Evolutionary Maps of Wholeness

Eight Partitoned Wheels

Greetings, Sunny Buddies,

This week I thought I would do something a little different for your delight and delectation. I often wonder if I will run out of ideas, but I don’t seem to! My imagination never seems to run out of energy. I still feel delighted when I press the publish button. Each week it feels like I am in a happy conversation with you, and I thank you for being there to receive my musings.

Some of you know that for the last 25 years or so, David and I have studied an ancient body of Earth Wisdom held by the Ehama Institute. This study and training in these Origin Teachings of the Delicate Lodge awakened within us a deep appreciation of the majesty and the mystery of the Wisdom of Earth. It has been a loving embrace right from the outset. We are now elders in this tradition, and it brings us so much joy to share this ever-unfolding Wisdom with others.  

David and I’s first experience was to attend a weekend ceremony in a stone circle in the Braes of Balquidder, the land of Rob Roy. It was incredible to sit under the stars, around the fire in an ancient ring of energy crafted thousands of years earlier by our indigenous ancestors.

I still get goosebumps when I think of this.

Being within this ancient circle was a foundational part of the experience. It was there that Teachers WindEagle and RanbowHawk introduced us to the ‘Maps of Wholeness’ that are held within the eight directions of the Native American Medicine Wheel. As WindEagle says’ ‘These maps are lenses that can open our sight and our consciousness, leading to new understanding, reconnection, and the flowering of human potential on our planet.’

Source: Name America Project

They also told us how these maps evolved from the Mayan Sacred Twenty Count above. 

Can you see the eight points in the image? 

The Mayans intuited that if you stand on the North Pole and drop a plumb line to the South pole and then connect East and West, you partition the planet Earth four ways. These are called the Cardinal Directions. When you add in the Marriage Points (SouthEast, South West, NorthWest and NorthEast), then planet Earth is divided into the eight directions of the compass. 

I was intrigued by the concept of eight directions, so I did a bit of research and came across the work of Carl Johan Calleman. In his book, The Global Mind, he states that about five thousand years ago, a radical shift in human consciousness led to what he calls the eight-partitioned mind. He argues that this ability to think in eight partitioned circles was related to the rise of large human civilizations. 

What is interesting is that this shift appears to be associated with the building of large ceremonial structures, Egyptian (Pyramids), Sumerians (Ziggurats), and Mayan (Temples). However, he could not identify evidence of cross-fertilization between the cultures, and so he argues that this was an evolutionary step in human consciousness that occurred across the whole planet at roughly the same time/

Below are examples of eight partitioned wheels that Carl Johan identified in the book aligned to particular traditions. I just love when I come across this kind of mystery. Is Carl Johan on to something? I find that this idea touches a deep longing within me. I see a perennial philosophy of goodness, truth and beauty that brings us all, whatever tradition, into attunement with the Divine. Mmmmm

Celtic Cross and Buddist Lotus Flower

Hindu Yantra and Mayan Hunab Ku

I Ching and Islamic Star

Nordic Sun and Sumerian God in Heaven

Exploration for this Week

Well, this has been fun this week. I invite you to join me in a discussion on these Evolutionary Maps of Wholeness. Here are some questions to get us started:

• What experience do you have with circular Maps of Wholeness?

• Do you think Carl Joseph’s explanation has merit? Are there other possibilities?

• Is there a perennial philosophy behind all traditions?

As always, I would love to hear from you.

Ann