Hoop of Hope by Eagle Woman

 (Carol Ann Desjarlais)

~A Synopsis of Soul Gifts: The World’s Self-Help Book ~

 Soul Gifts: The World’s Self-Help Book is are all about “gathering”.  Barbara says of herself in 1985, “As I struggled to manage my life better, I developed the following philosophy:  You.  Can.  Risk.  Change. Be Gentle.  Be Giving. Grow.  Pass it On.  (Page 20 Soul Gifts).   Let us gather and become the “we” of this philosophy.

We.
We Can.
We Can Risk.
We Can Risk Change.
We Can Risk Change. Be Gentle.
We Can Risk Change. Be Gentle. Be Giving.
We Can Risk Change. Be Gentle. Be Giving. Grow.
We Can Risk Change. Be Gentle. Be Giving. Grow. Pass It On.

Through the gentle weave of voices, poetry, art and sound, we are encouraged to take in the words of Soul Gifts: The World’s Self-Help Book and consider personal Peace - that Soul place where Love abides.  It is when our actions, thoughts, and movements are made from this place of Peace, that we can extend Peace to others.

Barbara encourages us to look at ourselves and our key experiences that are triggers for our actions and reactions.  If we look at the patterns in our lives, we will see that we are all Souls longing for that Peace and comfort of our heavenly home - that ultimate place of Peace. 

We.

Say’s Phoebe is the name of a bird that is supposed to migrate to the South West of North America.  It inhabits the foothills, rocky canyons and the open country of Western North America in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains from Saskatchewan to central Texas over to California up through British Columbia, the Yukon and Alaska. It is of accidental occurrence east of the Mississippi.  Say’s Phoebe came to Barbara in the Village of Gagetown, Canada, during one of the coldest winters recorded for the area. [1] It came to teach her how to perch and watch, then to swoop down and skim the surface of things in order to glean the best in this life.  Barbara was that “Say’s Phoebe”.  She found herself in that cold place where she gathered her strength physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.  As Barbara reached out to the little bird off-course, in a cold place, she stirred the firmament with compassion. 

Say's Phoebe in New Mexico
Photo Credit: Keith MacKenzie

The word "phoebe" means "shining" when traced to its old English roots [2] and “bright one” in Greek origins [3].  In mythology, Phoebe was a Titaness - a primordial giant goddess born of heaven and earth who became identified with Artemis - Goddess of the Wilderness, born of heaven and earth. She is also identified with Artemis who helped in protecting and seeing to the well-being of the forest animals and was also known as Goddess of the Moon. [4] All three of the meanings relate to heavenly heights.  Barbara asks us to care for and nurture our inner child that once connected to both the peace of heaven and chaos of earth, to lay down our childhood patterns and step into spiritual maturity that will bring about Peace. (Page 48)  I suggest the “light” of Say’s Phoebe, in Barbara’s life, is “Hope”.

We Can.

“Come,” Barbara says, “join the V of migration.”
 I was in attendance at the Women of God: Women of Good conference, Portland, Maine, 2005.  At the closing of the conference, we gathered into a circle and began to chant: “A river of birds are migrating.  A nation of women with wings”.
There are many ancient stories of my Mother’s People that speak of a time to come in the world when all four colors of people are reunited and use the gifts given to each color [5] to bring a the New World into being:  “The Fifth Hoop”. [6]   This process, I suggest, is happening.  Barbara is picking up the white color’s gifts of words and fire, inviting the yellow to join us with their gifts of air, of breath and incense.  The white and yellow are inviting the red people to join in with their gifts of tobacco, sage and healing herbs of Earth.  The white and yellow and red are inviting the black people to bring their gift of water, dance and song and the use of motion and rhythm to help us create harmony here on earth. 
It is said, in our stories, that women will be restored to their place as healers and shall lead the way while the men, as spiritual warriors in this new time, will be the protectors of the sacred space of women so women can do their work. [7] It has begun.  Women of Valor, tried and tested, will step forward in this protection.  The pendulum of imbalance in the world will stop for the first time since the beginning of our time here. 
“We can risk this,” says Barbara, “from our highest and holiest of places...protected there…from that place of love from whence we flew.” (Page 59)

We Can Risk. 

