spirit of olias

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Spirit of lias

these ideas and symbols center on the nature and importance of such things as: wholeness, oneness, justice, love, peace, forgiveness.

understanding these ideas has been a key project in many of the world's past and present metaphysical and epistemological systems; and finding some way to make them manifest in this world has constituted a significant and sometimes primary project for many of the world's past and present religious and moral systems.

this collection is incomplete, come back soon and see what's been added.

"The main symbolic figures of a religion are always expressive of the particular moral and mental attitude involved. I mention, for instance, the cross and its various religious meanings. Another main symbol is the Trinity...The unconscious mind, however, transforms it into a quaternity, being a unity at the same time, just as the three persons in the Trinity are one and the same God...the human soul seems to harbor mysteries...if we want to know anything of what religious experience means to those who have it, we have every chance nowadays of studying every imaginable form of it. And if it means anything, it means everything to those who have it."

Carl Gustav Jung - Psychology and Religion, 1938

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If you and I were sitting in a circle of people on the prarie, and if I were then to place a painted drum or an eagle feather in the middle of this circle, each of us would perceive these objects differently. our vision of them would vary according to our individual positions in the circle, each of which would be unique...

    In many ways this Circle, this Medicine Wheel, can best be understood if you think of it as a mirror in which everything is reflected. "The Universe is the Mirror of the People," the old Teachers tell us, "and each person is a Mirror to every other person." Any idea, person or object can be a Medicine Wheel, a Mirror. The tiniest flower can be such a Mirror, as can a wolf, a story, a touch, a religion or a mountain top. For example, one person alone on a mountain top at night might feel fear. Another might feel calm and peaceful. Still another might feel lonely, and a fourth person might feel nothing at all. In each case the mountain top would be the same, but it would be perceived differently as it reflected the feelings of the different people who experienced it...
     Our Teachers tell us that all things within this Universe Wheel know of their Harmony with every other thing, and know how to Give-Away one to the other, except people.Of all the Universe's creatures, it is we alone who do not begin our lives with knowledge of this great Harmony.
     All the things of the Universe Wheel have spirit and life, including the rivers, rocks, earth, sky, plants and animals. But it is only a person, 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. To determine this place we must learn to Give-Away...
     The Sun Dancer belives that each person is a unique living Medicine Wheel, powerful beyond imagination, that has been limited and placed upon this earth to Touch, Experience and Learn...
    I want you, my Brothers and Sisters, to know that I too am still learning about the Way of the People. The Understanding of this Way is not found just through the memorization of Stories and Symbols. It is a Living, Growing Thing that comes from Touching and Experiencing within each of the Four Great Directions.
     The Sun Dance Way itself is a Living Thing. It is always Growing and Turning within the People. It is not to be learned by studying archaic rituals or traditions, but by Seeking Understanding and then allowing it to Grow within your own Heart and Mind...
     You too are a Medicine Wheel, and the magic of your Perceiving will be unfolded.

Hyemeyohsts Storm - Seven Arrows, 1972.

"The basic shape of this symbol is made up of the three simplest geometric shapes, a square, a triangle, and a circle, superimposed over each other. The square...represents the earth and what is human. The triangle...the heavenly and the divine. The circle, a unit, represents the unity of heaven and earth together. The earthly square is entirely encompassed within the circle, within the unity between the earthly and the divine. But the heavenly triangle actually breaks through the circle. The divine itself transcends the unity between heaven and earth. The circle, the unity between heaven and earth, has rays radiating out from it, the rays of the sun.

Even though the triangle symbolizes divinity, the circle as the sun also comes to symbolize the divine. God may be sought as God, but may also be sought as the unity and completion of all things. God is both transcendent and imminent at the same time. Also present within the symbol, if one wishes to see it, is the suggestion of a cross in the center of the figure. The pattern is split down the middle suggesting the upright of the cross, while horizontal lines breaking the edge of the triangle inside the square suggest the cross-piece."

Thomas Mosbo - YES But What Does It Mean?, 1994

"The traditional public realm of universal citizenship has operated to exclude persons associated with the body and feeling - especially women, Blacks, American Indians, and Jews. Many contemporary theorists of participatory democracy retain the ideal of a civic public in which citizens leave behind their particularity and differences. Because such a universalist ideal continues to threaten the exclusion of some, the meaning of 'public' should be transformed to exhibit the positivity of group differences, passion, and play. ...assimilationist values violate basic respect for persons.

...the normative ideal of the homogenous public does not succeed in its stated aim of creating a harmonious nation. In group-differentiated societies conflict, factionalism, divisiveness, civil warfare, do often occur between groups. The primary cause of such conflict, however, is not group difference per se, but rather the relations of domination and oppression between groups that produce resentment, hostility, and resistance among the oppressed. Placing a normative value on homogeneity only exacerbates division and conflict, because it gives members of the dominant groups reason to adopt a stance of self-rightiousness and intractibility...a just polity must embrace the ideal of a heterogenous public. Group differences of gender, age, and sexuality should not be ignored, but publically acknowledged and accepted. Even more so should group differences of nation or ethnicity be accepted. In the twentieth century the ideal state is composed of a plurality of nations or cultural groups, with a degree of self-determination and autonomy compatible with federated equal rights and obligations of citizenship. Many states of the world embrace this ideal, though they often realize it only very imperfectly."

Iris Marion Young - Justice and the Politics of Difference, 1990

Where lie your greatest dangers? - In pity.

What do you love in others? - My hopes.

Whom do you call bad? - The person who always wants to make ashamed.

What is to you the most humane thing? - To spare anyone shame.

What is the seal of freedom attained? - No longer to be ashamed of oneself.

Friedrich Neitzsche - The Gay Science, 1882