Locating Ourselves

The following paragraphs are excerpted from a paper I wrote last December titled "The Medicine Wheel: Image of Lakota Spirituality." They are related to the theme of finding our own sacred space found in one of the earliest posts here.

Peter Brokenleg, a Lakota singer and teacher, postulates that the purpose of all ritual is to create, restore, and maintain relationships.[1] Relationship is thus central to all Lakota ritual, and most Lakota prayers end with the words “Mitakuye Oyasin,” variously translated as “we are all relatives” or “for all my relatives.” This represents more than human relations and includes all creation: the four-leggeds, the wingeds, the swimming, the creeping, the plant and tree nations, the sun and moon and star nations, mother earth, our ancestors and our descendants, all spirits and powers, and ultimately that Great Mystery we call Grandfather, the Creator. This intimate connection with all creation—which itself is seen as a living reality, “thou” and not “it”—is understood in the recognition of the circle and the directions.

After “sending a voice” to Tunkashila, Grandfather, the Creator, the directions are addressed. Elaine Jabner notes that “[i]n all Sioux ritual, the four directions are greeted with the usual order for the greeting being the same as the myth's order for the establishment of directions.”[2] West is thus the first direction and they are then saluted “sunwise” (or “clockwise”): West, North, East, and South. Black Elk continued his prayer thus:

You toward where the sun goes down [West], behold me; Thunder Beings, behold me! You where the White Giant lives in power [North], behold me! You where the sun shines continually [East], whence come the day-break star and the day, behold me! You where the summer lives [South], behold me![3]

He then continues turning toward the zenith and nadir as follows:

You in the depths of the heavens [Above], an eagle of power, behold! And you, Mother Earth [Below], the only Mother, you who have shown mercy to your children! Hear me, four quarters of the world—a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.[4]

This salutation of the six directions—the four cardinal directions plus up and down—characterizes and begins Lakota ritual. Participants are thus located, grounded, established, before they proceed. Such relatedness carries with it blessing, obligation, and great power. It also places each person at the crossing of the two roads, the center of the circle, for in Lakota thought this represents “here and now.” Each person is always at this crossroads, facing all its choices.[5] As Black Elk noted, “anywhere is the center of the world.”[6]

[1] Class notes from “Native American Ritual,” GTU summer school course taught at PSR.
[2] The story is well summarized in Elaine Jabner, "The Spiritual Landscape," I Become Part of It: Sacred Dimensions in Native American Life, ed. D. M. Dooling and Paul Jordan-Smith, (New York, NY: Parabola Books, 04/12/03, 1989)197-199. A fuller telling of the establishment of the directions may be found in D. M. Dooling, ed., The Sons of the Wind: The Sacred Stories of the Lakota (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000).
[3] John G Neihardt. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1988) 5.
[4] Neihardt, op. cit., 6.
[5] Brokenleg, class notes.
[6] Neihardt, loc. cit.