So – what if you are too busy to spend 15 minutes a day making Medicine Wheels?

The beauty of the Medicine Wheel is this:  it is around you at all times.

Pay attention to the elements of the Medicine Wheel as it affects your life.

Eat a sandwich – Earth.

Take a Breath – Air

Drink – Water

Light a candle – Fire

Here are a number of situations and their corresponding elements:

Ouch!  Pricked my finger!  – Water and Earth (blood and flesh)

Sit on a chair – Earth.

Answer a phone call – Fire and Earth.

Maybe you will relate to different elements for these – that matters less than the fact of paying attention to the elements which are around you all the time.

Flight of birds – Air

Crawling Ants – Earth

Goldfish in a tank – Water

We are surrounded by the 4 Elements at all times.  Pay attention, and express appreciation for the beauty of the elements.  The gifts you will receive from this practice will be myriad.

Take a walk (a whole Medicine Wheel) – my bones and muscles are Earth, my breath is Air, my nervous system is Fire, and my heart pumps blood which is Water.

These are also true of your car – which is metal (Earth), uses gasoline and fluids (Water), requires a spark to start it (Fire), and an engine which must breathe (Air).

A Cup of tea:   You can build a  medicine sphere by making tea.  Using electricity or fire to heat the water (fire), watching the bubbles in the boiling water (air), pouring the tea (water), adding the oil (earth) – maybe waving a feather over the cup.  Lift the cup above you, put your finger in the cup to take a drop to throw to the earth below you (if you were outside you might pour a little on the earth).  Then, take a sip = inside.

Get the mail – paper = earth.

Work on computer = fire (electricity) and earth (egads, plastics are made of petroleum, which come from the earth, but maybe you relate to plastic as “liquid earth” or Water)

Look at your body, examine the everyday objects that you touch.  Your keys, your pillow, your books, your pet, your house, your stove, your furniture – all these objects are composed of the elements.

Express gratitude for what they bring you, and appreciation for how they fit in the Medicine Wheel, and you will grow in your gifts.

 

Here it is again:

This is NOT building a sphere.

 

It is familiarizing yourself with the Medicine Wheel.

 

Take the symbol,

Preferably red, because the Road is Red.  (the sky is Blue)

Freehand.  No compass.

Draw it.

Notice where the imbalances are.  For example, in mine, here, the upper left quadrant is deficient.

An imbalance between north and south is a breakdown between body and emotion.  “I’ll take, What is Depression and Pain? for 20,  Alex”

Study your own drawings.

Do it on different days.

Learn about the relationships

Between

Your East – Air  – Mind – Ideas

South – Fire – Will – Passion

West – Water – Emotions – Feeling

North – Earth – Body – Physical.

(note, there are alternate associations with the directions, here:  Medicine Wheel and First Totem )

You can use it as a weather report.

Get up in the morning, draw a medicine wheel symbol.  See where your balances and imbalances are.

This is walking before running.

The sphere is important, but the elements of the sphere – Air / Fire / Water / Earth / Above Male / Below Female / Within – are more important than the shape and form of the sphere.  Let’s get familiar with the elements.

Draw it every day for a week.  Try it in different colours, how does it feel?

Draw it every day for a month.  How does it shift over the month?  Feel yourself gaining skill in making it, the more you draw it.

Doodle it on napkins, calendars – see what it tells you about the moment when you draw it.

This is a deep teaching symbol, and the basis for nearly all of my teach/learnings.

Here we are again (it’s so important):

The Medicine Wheel is a guide to living – how to balance the aspects of personality, in order to achieve a higher spiritual vibration – or – to be the Best Human You Can Be.

The Medicine Wheel is also a ceremony to separate “sacred space” from “functioning around consentual reality” space.  You need to carve a practice out of your day.

By opening to the 4 directions, you are literally carving a personal sacred space, separating  Inner Sanctum (the Holy of Holies) from the Outer, mundane experience.

The basic shamanic ritual or ceremony is the circle.  Or, if you want to be 3D, a sphere.

The elements of the circle are East South West North.

You are sitting at the crux, the middle.  The directions are around you.  This could be a good navigational exercise, too.  Face east or north, and call each of the directions.   If you face North, call North first.  If you face East, call East first.  If, for some reason you feel compelled to face another direction, then do so – but ALWAYS FACE that direction for this ritual, until you learn why.  Eventually, you want to orient to North (magnetic) or East (rising sun).

East = air, breath, mind.

South = fire, passion, Will, playfulness, nervous electricity.

West = water, emotion, blood, ancestors

North = earth, body, practical, financial, work.

Different cultures have different associations with the directions – there is a chart of alternative association on this page:   Shaman Explorations – Medicine Wheel and First Totem

To explore other associations, I like to Google “Medicine Wheel” then click on “Images” to see all of the differences, correspondences, affinities, symbols, colors and similarities in Medicine Wheels of various cultures.

THEN, after you have acknowledged the directions, then acknowledge these directions to complete the sphere:

ABOVE = G-d, Sky, weather, mobile fertility (think sperm, rain)

BELOW = G-ddess, Earth, Nourishment, support, stationary fertility (think seeds taking root)

WITHIN = that holy thing which is inside of you.

At the yoga studio, where I am cautious about smoke or fire (so no incense or smudge), I use essential oil spray to seal the sphere before Practice.

