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Indigenous resources

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What Is �the Medicine Wheel?

The medicine wheel is a circular wheel that is used as a tool in Indigenous culture to help share teachings and to help find balance in life. All areas are connected, and they can’t be balanced without the other.

The wheel is divided into four areas with the colours yellow, red, black and white.

Many different nations across the land referred to as North America use a version of a medicine wheel to share teachings, but not all medicine wheels have the same teachings! Sometimes they might look different based on the traditions and beliefs of each culture.

What Is �the Medicine Wheel?

Each of the four areas on the medicine wheel have specific features falling in different categories.

Those categories are:

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• the cardinal directions
• the four sacred medicines
• states of being
• the four seasons
• the four elements
• different stages of life

Each area and feature has specific teachings we can learn from.

Why Is It a Wheel?

The Circle of Life: Everything in life is a loop. As some things go, others arrive and it continues to go on, like the four seasons.

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Having self awareness about our states of being can be a balancing act, but in order to live a happy life, we have to find our own balance and maintain it. Without one section, the rest of the wheel would not be balanced.

The circle of the wheel represents the circle of life, well-rounded self awareness and knowledge.

The Circle of Knowledge: The cycle of using the medicine wheel as a tool to pass on knowledge.

We start here because east is the direction the sun rises in, and birth is the first stage of life.

Spring is the season of new life on Earth.

Do you see the connections between each category?

Think about what the element has in common with the colour or the sacred medicine.

Do you see the connections between each category?

Is the element connected to the season? What happens during this season that could be connected to the life cycle?

Brainstorm the connections you see in this section.

Think about the state of being and how slowing down could benefit that area of your life. What other connections can you make in this area?

Some call it the rest period, with winter being a time to slow down.