was told by someone a while back that a white buffalo calf had been born in the US and it is a sign of hope. We have had a White Hart[male deer] born recently here in Scotland,a rarity and a sign of hope in our old culture too. I am interested in the customs relating to women and their fertility cycles,in all cultures. Could you tell us more of this? And more of the history and legends of the First Nation Peoples,I am learning a lot from this and it is very interesting.
[ForestWitch]
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Post by [ForestWitch] »

Yes, a white buffalo calf, Miracle, was born here in Wisconsin. Some people have taken it as a sign of the White Buffalo Calf Woman's imminent return. Some have seen it as a sign that Black Elk's prophecy that in the seventh generation the sacred hoop would be mended is about to be fulfilled. Some have seen it more as a warning that we are at a time of choice - where we must either choose balance and harmony in the world or suffer the consequences.

Miracle died after only 10 years and a second white buffalo calf born a couple of years later in the same place died after only three days. But last summer a third white calf was born in Janesville and the debate is on about what that means. I understand that there have been white buffalo calves born in other places in the US since Miracle was born.

For anyone interested in Lakota spirituality and prophecy, a good place to start is to read Black Elk Speaks and Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions. There are a couple of pretty good books about Frank Fools Crow, too. There are credibility issues with most of the pre-European histories written about American Indians, but for more recent history, there's still nothing better to read than Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
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Re: Some North America Circle Associations-4 Directions

Post by SpiritTalker »

Bumping 2020
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