Table of Contents
1 The Shape of All Shapes 1
The Shape of the Model 4
Evidence from Around the World and Throughout History 8
The Hoop and the Tree in Our Own Lives 18
Can It Really Help? 21
Setting Off 21
2 All My Relations: The Hoop 25
"No Man Is an Island, Entire of Itself" 27
The Interpersonal Ring of the Hoop: The Social Atom 28
The Wider Hoop 30
The Ecological "Ring" of the Hoop: The Ecological Atom 34
Building and Maintaining Relationships 39
A Hoop of Many Hoops 42
How Is Your Hoop? 60
3 The Holy Tree 63
An Ancient, Widespread, and Potent Image 65
This Tree Grows Within You 67
"Comfort from a High Place" 69
The Tree-and-Hoop Process of Development 80
A Modern Tree Story 82
"Support from a Low Place" 83
The Tree Centers the Hoop 104
How Is Your Tree? 106
4 The Hoop and the Tree: The Deep Structure of the Whole Self 109
The Hoop-and-Tree Process of Development 111
Growing to Wholeness in the Ecological Hoop 115
Two Forms of Intelligence 118
When the Hoop Is Undeveloped 120
When the Tree Is Undeveloped 122
Addiction and Codependence 124
Working Toward Psycho-Spiritual Wholeness 127
The Fully Developed Self Is Ecological 131
5 Go in Beauty 137
Our Current Situation 139
The Deep Structure of the Healthy Society 141
Bringing the Hoop and Tree into the World 146
The Individual's Journey 153
Paths to Wholeness 155
Who Are You, Really? Really? 157
Go in Beauty 160
6 The Hoop and the Tree for Healing and Transformation: A Twenty-Year Perspective 165
The Hoop and the Tree and Our World Situation 171
Initiations 176
Initiations into the Human Ring of the Hoop 179
Initiations into the Ecological Ring of the Hoop 180
The Millennial Adventure of the Soul 187
Getting Stuck: Initiation Failures or Regression 197
The Perilous Return: Gluskabe and the Four Wishes 198
Hoop-and-Tree Aspects of All Initiations 199
The Hoop and the Tree for Personal Growth 201
Further Exploration 214
Once You Have "Finished": Growing with It 222
Getting Down to Work 223
Acknowledgments 225
Notes 227
