November 12, 2003
Awakened Woman's Circle is working for peace
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The Cosmic Foundation Circles
from Dreaming the Council Ways
by Ohky Simine Forest
The first principle in the Council of People reinforces that both men and women must be introduced into the Earth-Moon Lodge, for we are all born of this lodge. To accomplish this, women must embrace the Earth authority in the center of the community and hold with their sisters, the Earth circle, with all the power that this lodge requires. The first precept dictates that all women are, and must be, the real teachers of the Earth laws on this plane. Unfortunately, many women, mostly in Western societies, have forgotten and become disconnected from the first hoop, their Moon Lodge, and their roots. They cannot, therefore, be proper teachers, anymore than men can learn the true ways of living on Earth. The result is that men really never enter into the Earth-Moon Lodge during the Era of Man and have rather created a Sky-Sun Lodge on Earth. Needless to say, humanity desperately needs to restore the roots of the Moon Lodge, before our tree of humans dies from lack of sap to feed its roots and being.
It is essential to be clear on what natural authority for a woman may involve in her Earth circle. Power and true influence, for a woman,must abide at the center of her world. By externally seeking authority within the Sun (men's) circle, she may simply emulate the men's lodge, denying her true self. On a long-term basis, this is erroneous and destructive to her, because she will disengage seriously from her true feminine circle and start fighting against her own Moon Lodge, as well as the male Sun Lodge. Natural authority, for a woman, is not outside in the world. It resides at the seat of her womb, in creating her own circle in the center of her being. From there, she must live and create all the movements of her life in pursuing her vision in the world.
Because natural economy belongs to the female principle, the first step to freedom for a woman is through her economic independence. She may have developed moral and spiritual freedom, but if she still depends on a man for her survival, she will never be a truly free woman. This is the first step toward her natural autonomy. Once a woman has taken her inward authority, she declares her existence as a free and fluid being, not afraid to fight for her truth. She can move mountains, rejecting the limitations of being a female in a male society. Through this, she originates a true inward revolution, helping to shift the wheel of her own circle. Since 5,4000 B.C., her wheel has become quite rusty, so the task is not easy. When she does this, she can assert her own feminine difference, not by fighting the male world, by making the changes in the basis of her own life and making the space for her own ways.
Once she reaches her center ring, no longer perceiving herself as an outsider trying to emulate the men's lodge, once she conceives of herself at the center of the creation, she finds herself linked with all the other women of her own circle. She ten feels connected with all the women in her womb and is not isolated anymore.
Once a woman lives again in her inner hoop, a powerful metamorphosis occurs in both the male and female circles. The circles find their proper places. In this very principle resides the stability of every society. A woman must be willing to penetrate into the Earth cave of the nine Underworlds, walk with her fears, plunge into the unknown. She must own this immense obligation, for after all, this is our lodge of women. We must not be afraid to get to know our great Mother. If woman fears Earth's secret labyrinths, how can a man ever meet her and learn how to live in balance on Earth. Every woman must show the way into Earth. By emancipating herself from her too-often confining vanity, by overcoming her narcissism and emotional distress, she sees beyond her self-doubts and stops seeing herself reflected in the eyes of all others, especially of men. By liberating herself from the constant search for approval, she opens the eyes of her womb, finding true purpose and direction based on her most intimate knowledge of Earth, no longer guided by what the society asks her to become, but by what her spirit tells her to be.
Many women still stand empty in their own inner wombs, however. The reflected image of the society represents superficial ways of being a woman. On the day that we cease to observe thousands of man-made sexual-power advertisements showing half-naked women lying on cars to sell a product (an undeniable offense to a woman's dignity), on that day the lesson will be learned. Hopefully, one day, women will refuse to play this game any longer. Power, for a woman, is expressed from within the Earth (not on cars!). It is not easy to embrace or affirm the Earth within each of us, but, when we do, we receive tremendous courage and great inward balance.
Once a woman reaches the balance of her own inner authority from the Earth, she is no longer a prey. She becomes a true jaguar huntress, owning a veritable spiritual purpose. Before this, she has nothing, no true vision. She just wanders in life. Even when she "plays" the game of the society, thinking she is hunting there, she can also be prey to her own emulation. A woman can only be happy when, with a renewed vision from the Moon Lodge, she participates actively in the growth of a society. In the Era of Man, woman, confined to the role of child-rearing, was not really happy, for it was not enough to encourage her self-realization. Conceiving a child cannot be considered a true, personal creation. It is primarily a biological function, for the child is created by universal forces. So a woman must seek to conceive and birth her own vision from within. She will then understand her place in society and how her world fits in it -- how, as a true natural educator, she contributes to the balancing of these two natural circles.
