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Moonlady Showcase
Midwest Mound Tour - Sept. 2001
Not every pilgrimage begins with a bomb scare, but in these terrorist times I guess it's not so unusual. I was doing the cheap Southwest flight method, hopping from one place to another to get from Dallas to Chicago. After the Tulsa to Kansas City leg, one passenger decided to get off at KC to do some business and take a later flight to Chicago. Alas, he neglected to tell the flight crew. When they realized he wasn't on board, the scenario arose that he had left a bomb behind. (On a regional flight with a total of 20 or so passengers?) Security officers and bomb-sniffing dogs were called in, the plane was evacuated and searched, until it was announced that the man had been found, questioned and informed that the casual plane-hopping formerly standard for Southwest patrons was now a thing of the past.
This was my first trip to the Midwest and I have to say it was a pleasant surprise. I rented a car and drove through countryside that was lovely, lush and relaxingly rural. Unlike Dallas, there are very few SUVs up there and drivers don't feel compelled to drive like a bat out of hell -- at least once I got out of Chicago, which took a long, long time since the city spreads over a good portion of northern Illinois. But just past the border into Wisconsin -- where I was immediately greeted with a billboard that proclaimed "Cheese!" -- things mellowed considerably. Broad valleys and gentle hills were laced with rivers that flowed with quiet intent. Fall's first hint of colors graced the plentiful trees.
Wisconsin is a lovely place, Madison is a hipster town, and the folks at the Circle Sanctuary pagan center and nature preserve where I spoke are the nicest folks you could ever hope to meet. (For more info on them, please visit http://www.circlesanctuary.org/) My talk on getting to know the goddesses of North America was warmly received and some local ladies gave me great tips on regional areas with spiritual resonance. The primary pagan, shamama Selena Fox, was most gracious, helping me make some excellent connections with Native American women and showing me a petroglyph in a cave-like rock shelter of a female shaman with upraised arms.
It's hard to explain in the short space I have here just how amazing the mounds can make you feel. At Wisconsin's Wyalusing State Park (http://www.wyalusing.org/), effigy mounds in the shapes of bears, falcons and other local creatures simply filled me with joy. The forest cover that has overgrown the circa 600 to 1200 CE earthen spirit animals is only partially cleared. Walking alongside a half-mile procession of the effigy mounds, I sang my way along the wooded high river bluffs and enjoyed awesome views of the Mississippi-Wisconsin confluence. Although not as wild and woodsy, the Effigy Mounds National Monument (http://www.nps.gov/efmo/home.htm) across the river in Iowa was also inspiring -- once you got past the first part of the hike which is a quarter-mile straight up the Mississippi River's bluff.
These two places have the largest concentration of effigy mounds, but some of the isolated ones were also great. My husband and I were serendipitously tipped to the "Granville ÎGator" mound (http://copperas.com/gator/) by friendly locals. Located at the end of a street in a small circular hilltop park surrounded by high-priced homes, it was nice to be able to walk on the mound, which you can't do at most places. Looking more like a mother opossum with an impossibly long coiled tail and a baby hanging from her side, a similar image is also found in art from the Poverty Point mounds (http://www.nps.gov/popo/), some 1,000 years prior and 1,500 miles away in northeast Louisiana. The famous Serpent Mound (http://www.ohiohistory.org/places/serpent/) in southeast Ohio is the most finely constructed of the earthen effigies. On a steep and narrow finger ridge overlooking Brush Creek, it actively undulates from its tightly coiled tail to the head where open jaws grasp an oval disc. The seven serpentine curves serve as markers for various solar and lunar dates; straightened out the snake would be one-half mile long. Yet it didn't hold the energy for me that other mounds did.
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The circa 100 to 500 CE Newark Earthworks, a vast geometric earthen mound complex east of Columbus (http://www.ohiohistory.org/places/
newarkearthworks/octagon.cfm), are also well known. An octagon encompassing 50 acres is connected by a narrow portal to a 20- acre circle. Too vast to save as a park in a fast-developing urban area, the land was leased to the Moundbuilders Country Club where the long ridges were incorporated into the golf course design. Alas, one can only look at the earthen structures from an observation stand and get a partial view. But just a few blocks away is the Great Circle Earthworks (http://www.ohiohistory.org/places/
newarkearthworks/greatCircle.cfm). As large as four football fields, the circular wall about 15-feet high is flanked by an interior moat nearly as deep. In the center, flying into the eastern opening, is a falcon-shaped mound -- a one-story-tall kid cousin to the six-story one at Poverty Point. Playing or picnicking on the mound is discouraged, but respectful procession and meditation is tolerated. Enclosed in the sacred circle, its tall dirt walls shielding the city traffic just yards away, the earthen temple echoed with the spiritual intent of the many who'd processed upon it.
Most effigy mounds and geometric earthworks aren't burial mounds, but are often accompanied by conical mounds that are. The effigy and circular earthworks are monuments to Mother Earth made in worship of her round planetary form and all its bounty. The worldview of the earthworks' makers is undeniably animistic, rooted in the Earth with a belief that all things contain conscious spirit, and can be seen in the shared beliefs of Native Americans, but also pagans, Shintos, Taoists, many indigenous cultures even some modern Buddhists. Yet it is not a simplistic perspective. While simple in outward appearance, many of the mounds boast elaborate interior designs whose layering of red ochre, wet puddled clay, charred dirt and ash (possibly crematory) hints at complex spiritual concepts.
If you make pilgrimages to these places, which I heartily suggest, do so unobtrusively. Regulations are strongly enforced. Set aside a generous amount of time to visit each one and spend an hour just being with a place, sitting against the base of a mound or as close to it as you can to it, or doing a prayer procession around them slowly. Listen with intent and let go of your expectations of linear time. Try to sense the spirit of a place with your whole body rather than seeing it with your eyes -- you may become aware of some interesting things. After observing the flow of people at these places for a while, if you see an opportunity to do a personal ritual, then do so quietly. Be sure your offerings are small and biodegradable. Stop into the sites' museums and visitor centers to pay admission fees and view the exhibits where fascinating archeological artifacts which bring the mound-builders' culture alive are often on display. Don't miss the Great Circle museum, where the education specialist Hapi Cummings is a hoot and a half while being quite full of insights.
The history of the mounds has been tumultuous, from the 19th century jingoistic theories that these sophisticated structures were made by roaming Egyptians, refugee Atlantians, the Lost Tribes of Israel, or anyone other than the Native Americans that the United States was in the process of subjugating, all the way to controversy over digging up somebody's ancestors' bones in the name of research. Yet the saddest thing about the mounds is that over 90% were intentionally destroyed through farming, road construction, urban development, war activities and rampant vandalism, mostly in the 1800s. The best information on the mounds is found in the literature sold at the museums and visitor centers. (My luggage was 15 pounds heavier on my return trip home!) If you have time to read but one book on the topic (besides my upcoming one, of course) it should be "Hidden Cities: The Discovery and Loss of Ancient North American Civilizations" by Roger J. Kennedy, former head of the National Park Service who retired to focus on their study.
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