"THE GAIODES MEDICINE WHEEL" JEFF PHILLIPS/LIESBET VERSTRAETEN, DARWIN NT AUSTRALIA

NOTE FROM JEFF: This medicine wheel was made as a gift to our wonder friend Peter Cholmondeley and his partner Shaowei...THANKS for being so nice!

THE GAIODES MEDICINE WHEEL PHOTOS: http://picasaweb.google.com/therockist/GAIODESMEDICINEWHEEL# Our fourth medicine wheel was brought “on-line” and dedicated on the new moon last weekend, 11 July, while a total solar eclipse was passing over Rapanui, or Easter Island in the south Pacific. Like our other medicine wheels (Flinders Island, Tasmania; Deloraine Tasmania; Great Barrier Island, New Zealand) this one is dedicated to what Barry Brailsford calls the “wisdom of the circle” and the “sacred hoop” of the Native Americans. To learn about Barry go to http://www.stoneprint.co.nz/barry.htm MEDICINE WHEEL AT 'BALARNIA' http://picasaweb.google.com/therockist/MEDICINEWHEELAtBALARNIA# Like the earlier ones, we used natural stone on a bed of beach sand, with herb/flowers in the corners. This one, however, is unique in several ways, for example, it's constructed in a movable wooden box. And we painted a set of thirteen rocks each with a unique glyph, one for each lunar cycle in a solar year. Collectively, we call these the Gaiodes, the 13 Sisters of the Moon-stones In the center is another smaller circle of seven rocks that Liesbet painted, representing the worlds of seven: the colours of the rainbow, the chakras, the major intervals in an octave, and the “seven sisters”, or Pleiades, a star-cluster sacred to many indigenous peoples. In the very center is another rock with the ancient Chinese symbol “yung” which means “eternity.” COLOUR TOTEM FUNCTION NAME ELEMENT ATTRIBUTES Red Eagle “Sky-toucher” Celestacte Fire Communication Orange Koala “Seed-keeper” Ursoola Fire Sleep/Gestation Yellow Bumble-bee “Sun-smiler” Humbula Fire Growth/Thanks Green (1) Frog “Music-maker” Katiola Earth Celebration Green (2) Kangaroo “Seed-planter” Keroptye Earth Love (animals) Green (3) Snake “Seed-germinator” Rhodepta Earth Birth (plants) Blue (1) Dolphin “Laugh-bringer” Adelmenes Water Joy/Harmony Blue (2) Whale “Thought-reflector” Noosthenes Water Wisdom/Awakening Indigo Spider “Pattern-weaver” Barachlys Air Vision/Insight Violet Kokopelli “Dancing-rainmaker” Kokopelli Water Waters/Clouds Black Turtle “Balance-shifter-yin” Pomdaktyles Ear/Wat Inspiration White Songbird “Balance-shifter-yang” Myjoiatwe Air/Fire Inspiration Irid.Blue Butterfly “Flower-fruit-bloomer” Flofrumel Air Creativity/Fragrance The ancient Greek names for the Pleiades and our associated colours are Electra (red), Maia (orange), Taygete (yellow), Alcyone (green), Celaeno (blue), Sterope (indigo) and Merope (violet). Medicine wheels can function as mandalas and portals, to focus energies to and from the consciousness of the Earth, to transmit and receive healing vibrations, to communicate with the dream-time ancestors of any dimension, including the spirit of "hine ahu one", the "first ancestor" of all life, or who we commonly know as stone. Most importantly, this medicine wheel is the first one we've made since the oil volcano disaster began in the Gulf of Mexico, an unprecedented and on-going direct blow to the health of the Earth's marine eco-system. This medicine wheel is dedicated most powerfully to all the life-forms of the Gulf of Mexico and to the spirit of Rachel Carson. JEFF PHILLIPS/LIESBET VERSTRAETEN DARWIN NT JULY 2010 EARTH