Saskatchewan’s Sacred Circle

by Carol Perehudoff
The medicine wheel helped me
realize that my life could use a
lot more balance.

It’s nice to know some things are still sacred. The 1,700-year old medicine wheel at Wanuskewin Heritage Park just outside Saskatoon, Sask., is so sacred it’s hard to find anyone to talk about it.

“It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to speak about it as I’m not an elder,” says Lorin Gardypie, Wanuskewin’s Cultural Resources Co-ordinator. “And remember, if you do meet an elder you need to make an offering of tobacco.”

Tobacco is a small price to pay for a living link to a mystical place, but the elder whom Lorin recommends is fasting and therefore unavailable.

Finally, I decide to go out to see the medicine wheel on my own. It’s not the first time I’ve been here. Wanuskewin is one of Saskatchewan’s top draws. For at least 6,000 years it was a gathering spot for Northern Plains Peoples. Today, there are 19 pre-contact sites, an interpretive centre and a comprehensive trail system that winds in and out of the river valley.

The medicine wheel, or sacred hoop, is one of the most mysterious remains of the nomadic tribes who roamed here. Set amid the prairie grasslands on a plateau overlooking the South Saskatchewan River, the wheel is a circular boulder alignment that sits at the end of the Circle of Harmony Trail.

It’s one of at least 70 medicine wheels scattered over North America and no two are alike. Some are made up of a single ring, some have double rings, some are shaped like stars. Many have central cairns and are divided by spoke-like lines of stones.

Some, like the famous Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, are aligned with the stars. Their original purpose is unclear. They might have been burial grounds, or places for ritual, ceremony and healing. Some say they’re a way of communicating with other life forms: spirits, the creator, even aliens.

The wind smells like sage as I stand on the viewing platform overlooking the stones. A flock of geese flies overhead, signalling fall. This is one of the northernmost wheels in existence, and while it’s not made up of huge standing monoliths, like a Canadian Stonehenge, it has nonetheless survived since about 300 AD. Strangely, the grass here hardly grows compared to the long grasses that surround it.

Image: Teepees in Wanuskewin, Saskatchewan sight of the 1,700 year old medicine wheel

Years ago, when I had just returned from living abroad and was at a crossroads in my life, I came here for the first time. You wouldn’t think an ancient circle of stones can help you get your life in order, but medicine wheels have likely been healing tools for centuries.

Today, New Age practitioners have adopted the concept of the medicine wheel because of its holistic idea of balance. In healing terms, the medicine wheel represents the cycle of life and is divided into four slices: heart, mind, body and soul. If one of these areas is neglected, it’s believed, illness can be the result.

The medicine wheel helped me realize that my life could use a lot more balance, a simple thing to learn, yet one that provided a lot of clarity.

Now, I’m curious to see what more I can learn. I stare at the stones, but the medicine wheel isn’t talking, like a shrink who listens but makes you come up with your own answers.

One day, hopefully, I’ll be able to come here with an elder, but for now, it’s just me and the wheel.

Finally, I backtrack along the trail, past ancient tipi rings and the Opamihaw Buffalo Jump, where massive bison stampeded to their deaths some 2,300 years ago.

Back at the Visitor’s Centre, I start talking to Tala Tootoosis, a cultural interpreter, who helps me understand why medicine wheels are so hard to define.

“There is no right or wrong way to interpret things,” she says. “There are lots of tribes and they all have different teachings. Each person has a different purpose in life so we all have to learn different things. There’s a different meaning in everything, this all comes from the cycle of life.”

I take this to mean that a medicine wheel has a unique lesson for each of us. A shrink couldn’t have said it better.

Wanuskewin Heritage Park is five kilometres north of Saskatoon.

For more information visit http://www.wanuskewin.com




Source: http://www.thestar.com/

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