Guest Author - DawnEagle Summers

A Medicine Wheel is a symbol of the Universe and everything in it. It is also a sacred stone circle, a place to meditate, hold ceremonies, or pray. It is a Spiritual teaching tool, Sacred Space, the Wheel of Life, a marker of the Sun’s journey across the Earth, a focuser of energies, and a bridge between worlds. It is a place of Spiritual Power, teaching us about balance and harmony.

Medicine Wheels have Stone People marking the perimeter of their circle, with larger stones used for each of the Four Directions. Some Medicine Wheels use the stones to mark the positions of the Sun and other planets throughout the year.

The Medicine Wheel contains each of the Seven Sacred Directions, and all of their many teachings. To learn more about these lessons, read the previous article entitled Wisdom of the Four Directions

Each of us will stand on each spoke of the Wheel of Life, at some point in our lives, where we will learn the lessons from that direction. Often, we find ourselves traveling continually around the wheel, learning a new lesson each time we approach a different direction. The teachings go deeper every time our lives traverse the wheel.

You do not have to build your own Medicine Wheel to learn the lessons of the Seven Sacred Directions; this is not its purpose. These are not the only lessons that the Medicine Wheel will bring to your life. The importance of the Medicine Wheel is that its circle contains many life lessons.

The Medicine Wheel connects the physical world with the spiritual world. This means that the seen and the unseen worlds both exist within the Wheel. Some Medicine Wheels are created for dreaming, visioning, or for vision quests. The Medicine Wheel helps us to focus energies by pulling them into the center of its circle. This helps us to dream with more clarity, when we sleep within its boundaries. It helps us with visioning, and connecting with our Ancestors and Elders, our Spirit Guides, Totem Animals, and others in the Spirit World.

When you build a Medicine Wheel, you call in the energies of the Seven Sacred Directions. All of the energies called into the circle, along with the Stone People who hold the energy of the circle, and your own energies, make up the energies contained within this Wheel of Life. This gives the Medicine Wheel its own energy, or Spiritual Power, which is why you will feel the wind blow when you dedicate your Medicine Wheel.

The Medicine Wheel can help us to understand the inner connection we each share with all of life, because All of Life is represented within its circle. These teachings will take you beyond physical life, connecting you with the spiritual world, and to the teachings of the Ancestors, Elders, and the Other Side. The Medicine Wheel extends beyond the physical realm; it extends endlessly in each of the Seven Sacred Directions, and it focuses all of those energies into the center of the Wheel, or the center of oneself.

A Medicine Wheel can be a strong transformational tool in our lives. Once you begin this Path of study, be ready for the many lessons coming your way from the Medicine Wheel.