The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

emphasize restoration of wholeness, for disease is a condition of
division and separation from the harmony of the whole. Beauty
is wholeness. Health is wholeness. Goodness is wholeness. The
Hopi refer to a witch—a person who uses the powers of the
universe in a perverse or inharmonious way—as a two-hearts,
one who is not whole but is split in two at the center of being.
The circle of being is not physical, but it is dynamic and alive. It
is what lives and moves and knows, and all the life forms we
recognize—animals, plants, rocks, winds—partake of this
greater life. Acknowledgment of this dynamic unity allows
healing chants such as this from the Night Chant to heal (make a
person whole again):
Happily I recover.
Happily my interior becomes cool.
Happily I go forth.
My interior feeling cool, may I walk.
No longer sore, may I walk.
As it used to be long ago, may I walk.
Happily, with abundant dark clouds, may I walk.
Happily, with abundant showers, may I walk.
Happily, with abundant plants, may I walk.
Happily, on a trail of pollen, may I walk.
Happily, may I walk. 9
Because of the basic assumption of the wholeness or unity of
the universe, our natural and necessary relationship to all life is
evident; all phenomena we witness within or “outside”
ourselves are, like us, intelligent manifestations of the intelligent
universe from which they arise, as do all things of earth and the
cosmos beyond. Thunder and rain are specialized aspects of this
universe, as is the human race. Consequently, the unity of the
whole is preserved and reflected in language, literature, and