Ceremonies and Medicine Wheels

Medicine Wheel
 

Some months after she moved to Sedona, Sakina went out to Boynton Canyon and climbed up to the ridge by the rock formation known as Katchina Mama. She was showing this special spot of powerful vortex energy to a friend. Raising her climbing staff to the sky, she said to the Ancestor Spirits: "Use me, as long as it's in the Light and to help."

While she was speaking, the sky filled with hundreds of birds flying overhead. When she stopped speaking, the birds disappeared.

Since then the Ancient Ones have been speaking, singing, dancing and telling stories through Sakina. She has been doing Blessing Ceremonies for over a dozen years.

At first she joined with other people's ceremonies. One was a large Medicine Wheel ceremony held near Camp Verde with a crystal cluster in the center. Sakina remembers when she handed the Talking Stick to a tall Apache man wearing a suit, he said, "I had a vision this morning that I would be standing in the shadow of a Sacred Mountain today. This is that mountain. I'm so happy to be coming back to the ways of my people." He had tears in his eyes.

Another person in the circle, while holding the Talking Stick said, "The star people are watching over us tonight." Later they looked up into the sky and saw something that looked like a satellite--only it zig-zagged before resuming its path across the heavens.  
 

White Bear Fredericks lived in Sedona for many years. A talented Kachina-carver and story-teller, this Hopi Elder provided much of the information to Frank Waters for the classic Book of the Hopi.

In 1984, while he was out of town, Sakina heard he was sick, he was dying. In a clearing deep in the woods of Boynton Canyon, about 30 people gathered to join in a healing ceremony for him. Medicine Chief Morning Owl built the circle with tall staffs bearing banners of yellow, red, black and white in the cardinal directions. He honored the Keepers of the Four Directions and the ancestor Spirits with a chanupa (sacred pipe), whose smoke would take the prayers of the people to the ear of the Great Spirit. Heartfelt prayers were said for Grandfather White Bear.

White Bear got well, He lived for another 12 years. He spent his last months back in one of the Hopi villages.

Sakina says different tribes had different traditions about medicine wheels, which were essentially prayer circles like outdoor chapels. Some people say medicine wheels were not used by the local tribes in Arizona and are not appropriate here. But this Sedona area was sacred to ALL tribes of Turtle Island and everyone was welcome to worship in their own way, says Sakina. People came from all directions to seek their vision.

White Bear told Sakina, "The Hopi had the medicine wheel before anybody else did," and showed her an ancient Hopi symbol: a circle with an equidistant cross in the center, and small circles in each quadrant.

Chippewa author Sun Bear told her that on his land they left the medicine wheels in place permanently but someone always watched over them to keep them sacred. Elsewhere they would be taken apart after the ceremony to restore the land to its natural state.
 
 

For many years, Sakina did Blessing Ceremonies at the White Bear circle in Boynton Canyon. There would be 30-80 people at these gatherings as they watched the full moon rise. She would speak for the Ancient Ones of the canyon, and dance or sing, as moved by spirit. People would stand around the circle and sometimes they would do a friendship dance. Sakina gave a message to each one.

Sometimes people would be invited into the sacred circle and place something on the altar in the center. The energy of the place and prayers that were said would go into that object. Then they would retrieve it at the end of the ceremony and take it with them.

The most memorable of Sakina's medicine wheel gatherings was her husband Sundance's memorial service. It began to rain. Brilliant light would flash when her husband's name was mentioned. She and the group got the rain to stop inside the circle, though they could still see it coming down all around them.

After his death, Sakina began traveling, doing workshops and ceremonies in other places. She was invited to do one in Crown Point, Indiana, by Dr. Heather Harder, who was a US Presidential candidate in 1996. Dr. Harder has come to Sedona many times. She says she loves the energy here and the people.

Sakina traveled extensively with Cherokee Elder Thunder-cloud on the East Coast, doing ceremonies and teachings. They did the opening ceremony at a medicine wheel for the World Peace Prayer Day in Amenia, New York, with 6000 people attending. When Grandfather Thundercloud came to Sedona, he and Sakina did a medicine wheel ceremony on Rachel's Bluff by Long Canyon where a Peace Pole was later installed.

Sakina wrote a lively account of the traditional inter-tribal Pow Wow held in Sedona in May 1997. The significance of the event was seen as a return of the Native Americans in brotherhood to a region from which they had been forcibly removed in the previous century. "The Hopi, Yavapai and some of the Apache trace their presence in this area back for thousands of years," she wrote. "The Fancy dancers are quite spectacular in their fringed and feathered regalia, and the older women do a graceful step-dip, step-dip as they go around the sacred dance circle, to press love and healing into the body of Mother Earth." Representatives from many tribes came to do their traditional dances, or to watch them, and Sakina and her friends rejoiced at the return of the Indigenous People to their ancient homeland.