Fear.  Fear of family secrets.  Fear of unknown and forbidden territories.  Startling Fear.  Fear of Evil.  Fear of making waves.  Fear of the war within.  Fear of flying.
Every so often, in one's life, an experience can cause a life-changing event to take place. A new outlook forms, something changes in our perception, and our comfort zone, and we come to grips with what is causing the underlying problem of our anxiety. For Barbara, it was cancer.
“The details of our life traumas aren’t important; it is how they affect us.  I have been blessed by the lessons of my experience.” (Page 29).  Barbara has learned ways to “shrug off those layers that have stripped us of our innocence.” (Page 41)  Fear is darkness.  Fear is nothing more than the absence of Light.  We do not need to succumb to our fears; we simply need to light the candle. 

We Can Risk Change.

I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning to sail my ship ~ Louisa May Alcott [8]

Embracing change is not about changing who I am. It is about understanding what my beliefs are and holding myself accountable for the choices I have made and for the choices I will make.  First, we must be gentle with ourselves so we can be gentle with others.  Being gentle with ourselves as we embrace change, we then send out vibrations of gentleness that will come back to us in abundance. 

There is an intimacy with self that grows more deeply after loss, or surrender to changes, whether we provoke it, the world provokes it, the divine provokes it, or others provoke that loss.  Barbara says there is a state of natural grief over any loss. When we extend grief, “it is our own truths we pine for”.  There is something missing that we fill with other things. This filling will never end until we learn to be still and touch that true loss, let it touch us back. We must face the beast a stone’s throw from the fire.  (Pages 123 – 136)

Our guides and helpers, those people who believe in our change, help to gentle our change, to gentle us, and to provoke the soulful projection of gentleness that comes from knowing loss.  Barbara has learned to invite those she has lost to the Spirit World to surround her, share joy and guide her during trying times.  She says, “They are as close as the time it takes to call their names and hear the sound of my voice with my own ears.”  (Page 146)

Jim Goodspeed, Barbara’s life-long friend and the predominant male voice in Soul Gifts: The World’s Self Help Book said, “And there’s a part of me that says a home, a belief, a love are the easy chains we accept when we’re not strong enough to face ourselves alone in the universe …” (Page 136) We substitute what is outside of us to fill longings; that inevitable search for peace, for a comfort in our losses.  When we are gentled by our risk to change, we are willing to surrender to the fact that we are continually challenged by the adventure of life, uplifted by the joys, but cognizant of the struggles.  We often wish that there would be some easy remedy to help people in transition cope and move on. It is hard work and it takes every ounce of concentration we have.  But we can.  We can risk.  We can be gentle with ourselves and others in the process.

We Can Risk Change.  Be Gentle.

Part of gentleness is that we learn to give.  Gentleness is loving kindness.  This gentleness is modeled by the Creator.  Barbara writes, “How kind of you Lord to hold us close, rock us gently, kiss our brow and brush the tears away.  How kind of you Lord to take us walking through paths of tall forests to let us linger by the gardens, feel the breezes from the hillsides and the water’s spray that cools our cheeks.” (Page 138)  Even in adversity, or in our interactions with adverse people, there is a gentling.  In the face of poverty there is a gentleness.  We must look for “loving abundance” (Page 143) in all things, both the trials and the joys of life.

Our relationships are key to our gentling.  We are testing the grounds and exploring healing ways of our connections.  Crucial to this is our intimate connections with our partners.  In isolation, both sexes wither.  Together we may wither as well.  To be intimate, we must surrender.  To be able to surrender, without fear, we must be gentled.

Barbara’s surgery to remove cancer from her leg in 2001 created a place for her surrender.  (Page 178)  It is, as I have said, her passage into the darkness and the knowledge that all she must do is shed light, to gain the positive attitude: she could risk, change, be gentle, be giving and grow spiritually.  This gentling began to bring people into Barbara’s life that would support her as she finished Soul Gifts: The World’s Self-Help Book.   She had begun to see other people’s pain and perceived their pain as far greater than her own. She had bowed to honor her pain and in that knee-bent place, she had lifted her eyes and concern from herself to the plight of others.  (Page 188) 

Throughout her lifetime Barbara had been taught lessons and began to make what she calls “deposits” by giving to others. Then, when her energy was depleting in the fight for her life, she was able to draw on these deposits. (Page 192) The mere word "cancer" has signified death ... death to that which carries it, and for so long, death to those that have it. She handed her healing over to others and to God.  She becomes the air, water’s ease, light’s light, a place of no fear, no ego, and is grateful. (Page 194)  She picked up her sacred oath to care for others, surrendered to her belief that she would only be called to leave this place when her mission was completed here.  All she could do was give and allow others to give to her.  It is a symbiotic relationship, this giving and receiving.  She teaches us.

 We Can Risk Change. Be Gentle. Be Giving.

