The Star Maidens Circle: The SouthWest
Excerpted from “A Course of Study, Series A: Module 2: THE MEDICINE WHEEL OF LIFE: THE STAR MAIDENS CIRCLE″, written by Mary Flaming Crystal Mirror. See Part 1: Introduction here.
The Southwest of the SMC is the place of Symbols and Process of Life Experience. In order to understand this direction, we need to know something about how the human mind functions. The wheel in Figure 6 will help us. No matter what, whenever something happens to us, our mind goes through these first four steps: symbols, thoughts, ideas, and image.
Symbols are the basic building blocks of communication and understanding. Every word, phrase, and sound translates into a picture or symbol in our mind. It is a way we file data. Symbols carry with them specific energies, feelings and charges that are subjectively perceived by each of us, based on our experience with that symbol. They do not necessarily represent the reality of what happens.
A collection of symbols will translate into a thought, that is, our power to reason. Thoughts make our body feel something from the emotions.
A collection of thoughts will translate into an idea, which will have a central meaning or purpose. Ideas are experienced in the body. They trigger change and take you from an internal to an external process.
Two or three ideas will translate into an image, a completed picture or form, which is a representation of our symbols, thoughts, and ideas. At the time of any happening, it is our level of development and ability to clearly discern reality from unreality which determines if we will have greater or lesser flexibility and light in our opinions, beliefs, belief systems and philosophy/religion.
Depending on what we are focusing on at the time something happens to us, our subjective reality will open or close the symbols presented in the experience. What influences our symbolic interpretation the most is our concept of our self, how we view the world and our attachment to our stories of the South. Closed symbols are those experiences which are unknown, feared, or presented as threatening. They are limitations because we are usually at the effect of our fears— that is, we allow our fears to control us. It is as if there is a monster behind each closed symbol.
Let me use a graphic example to explain this. Picture yourself as a child standing in your crib. Through the door bursts a 500 pound gorilla wearing a yellow shirt. He shakes your crib and puts a terrible scare into you. You are so frightened you can’t deal with the reality of what happened. So you repress the incident. Now as an adult, every time you see the color yellow, your palms sweat, you are scared, and want nothing to do with it—but you don’t know why. The color yellow becomes a closed symbol, and the “gorilla incident” is the monster behind that closed symbol. Furthermore, the monster doesn’t go away. Every time you encounter the color yellow, it rattles the cage you put it in. Therefore, you must feed it, and the food it eats is your energy, your orende. This is a simplistic way of looking at how a closed symbol is formed. But it will give you some idea.
Another attribute of closed symbols is complacency. This is especially true when a closed symbol is disguised as open. Because something is comfortable and familiar, we assume we are open, when in fact we are being complacent, numbing ourselves to life instead of being fully present and risking. This is a more subtle way of being caught in a dark mirror in the Southwest.
Open symbols are those experiences that are a natural part of the action. They are in line with the current rewriting of the script and, therefore, have little or no charge to them. By opening a closed symbol and moving into that new, feared space, you will gain energy, knowledge, and teaching about the reality of living life.
Action sits in the Southwest on the Movie Drama Wheel. Are you in the flow, present, and taking action or asleep, waiting for something to happen? From the gorilla example, once you open the closed symbol and deal with the monster, you will have a freedom of action wherever you encounter the color yellow. You might even enjoy wearing some yellow clothing, which was previously not possible for you.
The Warrior’s Attributes in the Southwest are space and distance. This refers to the gap between yourself and life’s experiences. When the action is happening and the cameras are rolling, space refers to how well you can stay open to the action and remain centered within yourself.
Distance refers to how close you will allow others (and life’s experience) inside your energy field. You will notice that a boxer constantly leads with short jabs, trying to gauge the space between himself and his opponent. When he determines the amount of space, he will know the distance he needs to cover in order to deliver his knock-down punch. When confronted with a closed symbol, do you need to create more space or close the gap in order to deal with it?
#DTMMS #DeerTribe #Heal #Change #Grow
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