Preface from
"HEALTH AND HEALING"
by Andrew Weil, M.D. :[highlights
added - CR]
"The
link between the holy and the healthy is the common ground of religion and
medicine. In many cultures, the two have never been separate.
"Native
American medicine men are religious leaders as much as doctors, treating
spiritual and physical ailments at one and the same time. They often
speak of the Medicine Wheel as the basis of tribal health,
drawing
on the circle as a universal symbol of wholeness and perfection.
One great medicine man who spoke
very eloquently about this symbol was Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux, born in
1863. At the age of nine, during a severe illness, he had a vision
that was to be the source of his healing ability in later life. In one
sequence of it, he related, a "great Voice said: 'Behold
the circle of the nation's hoop, for it is holy, being endless, and thus all
power shall be one power in the people without end.'"
"At
the end of his life, Black Elk told his story to a white historian, who
recorded his words. Black Elk said:
From "Black Elk
Speaks" by John G. Neihardt [highlights
added - CR]
"You
have noticed that everything an Indian does is
in a circle, and that is
because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries
to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people,
all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as
the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished.
The flowering tree was
the living center of the hoop, and the circle of the four quarters nourished
it... Everything the Power of the World does is done in a
circle. The
sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is
round like a ball, and so
are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power,
whirls.
Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as
ours. The Sun comes forth and goes down again in a
circle. The
Moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a
great
circle in their changing, and always come back to where they were. The
life of man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in
everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of
birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of
many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children."
"
in the 
Model --
the "spherical" (non-linear)
frame of reference / state of mind / process of consciousness
whereby everything is centered and connected to universal law
language of, by and for the "Great Spirit".