The “Earth-Sky” Flag

It is our hope that this flag will offer one design that can serve as a universal flag to unit people for the protection of Mother Earth and our brothers and sisters of the natural world. It is our hope that this flag will encourage balance and understanding within all the tribes of the Human Nation.

Flag’s Concept

“Earth-Sky” has been created to offer a single design that unites the various tribes and nations of the world behind the common cause of not only recognizing that we must live in harmony with Mother Earth and the natural world, but that we have to do all that we can to protect that natural world.

The Lakota have a saying … “Mitakuye Oyasin.”

It is translated as “All My Relations” and reminds us that we are a single strand in a web much, much larger than any of us.

We are all part of the same circle of life that includes other people, animals, birds, insects, trees, plants, and even the very rocks of the Earth … among other things.

We are all part of Creation and share the common kinship of being part of the living circle that is the natural world of this Earth.

This flag reminds us of that sense of connectedness as well as encourages all of us to join together to become guardians and protectors of the natural world.

Flag’s History

The Search for a Universal Flag

The concept of the Healing Flag was first born when Mike Tripp began searching for a universal flag that served as a visual representation or banner of the need for people of all tribes to come together to help protect the Natural World.

A flag that was a flag of peace that encouraged understanding, knowledge, and cooperation among the tribes of man.

The problem is that there are very few if any flags that represent or have this meaning.

The closest he found was the “Healing Flag” created by Sophie Rault.

Although the Healing Flag brings together elements important in representing the message Mike Tripp wanted to tell, the flag itself was created specifically for the Healing Lodge of the Seven Nations in Spokane, Washington.

Because of this, it was felt important that the flag used for the message we seek to spread be a flag that is unique to that message — not one borrowed with a slightly different meaning.

Thus it was decided to create a new and unique design.

Designs Not Used

• Flag of the Four Winds

• The Daybreak Star

• The Constellation Flag

The Final Design — “Earth-Sky”

Throughout the process, the opinion of others has always been sought with their comments and thoughts factored into the design. Their words helped shape the overall design and led to its ultimate evolution.

After a couple of months of looking at the design of the Constellation Flag, it began to seem the design was unbalanced and missing something.

That’s when the thought occurred to us that it needed to have the similar constellation of the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor) added into the design to balance out the Big Dipper (part of Ursa Major) with the Daybreak Star in the middle.

From showing the design to others, it was decided that the Daybreak Star in this design needed to become a simple Sacred Wheel so that both focus and message of the flag was remained crystal clear.

Following that decision, the name “Earth-Sky” came about following prayer and meditation.

And a few days after the prayer, I went outside to look up at the stars and realized that just having the stars of the Big Dipper makes the flag seem like something is missing.

And so it is that Ursa Major (The Great Bear) was fully added to balance Ursa Minor (The Little Bear) as they revolve around the sacred circle that is Earth and life itself.

Flag’s Symbolism

The Circle / Wheel

At the heart of the flag is what some refer to as a “Medicine Wheel” while others might call it a “Sun Wheel.”

No matter what your culture calls it, the message in must cases is very much the same.

For here, we will use a description shared with us that looks at it from the Lakota point-of-view.

“Cangle’ska Wakan” — the Sacred Hoop

What follows is information that has been said by Lakota elders from Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations and is being used with permission and was originally posted at the Thunder Dreamers’ Forums.

The origin of the term Cangle’ska comes from it’s literal meaning, “spotted wood,” which I have been taught is in reference to a traditional game played by Lakota men during the Buffalo Days.

The implements of the Buffalo Game consisted of a hoop made from an Ash sapling about half an inch thick and more than two feet in diameter, called a cangle’ska, which had been bent into shape and fastened while still green, and two pairs of throwing sticks, or painyankapi about 3 feet in length, wrapped with thongs. The hoop had four flattened spaces on each side, at equi-distant points. Two players, representing two sides, threw the two pairs of sticks at the hoop as it rolled past, and the scoring was done according to the marked or flattened space that lies upon the stick after the hoop falls. This Buffalo Game is said to have been played to secure success in the buffalo hunt. The hoop figuratively represents the horns of a buffalo and the bone that supports them. Playing the game was called “shooting the buffalo.” Also the hoop in the game represented an encampment of all the Lakota tribes, and it was also supposed to represent the rim of the horizon and the four quarters of the earth. The four spaces marked on the hoop represented the openings or passes into the circle of the camp. They also represented the four winds and were prayed to by the thrower before he threw.

Today the Lakota word for “hoop” is cangle’ska. Although it literally means “spotted wood,” in reference to the four flattened sections of the hoop used in the game described above, no other term for hoop is used in any other context.

