The Sun the Moon and the Earth The Medicine Wheel the Round Dance and the Dreamcatcher All circles all circles of life What goes up will come down What you give away will always come back to you In all things there is balance For every right there is a wrong For each of the Sacred Teachings there is a Deceiver At a time before distant religions and churches came with their teachings their commandments and their seven cardinal sins we knew We knew the way of the Good Red Road We knew the right way to live not through commandments but through Sacred Teachings Teachings that were given to us long before their arrival And we knew that we would be tested by Seven Deceivers what they called seven cardinal sins We knew because we had been forewarned
Dreamcatcher and the Seven Deceivers Long before our Grandmothers were young greed corruption and malice had taken hold of Turtle Island It was at this time that an Anishinabek youth began the fourth day of his vision Quest As custom dictates this young man had little with him a robe to fight off the cold tobacco for offering sweetgrass and sage for purifying and cleansing Pure of mind and heart the youth sat on the bank of a dried out creek crying for a vision His eyes were closed and his heart was open An onlooker might have thought him alone but he was not Trickster was there next to him Whispering in his ear The boy stood and began scanning the blanket of Mother Earth He picked up a long green twig and shaped it into a circle Using a strip of leather from his moccasin he tied then hung the hoop on a branch of a small sage bush He then watched Grandmother spider step out of the tall grass and begin climbing the hoop With ease and grace she made her way to the top From there she spoke to him
