I was meditating with my Coffee Tree friend, and it showed me a Medicine Wheel – a simple cross that it was making with its branches.

I laughed and said, “You’re struggling in the East” – and the Tree said, “We all do the Best we Can.”

I thought about how challenging it can be to visualise or draw freehand a perfect Medicine Wheel.  Yes, the tree was right, and when I check in with my Spirit and my Relationship to the Earth, Water, Fire, and Air – it’s never in perfect balance.  There are excesses of emotion, or deficiencies of passion, gaps and surpluses.  It’s a Life’s Work to keep the Medicine Wheel in balance and wholeness.

Pay attention to your work with the Medicine Wheel.  Just this week I was doing my prayers to the Four Directions, Above, Below and Within to create a Medicine Wheel, but caught myself calling to Sky Father when I meant to be calling Earth.  This mistake is a clue about my struggle to manifest.  Maybe I want God to do the manifesting for me (when it is really my own Work). Perhaps you forgot a detail – what was that in the East again?  I encourage everyone to draw the Medicine Wheel, to visualise it, to pray with it, to make your prayers in the fullness of the Four Winds and the qualities of Being that they represent.

Then the Tree said, “Look at me!  The Good Red Road!”

I looked, and saw that the vertical stem is the Good Red Road, the path of straight and narrow, of Guidance from Heaven.

I’ve heard American Indians speak of “The Good Red Road,” and I’ve looked at the Medicine Wheel and scratched my head, wondering – what is this road?

The Tree showed me that in the East, the Sun Rises, and we are Born.  We travel our lives from East to West, as the Sun does, and age during the journey.  This is why in many traditions the Ancestors dwell in the West.  Irish Celts call the Island that lies West of the Sunset Tir Na Nog, or “Land of the Young;” in Native British traditions, it’s the Summer Isle.

So as we travel from baby to old age – we are guided by the good Red Road.  There are a number of diversions, and there are areas we excel in.  If the Road of Life is 100 miles long, maybe your strongest connection to the Vertical Stave will be at 25 miles.  Perhaps you will achieve connection and excellence at 70 miles.  Some travel those miles in just a few short years – some of us are fortunate enough to have decades to travel those miles.  Some may be able to stay connected to Heaven and Earth throughout their lives, perhaps some will be lost most of the Journey from Birth to Death.

This brought to mind an image of 1000 people, walking from East to West, and all of the peaks and valleys of their lives.  We all travel our lives, working on the Lessons we’ve been given.

The Vertical Stave is the guiding star, the upright posture, the spine with Infinity at top (Heaven) and bottom (Earth).  Taiji is the dance between Heaven and Earth (yin / yang).  Wuji is the Wholeness of the balance.

You need to stand up straight, to be strong in order to perceive the horizon (the horizontal Path of Life on the Medicine Wheel).  A tree strives, nourishing its roots in the Earth, reaching towards heaven.  Not all trees are straight and tall, nor are all humans.

But we each walk the Path that is before us.