In order to give, as stated, we must let go of all our fears and grow into the Light.  We begin to learn to accept things just as they are,  knowing that there is something Divine in it.  We give up on needing to feel that things are not as they should be or that things even should not be. 

How did Phoebe come to Barbara in a time and place this little bird should not be there?  I believe she arrived because Barbara had opened herself up to the Light; the Light of knowing we can not know and therefore must accept and turn to help others through the dark nights of our Souls.  This nurturing helps the Soul realize that all the love of the Universe is available to us and that we are never truly alone.  When we embrace this thought, we are more able to grow into more giving and more receiving.  It is then that we watch our life unfolding like a vine in the garden grows.  It rises above the soil; it unfolds its leaves and lifts higher.  Then, by Divine Nature, it begins to send out tender runners.  It reaches.  It reaches out for something to hold on to.  It will blossom.  It will bear fruit.  It will bear its own eternity.
To reach out to others, to form a human chain of support, love and peace, is to begin the Fifth Hoop of the World.  The Fifth Hoop is my elder’s vision of reconnection of all four colors.  We will need each other since each Hoop ended through catastrophe - such as the ice age, or the inability to speak and use language. According to the Fifth Hoop Prophesies, we are about to enter into the Fifth World, which naturally implies an impending Fourth World catastrophe.  What will our downfall be this time? Can we avoid it? Barbara and I believe we can.  Her journey with the Bear (Pages 223-241) taught her to make connections; physical, intellectual, emotion and spiritual connections that would not save her from trauma, nor loss, nor pain and wounding, but make connections that would give her support through this dark night of the Mind, Soul and Body.  These Connections, we both believe, are the hope for the New World of Peace.  It is in tracing out our tender tendrils that we will withstand the blows that come and secure eternity. 

We Can Risk Change.  Be Gentle. Be Giving. Grow.

In the early 1990’s, I was at a Native Head Start conference in Rapid City, South Dakota, US.  My colleagues and I were to begin developing the first Native Head Start Program in Canada, modeling it after the successful Blackfoot Head Start Program in Montana.  At the end of the conference, an Elder stood up to give the closing. He said, “The ancestor’s prayed for such as you to come.  You are the answer to their prayers.”  I have never been more impacted nor had I ever experienced such knowledge that I was truly important to this world:  A Gift.  I realize every one of us is just that:  Gifts to the world. 

In order to pass on our gifts, we must know our own Souls so well that we are able to see deeply into the heart of another.  We are able to know another by simply seeing deeper than actions and behaviors.  We can touch their longings, their thoughts and desires - if we are prepared and willing.  The Light within us radiates and fills those shadowed places that others hold.  It is in shedding her own shadow that Barbara began to attract others to her.  In her service to her fellow beings, and living a soulful life to the best of her ability, (Page 259) Barbara becomes an attracting soul.  She helps and those she helps, in turn have been able to repay back the gift, like the example of GrannyBear (Page 228) and Kathleen (Page 258). 

Although there have been pains, sorrows, broken hearts and broken dreams, there is one dream Barbara has never given up on -  the dream that things can be better for the world, a dream which will ripple its healing back to each and every one of us.  She says, “Aunt Florence, I have been so conditioned to fall on my knees in pain.  You did not mean that I would give all to God in agony.  You meant I would give thanks for the ecstasy, didn’t you?”  (Page 259)

We Can Risk Change. Be Gentle. Be Giving.  Grow.  Pass It On.

Barbara has named her soul Shandarrah. She wrote the words to the book’s song - Come to Me: Shandarrah’s Chant.  She says we can think of it as the lullaby of the Universe for the single cell, of the Soul for the Mind and Body, of Eternity for this Moment in Time. Let us sing Come to Me as the Fifth Hoop, together, in our native tongues and with Peace in our hearts. 

Come to me. Come to me. I will touch you.
I will love you. Come to me. Come to me.

Rest so easy, Breathe so easy. I will hold you,
I will hold you.  Come to me. Come to me.

Come to me. I will touch you. I will love you.  Come to me.
Come to me. You are safe here. Know sweet trust here.
Fear departs here. Love yourself here. Come to me.

Come to me. Come to me. I will touch you. I will love you.
Come to me. Come to me. Come to me.

Barbara hands her Soul over in this book.  She seems to be saying, “Here, this is my soul that recognizes ecstasy because I have known the depths of sorrows.  Take my hand and we will gather into a circle to turn the tide, to pave this lifetime with the cornerstone of Heaven…PEACE!” 

Eagle Woman – Carol Desjarlais
Cree Traditionalist Ceremonialist
July 3, 2006, Maine, US

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