the story of the spirit hoops
This is a love story. It is the story of the Spirit Hoops,
It is a unique love story, a treasure hunt and a mystery. It starts and ends with desire. It finds expression in the search for a new paradigm, one that is respectful and inclusive. Such a paradigm is more than a new idea, it is even more than an idea whose time has come. It is the fusion of unrelated thought and experience. This union produces an entirely new source of energy, an energy of such magnitude and proportion that it propels us beyond the boundaries of our imagination.
The search began with the discovery of eight cedar hoops_ For more than a hundred years they had lain at the bottom of the lake waiting for the moment of rebirth.
For about 20 years the lake had watched my comings and going and those of my family. Many a time it soothed and strengthened me as I walked its shores in an effort to regain my emotional center. In the early years of my marriage it provided a place of rest and relaxation for our young family, sheltering and teaching my children as they grew Its friendly beaches taught my sons to love the water as they swam, fished and canoed. As they grew from childhood into manhood, its wooded shores taught them to love and respect nature and to honor the earth and all that lives upon it. Years later its quiet seclusion provided sanctuary for many of the emotionally wounded people with whom we worked as they struggled to reconstruct their lives. It was a place to heal; a place to embrace our identities. Now the laughter of grandchildren mingles with the songs of the birds and the whisper of the water.
Even as the lake presented us with many gifts, it withheld what was perhaps the most important one As it watched and waited, the lake’s feminine, nurturing nature came forth_ Only when the lake found us to be trustworthy did it allow us to midwife its treasury of hoops.