“Nature is my teacher.”
The Native American teachings rely on observation of Nature—listening to the stories whispered by of the natural world. The outer world reflects our inner world. When I have been in intense times of emotional and spiritual discomfort (depressed, burned out), I look to change everything around me. Start exercising. Change jobs. Find new friends. One day, something happens, there is a shift inside. I am different, and the world looks different. My perspective changes, my mood changes, my life changes. My inner world becomes my outer world. Did I need to change all those outer things? Most of the time, I can’t place my finger on the thing that worked.
When I completed medical school more than a decade ago and entered the workforce, my focus shifted from the future to the present. I was no longer focused on the next graduation date. The “real world” started with the lure of novelty that soon faded into the everyday. This was my life. Work, eat, sleep, repeat. Make money, occasionally get a little joy from buying something new. In this environment, I began to hunger for all things spiritual. I searched for teachings that would help me through difficult times.
The Native American teachings offered a grounded spirituality. Spirit was not just out there somewhere, but everywhere. Even in the church of my childhood, I could feel this to be true. God is everywhere. I have always believed that everything is alive: the rocks, the trees, this place. Everything has Spirit. The shamanic teachings attracted me. I began to find teachers, sweat lodges, meditations and ceremonies.
The Medicine Wheel
The “Medicine Wheel” represents a collection of Native American teachings. The name was given by Westerners looking at the ancient physical structures scattered across North America. Stones mark wheel-shaped structures with spokes to the center. These physical structures were used ceremonially in different ways by different tribes. However, the “Medicine Wheel” represents a collection of spiritual teachings as well.
For the Native Americans, “Medicine” is anything that heals the body, mind, emotions, or spirit. This is a much wider definition than is used in everyday America. In Native American teachings, “Medicine” is more than the pills in the medicine cabinet. Medicine is also wisdom that frees us from limiting beliefs of the mind, heals emotions, or helps us to find spiritual purpose.
We teach the things that we want to learn.
After taking the “Release and Renewal” workshop with Suzanne Scurlock-Durana over a decade ago, I discovered one way to pray the wheel. I had the lingering feeling that there was something deeper to these teachings. And so, I began to teach the Wisdom of the Wheel to others: one-on-one, in group workshops, meditations, anywhere.
Clarity comes slowly sometimes. I cannot say that there has been one moment when everything clicked. Rather, the teachings of the Medicine Wheel have slowly integrated into my life as pieces “click” into place like a jigsaw puzzle. There are always more pieces. Wisdom has layers, more depth. I am always seeing more of the puzzle.
The Cycle of Life
“It is an act of violence on the soul to try to fit it into a linear model.”
~adapted from Richard Rohr
Today, I understand the teachings of the Medicine Wheel as a metaphor that can be applied in multiple ways. Recently, the concept of the circle has been the most profound of the teachings for me. The circle represents the cycle of life. Life is not linear; life happens in cycles. We do not always go up, up, up to the top of the mountain. We are not always in the season of spring, busy building. There is a time for everything, including resting and gathering resources for the next cycle. (The market goes up. The market goes down.) Honor the cycles instead of fighting them,and life takes on grace and ease.
“I started to focus on what grows here.”
And so I return to the beginning: “Nature is my teacher.”
Nature is full of stories, metaphors, wisdom. My outer world reflects my inner world. Healing happens on all levels.
Eclesiastes 3:1-8, KJV, The Bible
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Release and Renewal Workshop
Join Dr. Joel Ying and Suzanne Scurlock-Durana in January for the Release and Renewal Workshop. Learn to use the teachings of the Medicine Wheel to create powerful intentions and manifest them into the world. Join the healing community. Experience one way to “pray the wheel” together.
Visit the courses page.