In these times, the patriarchal paradigms must be completely overcome, and this begins with an understanding of what they are. In all patriarchies, based fundamentally on possession of private land, the defense of men's estates has become a real issue. All during the Era of Man, men have possessed the land, the soil, the Earth, and, at the same time, woman, who is the very Earth. With the end of most nomadic societies, the sacredness and mystery attributed to fertility no longer had a place. In the Era of Man, men plowed the Earth. Her fruits were seen as his creations. The feminine principle was thus irrevocably displaced outside the inner circle. Women's domain of economy, agriculture, education of the people and children, sacred ceremonies and healing practices, her powers, land, and ascendancy, were all passed under his hegemony. Women were limited only to child rearing and to nursing and curing men fro their adventures in their own quest for power. Because men now owned the Earth, they became quite concerned about their own mortality, hence the extreme importance given to sons, the future heirs, and the diminished importance given to the birth of daughters.
During the Era of Man, the positive archetypes in Western societies of how to live in balance within the inherent specifics of that era were not assimilated in most areas of the planet. The positive archetypes would have shown men how to help women fight for higher spiritual ideals alongside them. Instead, women gave away their Earth power to men. As a result, they were no longer free, and men took advantage. Why not? They allowed the institution of marriage to become a suffocating burden, because they needed to ensure the paternity of their children. Abortion became illegal, adultery and divorce severely restricted. If women appeared too smart or too loquacious, they were criticized and burned. At all costs, women must not be allowed to disturb man's "consecrated" plans!
I remember once giving this same speech and being told by a woman, "Ohky, this may still happen in third-world countries, but surely not in our postmodern society, least of all in the United States, where the emancipation of women has been the motto in these last four decades." I simply replied that we all might be quite surprised to see how many unspoken frustrations women still contain within themselves, as the result of not being truly heard by their men at home. Well, of course, this opened the circle to a very long talk that night about the frustrations of the attending women. Women all need to think of this; to observe how men still rule or impose on their world, starting from those in government, right down to our jobs or our households.
. . .
Once a woman has achieved the restitution of her inner lodge, she is prepared to receive men in her circle. This is the second principle, which states that a man must be introduced into the Moon Lodge in the Earth, to birth alongside her, in the sweet ways of living on Earth. The way of true democracy in the Medicine Wheel ways teaches that men must be humble enough to reach the Earth-Woman Lodge, to learn primarily from women, with respect and consciousness. From the sky, they come onto the Earth plane. It is here that women can educate them about the skill of true organization, Earth timing, ways of respect of all natural things on this planet, Earth economy, ecology, veneration of the sacred and feminine laws of this plane. Many times, however, women go in his lodge first. This creates an imbalance, for it is men who must come into our lodge first.
What does it mean for a man to enter with his feminine self into the Earth realm? When does this occur? Usually, in a traditional and balanced matriarchal society, the mother teaches a young boy about the respect and veneration for the woman's lodge. Then, when, as a man, the warrior is disposed to fulfill his vision in the world, he must always return to the Moon Lodge, the feminine lodge living within and without him. For him, entering the Earth Lodge with humbleness also signifies his integrity as a man, as a warrior, and his willingness to comprehend his feminine side and to put himself in a woman's moccasins. This task is quite difficult for most men.
In exchange, women must honor the refection of their warrior within. They must respect his coming into their lodge and stop resenting and fighting him. Women must be open to men with all their love. Many women hold much anger toward men. They must understand, however, that, within all men, there is a reflection of their own warrioress, in this instance, themselves. Women must not think of themselves as being separate from men. And men cannot think of themselves as separate from women. The internal reflection of being twins is given by the universal archetype of creation. Men and women both belong to the same reflection in the waters of the Moon and the fire of the Sun. Both live within all men and women. Deep within a woman's inner voice of truth, she will find a warrior. Deep within a man's inner vision of beauty, he will find a warrioress. Both are linked in our dream bodies, in the great dream of the cosmic serpent.
From Dreaming the Council Ways, True Native
Teachings from the Red Lodge, Samuel Weiser, 2000, pp.
239-244. Reprinted with permission of Red Wheel/Weiser LLC.
Dreaming the Council Ways by Ohky Simine Forest is available
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423-7087, by fax at (877) 337-3309, or by email at
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