 |
The Medicine Wheel Memorial, designed by architect Ronnie Di Cappo, is located just east of the Music Building on the Academy campus. The Class of 2000 and other members of the community constructed the Medicine Wheel in memory of Manoa Alcántara Jojola ’00, killed in a tragic traffic accident during the winter of his senior year.
The Medicine Wheel symbolically incorporates many aspects of Manoa’s life, culture, and heritage. Di Cappo writes, "The Medicine Wheel is a Native American archetype and represents eternity, because it has no beginning or end. Its round shape symbolizes wholeness, centeredness, completeness, and unity. The cycle of life: birth, growth, death, and rebirth is represented by the circle. … The idea for the Medicine Wheel came to Manoa’s father in a dream. … It is a gift celebrating cultural diversity. …" As a place of healing, contemplation, and meditation, the Medicine Wheel Memorial is a source of reflection and inspiration.
WORDS FOR THE MEDICINE WHEEL
Words are not stones, still I will offer
words these stones have shown me
back to the stones, breathing in this image:
the sun at my back, above my head like a halo
as I sit aligned with wind, sun, and stars
within the circle of these desert stones
someone has set here to show us where things are.
I watch the mountain in the east, its facets
lit by sun, a rock face shining, showing
how little water, how little anything we need,
the naked beauty of this place exposed as flesh
naked to the sun. Alone, bare-skinned,
no one else for miles, something welcomes
in this solitude, some voice that says
softly, again and again, this place is Heaven.
Some time ago a woman spoke. Like wind
through her hair, fear flowed through her words:
"a boy died, he played the saxophone, my son’s friend."
The heel of her hand brushed the corner of her eye
a tear wiped away with the wind.
Later, for the first time, now, alone,
I look at the face of this gray rock
a stone at the hub of the wheel
I’ve rested my bare back upon
but never seen, where someone has carved
a living saxophone, an aching, echoing saxophone
carved into stone, and as the music of this place
hits my skin, the wind on my spine
becomes the spirit of this boy who is not dead,
who never will be,
alive as I am, his presence here in sun and
stone, in the coyote
who emerges from the brush as if I birthed him,
the bird-voice chatter in the wind, a gift to us
this truth that we will never die, the gift of this wheel,
these things of the earth that show us what we never see
until we open our hearts, find on the horizon a hawk
against the face of the mountain, red-tailed-circling,
stones which show us this land, its creatures
are the boy, are me, are us.
No plaques, no words for this place, this circle
of everything, some pictures carved upon stones
which speak for themselves, whisper strong,
silent medicine
against death, a message more like music
on the wind than words:
we are here
to greet the world
we are here
to fall in love
we are here
to set down stones.
—Arlie Parker
Faculty, Isidore Newman School
upon his visit to the Medicine Wheel during the ISAS Festival, April 2002.
The Medicine Wheel symbolically incorporates many aspects of Manoa’s life, culture, and heritage. Di Cappo writes, "The Medicine Wheel is a Native American archetype and represents eternity, because it has no beginning or end. Its round shape symbolizes wholeness, centeredness, completeness, and unity. The cycle of life: birth, growth, death, and rebirth is represented by the circle. … The idea for the Medicine Wheel came to Manoa’s father in a dream. … It is a gift celebrating cultural diversity. …" As a place of healing, contemplation, and meditation, the Medicine Wheel Memorial is a source of reflection and inspiration.
WORDS FOR THE MEDICINE WHEEL
Words are not stones, still I will offer
words these stones have shown me
back to the stones, breathing in this image:
the sun at my back, above my head like a halo
as I sit aligned with wind, sun, and stars
within the circle of these desert stones
someone has set here to show us where things are.
I watch the mountain in the east, its facets
lit by sun, a rock face shining, showing
how little water, how little anything we need,
the naked beauty of this place exposed as flesh
naked to the sun. Alone, bare-skinned,
no one else for miles, something welcomes
in this solitude, some voice that says
softly, again and again, this place is Heaven.
Some time ago a woman spoke. Like wind
through her hair, fear flowed through her words:
"a boy died, he played the saxophone, my son’s friend."
The heel of her hand brushed the corner of her eye
a tear wiped away with the wind.
Later, for the first time, now, alone,
I look at the face of this gray rock
a stone at the hub of the wheel
I’ve rested my bare back upon
but never seen, where someone has carved
a living saxophone, an aching, echoing saxophone
carved into stone, and as the music of this place
hits my skin, the wind on my spine
becomes the spirit of this boy who is not dead,
who never will be,
alive as I am, his presence here in sun and
stone, in the coyote
who emerges from the brush as if I birthed him,
the bird-voice chatter in the wind, a gift to us
this truth that we will never die, the gift of this wheel,
these things of the earth that show us what we never see
until we open our hearts, find on the horizon a hawk
against the face of the mountain, red-tailed-circling,
stones which show us this land, its creatures
are the boy, are me, are us.
No plaques, no words for this place, this circle
of everything, some pictures carved upon stones
which speak for themselves, whisper strong,
silent medicine
against death, a message more like music
on the wind than words:
we are here
to greet the world
we are here
to fall in love
we are here
to set down stones.
—Arlie Parker
Faculty, Isidore Newman School
upon his visit to the Medicine Wheel during the ISAS Festival, April 2002.