After you have acknowledged these things, you are perfectly safe.

I sometimes sleep in a magick sphere, if I need Deep Rest.  This has the added benefit of Medicine Wheel, I can Rest while balancing my Air, Fire, Water and Earth!

* * *

for more learning –

Medicine Wheel:

https://lonerwolf.com/medicine-wheel/

 

Here is a complicated page about the Magick Circle with Jewish mystical references for those who want to be more formal about their practice:

http://www.crystalinks.com/day8circlemagic.html

 

Here is a simpler page about the Magick Circle:

http://www.wikihow.com/Cast-a-Circle

 

 

A rough Buddhist equivalent, Buddhist wheels are like the 8 spoked wheel Bhavacakra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavacakra

(This is more of a description of the known world and a map of the inner states, than it is a protection, a carving out of safe, sacred space from mundane, everyday space.  It is often created as a sand painting.  In Buddhism, to clear space and banish Demons, to make room for pure practice, they use  Bell and Dorje!  Ringing the bell creates the space (but you cannot use the bell for anything else):  http://www.tibetanbuddhistaltar.org/bell-and-dorje/)

Our story starts with this symbol:

This symbol was given to me by a Caribbean Practitioner (Shaman? Witch? Healer?) of Taino heritage  who gave me a personal totem of Green Parrot.  My first totem, medicine animal.

I was young and egotistical.  I thought I should have a tiger or a bear or an eagle as my personal totem, not a Green Parrot.

I lived in Indiana.  There were no Green Parrots there.  I was arrogant, and too ignorant to know better. (interesting, as Green Parrot now reminds me to not be deceived by appearances!)

This symbol is the Medicine Wheel.

She said, the first part of your journey is to learn the Medicine Wheel.

I spent the next 20 years of my life learning the Medicine Wheel.  I am still learning the Medicine Wheel!  The wisdom and teaching of the Medicine Wheel is the basis for all of my practice, and it is, like any other study, infinite in its potential for learning and growth.

The Four Directions (also called Four Elements):

East – Air – Thought & Ideas

South – Fire – Passion & Play & Innocence, giving

West – Water – Emotion & Spirits of the Ancestors

North – Earth – Physical body, possessions, holding and grounding (including making a living).

As I worked these, and met other teachers, I learned about more directions:

Above – Male energy, Sky Father, Weather, Rain that fertilizes the womb of Earth.

Below – Female energy, Earth Mother, the fertile ground which gives all nourishment

Within – That spark of divine within me that touches the whole world.

Walkside Left and Right – companions of our Creative and Rational sides.

(Walksides, I learned from Tsalagi Wise Man, Don Waterhawk, who learned from Grandmother Twylah.  Tsalagi is what white folk call “Cherokee.”)

So 20 years, I spent, studying, learning and growing within the Medicine Wheel.  The Medicine Wheel divides the Sacred from the ordinary, makes a space where it is safe to Invoke and Create and Perform Ceremony, Ritual, and Magick.   I learned a pipe ceremony, from a white man, who was given the ceremony from a red man.  This ceremony was suitable for white folk to use, and I took it up as a weekly practice.  I gave the ceremony to a half dozen people over my life.  I made a Medicine wheel out of birch frame and sheepskin, with my Totem Animals on it (but there were no Green Parrots.  I had forgotten about the Green Parrot!)

Then I moved to Australia.

In Australia,  the North was the South, and the Water was to the East and the practitioners here sometimes call the Elements of the Medicine Wheel according to – where is the ocean, where is the mountain, where is the lake, where is the wind?  But when I looked at my Medicine Wheel Inside, I could not match it to the elements outside.  The Chinese have 7 elements, including wood and metal.  I began to get confused.  How could I match that within me, to an outer practice?

In Ayurveda and yoga, the elements reside in the same places in the body, and they spin according to your body, not according to which hemisphere of the planet you live upon.

Even worse, how could I teach it?  Everyone here has a different view of the Medicine Wheel!

Some put fire in the North, some put it in the West.

Some put water in the East, some put it in the North

And so on.

So how could I teach this very basic thing, how to make Safe Space – without teaching the Medicine Wheel?

I offer a simple chart for my Circle:

Lately, I have learned that different Native American tribes place different elements in different quarters of the medicine wheel, too.  For me, now, each person needs to find their directions, find their own compass, to understand.  Learning the 4 elements is a terrific place to start, and honouring them in your practice will teach more about where they are on your Medicine Wheel.  It depends on your tradition, your blood, what you are attracted to, the land upon which you walk, and your inner guidance.

I wish I could just say, THIS direction is THIS element, but I cannot.  I can, however say, these elements are vital parts of human existence, and learning and honoring them is a step towards better understanding our place and role with each other and The Earth.

The most amazing thing I gained by coming to Australia – is that every day, I see these birds (Rainbow Lorikeets):

 

And I know that the Taino teacher was right.

It is with great joy that I bask in the medicine of Green Parrots.  I am especially fortunate, because the green parrots I see the most are Rainbow Lorikeets – and their colours are exquisite, and remind me of the integration of my chakras, and of spreading joy.

Rainbow lorikeet in particular speaks of overcoming disability with creativity, freedom, the ability to change my life, and dreams coming true.

I now welcome this Green Parrot Medicine!

Aho, to the Taino woman who set me on this path.