The Medicine Wheel

The Medicine Wheel is a tool for the journey of self-discovery. There is always an unknown in the relaity we experience as we are not capable of seeing all. Even in prehistoric times they were aware of this because they used to look outside of their reality eg astrology. The Medicine Wheel is a circle that represents the Earth. It is divided into four sections. The belief was that if you understood these four sections you would be able to understand yourself better. This was practised by The Native Americans, Celts and others. To understand something deeper you create a Medicine Wheel. This can be universal or personalised.

The Centre is NOW. The smaller the NOW circle, the less awareness one has, so we have to work to expand the centre circle equally in all quadrants, otherwise out view is warped and we lose contact with ourself. When we move out of the NOW center unevenly we unbalance.

Fear sends us either to the Future which is an illusion or else to the Past and not where we are in the present moment – the NOW. The more we open and expand the centre NOW circle, the more we move toward the outer circle thus reaching enlightenment since reality would then have become one.

If our energy is transferred to the Future, we experience uncertainity and fear or else an infinite possibility of hope. If our energy is transferred to the Past, we experience guilt or nostalgia. If our energy is transferred to the Subject we experience grandiosity or depression/self-pity. If our energy is transferred to the Object, we experience anger, jealousy or envy.

The law of gentle return takes us back to the centre.

Drawing a simple medicine wheel gives us an awareness of where we are at this point in time. When we sleep with our problems without integrating them, they sink into our subconscious and continue to work. With a healthy attitude it might resolve by a dream, but the experience continues to work at a level that we have no control over. Therefore before sleeping, we should distance ourselves from the problems if they cannot be resolved before sleep.

Putting our intent in the NOW is sufficient for the power of intent to work. It is important that we are rooted in the present moment.

When the past is helping us to understand the present moment, it feeds the inner circle – the NOW centre which begins to grow, so it no longer energises guilt etc. But energises our present moment, empowering the NOW.

The Future can help us to strengthen the NOW by non-attachment to thoughts and material objects. The Past can bring about a process of forgiving ourselves as well as others. Our past experiences can also help us learn how to love ourselves. The Object can express compassion and empathy towards others and the Subject will begin to doubt the stories about itself with all the titles and labels we collect along the years. We are then liberated, that is, we realise that we do not have the whole truth about ourself and all previous beliefs about ourself fall.

For the inner NOW circle to expand it needs to be fed with Joy, Love, Stillness, Gratitude and Presence (comfortable in being).

When we do not live in the NOW and get stuck in our problems, the inner NOW circle shrinks because it loses energy which is wasted on Past/Future/Subject/Object.

Psychosomatic illnesses come about when we lose this energy and begin to weaken. When our consciousness is scattered and fragmented, it causes damage to us. The arrows have to be inward focused, so that anything out there, Past/Future/Subject/Object gives us energy not depletes us. Future should be lived as possibilities.

When we live in the inner NOW circle, we will automatically learn how to protect that space. As the inner NOW circle grows, it automatically begins to repel those situations that can lead it to shrink. It grows and shrinks everyday according to our life circumstances until we reach the critical point, where the only way is then forward.

When making a spiritual step forward, there is the tendency to be attacked by those issues that usually shrink this inner circle because the energy that was usually outgoing rebels which can even lead to absurd thoughts and ideas that are out of nature and that we do not normally indulge in. This happens as an attempt to pull us down to a lower level of vibration.