# Quote — Paula Gunn Allen, The Sacred Hoop

> The tribes seek—through song, ceremony, legend, sacred stories (myths), and tales—to embody, articulate, and share reality, to bring the isolated, private self into harmony and balance with this reality, to verbalize the sense of the majesty and reverent mystery of all things, and to actualize, in language, those truths that give to humanity its greatest significance and dignity. To a large extent, ceremonial literature serves to redirect private emotion and integrate the energy generated by emotion within a cosmic framework. The artistry of the tribes is married to the essence of language itself, for through language one can share one’s singular being with that of the community and know within oneself the communal knowledge of the tribe. In this art, the greater self and all-that-is are blended into a balanced whole, and in this way the concept of being that is the fundamental and sacred spring of life is given voice and being for all.

- Author: [Paula Gunn Allen](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paula-gunn-allen.md)
- Book: [The Sacred Hoop](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paula-gunn-allen/the-sacred-hoop.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paula_Gunn_Allen#Chapter_Two) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/paula-gunn-allen/the-sacred-hoop/the-tribes-seek-through

## More from this book

> Our heart is in the sky. We understand that woman is the sun and the earth: she is grandmother; she is mother; she is Thought, Wisdom, Dream, Reason, Tradition, Memory, Deity, and Life itself.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paula-gunn-allen/the-sacred-hoop/our-heart-is-in-the.md)

> It might be said that the basic purpose of any culture is to maintain the ideal status quo. What creates differences among cultures and literatures is the way in which the people go about this task, and this in turn depends on, and simultaneously maintains, basic assumptions about the nature of life and humanity’s place in it. The ideal status quo is generally expressed in terms of peace, prosperity, good health, and stability.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paula-gunn-allen/the-sacred-hoop/it-might-be-said.md)

> In the myth, and especially the mythopoeic vision that gives it birth, past, present, and future are one, and the human counterparts of these—ancestors, contemporaries, and descendents—are also one. Conscious and unconscious are united through the magic of symbolic progression so that the symbols can convey direct, rational meanings and stir indirect memories and insights that have not been raised to conscious articulation. In mythopoeic vision and its literary counterparts, the near and the far must come together, for in its grasp we stand in a transcendent landscape that incorporates both. Lastly, the mythic heals, it makes us whole. For in relating our separate experiences to one another, in weaving them into coherence and therefore significance, a sense of wholeness arises, a totality which, by virtue of our active participation, constitutes direct and immediate comprehension of ourselves and the universe of which we are integral parts.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paula-gunn-allen/the-sacred-hoop/in-the-myth.md)