The Medicine Wheel is a mandala, a symbolic map, a cartography of
psycho-physical-spiritual space. It represents a multi-dimensional,
interpenetrating web of relationships that are constantly in communion with
each other. It exists simultaneously in a vertical and horizontal axis, as
well as in a continuum of past, present and future. Anyone can make their own
version of a Medicine Wheel. This one is a work in progress, the result of
my personal experience through over a quarter of a century seeking deeper
vision, insight and understanding of how "it", the Tao, the Flow of
the Universe, Nature--seen and unseen, actually works.
This Medicine Wheel of the Four Niericas, or Doorways, serves as an opening to
consciously enter the cyclic, time-space unfolding of Great Mystery through a
practice of respectful, harmonious, right-relationship. It is based on the
belief that the universe is alive, conscious, filled with power, intelligent
and always communicating its wisdom to who ever makes the effort to listen to
its myrimid unfoldings of cosmic guidance.
Each direction of the Wheel, each Nierica, is an energy field with its own
unique being, teaching, information, as well as its test and challenge. To move
around the Wheel learning about and working with each of these Four Great
Teachers, is to step out of the comfort zone and step onto a learning path that
will reward for the rest of your days. It is my hope that this map will help
you discover your own cartography, one that evolves out of your direct
experience in nature and therefore has power for you in all that you do.
Goals in Working with the Medicine Wheel
- To walk in balance a healing heart path with full authenticity
--an open heart channel for spirit, creativity, beauty, and joy.
- Own, cultivate and share the medicine gifts you are given
responsibility to carry in this life.
- Appreciate, celebrate, defend, honor, bless and steward the
sacred biodiversity of our mother earth and all her peoples.
- Know, love and serve the great mystery for the healing of the
sacred hoop.
Relationship To Power
What is power to you? Where do you get it? How do you store it?
Strengthen it? How do you lose it? How do you use it? What is your Power
Song, chant, sound? Your Power Animal or Power Ally? What is your Power
Dance, movement, prayer?
What are the archetypal forces shaping your life? What is your relationship to
your dreams, your ancestral memories, and your cultural shamanic roots? How do
you cultivate mindfulness? What is your philosophy-strategy for dealing with
"second attention" phenomenon such as loss, change, disturbances, and the
unknown? How do you express your creativity?
Inquiry Questions for
Working with the Four Directions.
The East: The Visionary -- Power of Illumination -- Golden Eagle.
Task: Flying high like the eagle gaining expanded, clear vision
of greater truth. Connecting with the power of birthing Sun cutting through
darkness reminding us of our true nature--illumination. Being a
light-bearer.
- How do I honor truth in my life?
- How do I dishonor truth in my life?
- What vision or purpose do I follow in my life now?
- How am I, or how can I be, a visionary bringing inspiration of expanded possibilities?
Shadow: Constricted, earth-bound myopic who doesn't know truth and
follows no vision except the whims of ego and unconscious reactivity; i.e. a
mechanical person.
Assignment: Greet the rising Sun upon your own rising. Start the day
by attuning with the Light.
Find something true in nature. Thank it. Dialogue with it to explore what it
might teach you about truth.
The South: The Healer -- Power of Faith and Trust -- Serpent.
Task: To shed the old that no longer serves healthy living, and
surrender to the new, the unknown, with the faith and trust of the innocent
young child. Attunement with feelings. Healing with love.
- What do you have faith in?
- What do you trust?
- What do you need to shed?
- What needs healing in your life?
- How are you a destroyer in your life?
- How are you, or can you be, a healer?
Shadow: the Destroyer; subverting, wrecking, denying,
repressing, blocking, killing.
Assignment: Cultivate faith, trust, and your ability to
consciously surrender control in a responsible manner.
Find something in nature that teaches you about healing. Thank it. Then
dialogue with it to see what it can teach you about realizing your own healing
potentialities.
The West: The Warrior -- Power of the Looks Within
Black Panther -- Bear.
Task: To enter the place of introspection to face and befriend
your fears, shadow forces, and eventual Death, turning them all into allies and
advisors, thereby mining the treasures they guard
- What are your worst fears?
- What kind of relationship do you have with your Death?
- Your shadow?
- With relatives and friends who have died?
- What do you need to face in your life?
- How are you, or can you be, a a warrior in your life?
- What gives you courage?
Shadow: Wimpy coward, shut down in fear, constricted; existing but not
really living the truth of who you are.
Assignment: Call up the power of the Bear to journey within using the
ferocity of the Panther to help you face your darkness and access the gifts of
your deeper being.
Find something in Nature you dislike--what does it remind you of in you? Thank
it, and ask what it can teach you about your own death.
The North: Elder-Leader-Teacher -- Power of Wisdom -- Deer Spirit.
Task: Communion with Higher Self, Wisdom Grandmothers and
Grandfathers, Guides, living and in Spirit. Bringing through their guiding
wisdom for the benefit of the community healing and growing the people.
- What are the wisdom teachings that you follow in your life?
- What does wisdom mean to you?
- Who are the wisdom teachers of your life?
- How do you close off to wisdom, ignore or dishonor it?
- How do you act out the fool?
- What are the wisdom teachings of your own historical-cultural, tribal past?
- How are you, or can you be, a wisdom leader and teacher in your own life?
Shadow: the Idiot, the dummy, the ignorant fool who follows delusion as
reality.
Assignment: Face the North and give heart-felt appreciation to the
power and bearers of wisdom in your life. Sit down humbly at their knee and
ask for their guidance. Find something in Nature that has wisdom. Thank it,
then ask for guidance on how to develop that quality in yourself.
Movement Around the Wheel
Movement around this Wheel can start with clock-wise motion following the path
of the Sun, or the opposite direction as do the Huichol or the Pomo Miwok.
Follow you own guidance. Each direction interfaces with its opposite side, so
the light gathered in the East helps one enter the darkness in the West. The
surrendering work of the South helps one open to communion with wisdom from the
North. The South-North axis is called the "Good Red Road". The
East-West axis is called the "The Good Blue Road". The spirit of new
life enters this world through the eastern doorway and it leaves at the time of
physical death through the western one. Consciously working your way around the
Medicine Wheel during the course of a life time, touching and being touched by
the power, teachings, and testings of each direction, activates Great
Grandmother Growth who offers continuous gifts of wonderment and surprise.
The Center
In the center of the sacred circle is the Great Mystery, the Holy Spirit,
represented by Grandfather Fire, what the Huichol People call "Tataiwari", the First Shaman. Everything emanates from the center and everything
eventually returns to the center. It is the Source. It is present in all
things, all places, all people, all situations, all the time. It has been
always, it will be always. Its essence is unconditional love, infinite wisdom,
peace and illumination. At the deepest core of our being, we are one with the
Center and all of creation that births from it. We are all related. May we
remember well.
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