The Lakota word for the Black Hills is Wamaka’ Og’naka Ica’nte, or “the heart of everything that is.” For the Lakota, the Black Hills are the center of the universe. Lakota tradition identifies the Black Hills as the first place created on earth and the center of the Cangle’ska Oya’te, or “the Hoop of the Nation.” From this, the Sacred Hoop is a model of the Lakota view the world. It is pictured as a circle inscribed by a cross. Central to Lakota tradition is the idea of the oneness of the universe and the circle is the symbol of the unity of the elements of the universe.

This circular universe is reflected in many items that the Lakota people saw around them. When the Lakota tribes gathered together on the Plains, they would camp in a circle of lodges. The traditional home, the tipi, is a circle, with a circular firepit in it’s center. The drum, providing the heartbeat of the people, made from a hollowed out tree, is a circle. The sun and moon are circles. Tornados and whirlwinds spin in a circle. Bird nests, ant hills, and burrows are formed in a circular shape. Hawks and Eagles soar in a circular pattern. The stump of a tree when cut is a circle. The eye, is a circle. A rock thrown into a pond, creates circles of waves extending outward. Hail is a circular shape. Rainbows are circles, although we only see half of them at any one time.

Since the sacred hoop is a circle, there is no beginning and no end. As a young boy, holyman Nicholas Black Elk experienced a great vision in which the spirits showed him many things. In his boyhood vision, he stood on a mountain that he later identified as Harney Peak, the highest point in the Black Hills. From that height he could see “the whole hoop of the world,” in reference to the the geologic feature called the “racetrack” that runs around the outside of the Black Hills.

The Cangle’ska Waka’n, being today represented most often by a “Quilled Wheel”, or a circle with the cross in the center, has many other meanings acording to the way I was taught. If you look at the circle vertically, the horizontal cross-bar represents the level surface of the earth. The half-circle arc above it represents the domed shape that the sky forms over our heads, from horizon to horizon. The half-circle arc beneath it represents cosmologically, the mirrored image of the earth underneath the surface. (Note: this is also a metaphor for one of the symbolisms of the Ini’tipi or “Sweatlodge”.) The vertical cross-bar represents the connection to Tunka’sila or “Grandfather” above and Unci’ Maka’ or “Grandmother Earth” below.

If you look at the circle horizontally, the outer circle represents that sacred place where the sky and the earth meets, also called the horizon. If you look at the horizon from any mountain or from a ship on the ocean, it completes a perfect circle around you, wherever you are. You are at the center of your own universe, and the four cross-bars represent the four cardinal directions that are inculded in prayer (Black west, Red north, Yellow east, and White south).

The four quadrants created by the cross-bars are representative of the universal nature of how many things are divided into four. For there are four cardinal directions: west, north, east and south; four divisions of time: day, night, moon (or month), and year; four seasons, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring; four periods in human life: babyhood, childhood, adulthood, and old age; four main elements: earth, air, fire and water; and both man and buffalo have four limbs. In recognition of this repetative occurance of four in the universe, many Lakota ceremonies are done over the course of four days, or in four stages.

Lastly, the center of the hoop, the ho’coka, is the most sacred point. On one level the ho’coka refers to the inner part of a camp circle, on another level it refers to the central space in the universe within which a person communicates with the spirits in six directions (west, north, east, south, above, and below). On another level, the ho’coka represents the balance between the good red road, and the black bad road, always in flux. Lastly, the ho’coka in the center of the Cangle’ska Waka’n represents the sacred harmony and purity the individual seeks to achieve when they are in balance, and “centered” in the universe. Therefore, a breath-plume from the Golden Eagle representing Wanbli’ Gle’ska Waka’n is usually tied to the center, which also represents the sacred spotted eagle spirit within ourselves, also called the 7th direction.”

Other Stories and Facts Regarding the “Wheel” or “Circle”

• The Sun Cross

The Constellations

The constellations are known in some cultures as “The Big Dipper (part of Ursa Major or the “Great Bear”) and the “Little Dipper” (part of Ursa Minor of the “Little Bear”).

Other cultures have other names for these same formation of stars as well as different stories and legends surrounding them.

For this flag, we chose them for exactly that reason as no matter what you call these constellations … the fact remains that they are the same points of light in the night sky regardless of name.

From different continents, the races of man can look up into the night sky and gaze on those same stars.

And looking at those stars reminds us that we are a very, very small part of something so large that even Mother Earth is small in comparison.

It is not for us to understand all the mysteries of the universe or creation, but instead to remember that regardless of race, we have all been given the same gift of life with the chance to walk upon this Earth as a part of the same web of life.

Now is the time for us help defend and Guard the natural world to which we are connected.

Other Stories and Facts Regarding the “Constellations”

• “The Hunting of the Great Bear”