Personal Balance and the Medicine Wheel

[Thunderwolf, MSN, RN]

here is an excellent site on the medicine wheel as authored by jim pathfinder ewing (nvnehi awatisgi). he explains and discusses the symbolism of the wheel as well as its usage in achieving "balance" thru native prayer...in ourself, in our lives, and in our world. he presents the importance of achieving balance in relation to our male and female energies...inherent in us all.

it is our purpose, each of us, to bring balance to the earthly mother. in doing this, we bring balance to ourselves.

within each of us, male and female, are male and female elements. for the past few thousand years, since the rise of settled civilizations in the west, the energy of the earth has been tilted toward the masculine, a patriarchal power. this is not bad. it just is. in the scheme of things, perhaps it was necessary to provide the impetus for the rise of hierarchy, to bring order to the world in human relations.

we would not be a global society today without it. technology, the result of the literal, rational left-brain thinking of the male power, is not a bad thing. it is a powerful force. but when out of balance with its goal-oriented, task-formed action, it also has negative influences such as cruelty, dominance, war and action without regard for others. and it is not the whole truth. being literal, straight-line energy, its "truth" can be easily broken. (an example is legalese: how something can be true and false at the same time. how it can indicate one thing while meaning another, allowing "advantage" to one over another.)

the female power is necessary to hold the excesses of the male power in check. female power is holistic, circular, right-brained. its "truth" is often not easily described because it is non-rational, more symbol than word, difficult to put into literal words that separate ideas and, thereby, doesn't represent the "whole" truth when put into words. (an example would be: "my heart is warm and the birds sing, the earth and i are one." it is true and totally true, and cannot be dissected, nor verified in a rational way.)

and

the great secret is that we always carry the sacred hoop of life within us all the time. it is up to us to use it, keep it whole.

this is reflected in the medicine wheel, which incorporates male (straight line) and female (circular) energies as one.

go here to view the entire web article:http://www.manataka.org/page694.html