The Powers of the Medicine Wheel

Among the People, a child's first Teaching is of the Four Great Powers of the Medicine Wheel.

1. To the North on the Medicine Wheel is found Wisdom. The Color of the Wisdom of the North is White, and its Medicine Animal is the Buffalo. In the north the winters are bitter cold with strong winds…and the buffalo simply puts his big, wide head down and continues perseveringly and knowingly.

2. The South is represented by the Sign of the Mouse, and its Medicine Color is Green. The South is a place of Innocence and Trust. The mouse celebrates excitedly over a simple piece of cheese. His eyesight is very short, but he feels with his whiskers. We can feel for that is the nature of the heart. We can welcome everyone into our opened hearts.

3. In the West is the Sign of the Bear. The West is the Looks-Within Place, which speaks of the Introspective nature of man. The Color of this Place is Black. The bear hibernates for half the year. We, too, need rest and quiet and introspection.

4. The East is marked by the Sign of the Eagle. It is the Place of Illumination, where we can see things clearly far and wide. Its Color is the Gold of the Morning Star. The east is where the sun rises. The eagle has very sharp vision. It can detect a field mouse from high up in the sky. By rising high above the ground we can see our daily problems in perspective…from a distance our problems are small in comparison with the rest of our life.


At birth we are given a particular “Beginning Place” within these Four Great Directions on the Medicine Wheel. This Starting Place gives us our first way of perceiving things, which will then be our easiest and more natural way throughout our lives.

But any person who perceives from only one of these Four Great Directions will remain just a partial man. For example, a man who possesses only the Gift of the North will be wise. But he will be a cold man, a man without feeling. And the man who lives only in the East will have the clear, far sighted vision of the Eagle, but he will never be close to things. This man will feel separated, high above life, and will never understand or believe that he can be touched by anything.

A man or woman who perceives only from the West will go over the same thought again and again in their mind, and will always be undecided. And if a person has only the Gift of the South, he will see everything with the eyes of a Mouse. He will be too close to the ground and too near sighted to see anything other than those touching his whiskers.

There are many people who have two or three of these Gifts, but these people still are not Whole. A man might be a Bear person from the East, or an Eagle person from the South. The first of these men would have the Gift of seeing Introspectively within Illumination, but he would lack the Gifts of Touching and Wisdom. The second would be able to see clearly and far, like the Eagle, within Trust and Innocence. But he would still not know of the things of the North, nor of the looks-Within Place.

In this same way, a person might also be a Golden Bear of the North, or a Black Eagle of the South. But none of these people would yet be Whole. After each of us has learned of our Beginning Gift, our First Place on the Medicine Wheel, we then must Grow by Seeking Understanding in each of the Four Great Ways. Only in this way can we become Full, capable of Balance and Decision in what we do. Seven Arrows speaks of this Growing and Seeking.

To Touch and Feel is to Experience. Many people live out their entire lives without ever really Touching or being Touched by anything. These people live within a world of mind and imagination that may move them sometimes to joy, tears, happiness or sorrow. But these people never really Touch. They do not live and become one with life.

The Sun Dancer believes that each person is a unique Living Medicine Wheel, powerful beyond imagination, and that he/she has been limited and placed upon this earth to Touch, Experience and Learn. The Six Grandfathers Taught me that each man, woman and child at one time was a Living Power that existed somewhere in time and space. These Powers were without time and space. These Powers were without form, but they were aware. They were alive.

According to the Teachers, there is only one thing that all people possess equally. This is their loneliness. No two people on the face of this earth are alike in any one thing except for their loneliness. This is the cause of our Growing, but it is also the cause of our wars. Love, hate, greed and generosity are all rooted within our loneliness, within our desire to be needed and loved.

The only way that we can overcome our loneliness is through Touching. It is only in this way that we can learn to be Total Beings. God is a presence of this Total. He is the Breath of Wisdom, the Total Understanding, and these two words express Wholeness.

These “Beginning Place” on the Medicine Wheel are the Beginning Gift to each of us from God. For example, there are Eagle People, Bear People, Buffalo People, Mice people…but within each are the other differences of the Four Great Directions. So, let’s take a look at mice. Mice never see things at a distance. Everything they can see is right in front of them, where they can sniff at it with their noses and Touch it with their whiskers. Their lives are spent in Touching things. A Mouse Person would be one who saw everything close up and whose vision would be limited to the immediate world around him. He/she can only understand things and ideas that they gather from close by.

But if the Mouse Person were to be born into the North, his Beginning Gift would be the Gift of the Mind. He/she might be a “White Mouse”. He/she, to become Whole, will have to find Marriage of this Gift of the South and with the other directions in order to become a Full Person and have balance of the Four Directions. The marriage for the mouse would have to take place in his heart.

I was taught three other directions on the Medicine Wheel: Up, Down and In.

1. The Up direction is the sky. The sky is up, the color is blue and it seeks to find the eternal.
2. The Down direction is the ground. The ground is called “Mother Earth” for she is full of life. One must step lightly onto the ground in order not to disturb the teeming life that exists there at all times.
3. The In direction is inside of me. That is the last and the most profound direction for in it is contained the Breath of God.