Medicine Wheel
The Creator gave us life
Mother Earth gave us our home
She sustains us under Father Sun
Inside Grandfather Sky who holds Grandmother Moon
Who moves the waters and sustains the women’s cycles
Who birth the children
Who all live on Mother Earth
With all the Four Legged’s, Creeping, Crawling, Swimming and Winged
And we are all connected by Mother Earth
Who is divided into the Four Directions starting with
Waboon - East
It is the starting time where all things begin
For that is where the sunrises
And Spring – Mnookmi begins the season with new growth
We are young in this direction for this is our Childhood - Binoojiinhsag
We begin our physical life on this Mother
A beginning colour of Yellow – Niibiish aabooke ininwag
Like a new day sun, like the beginning sprout, life begins in yellows
For it is in the Waboon where the Yellow Race and the rising sun begins
And we remember our Waboon of beginnings
Shawan - South
It is the going along time floating along the waters of life
For this is the time of high noon
And Summer – Niibin begins her season of heat and blossoming
We are teenagers in this time
And it is a time of meeting and socializing
It is an emotional time
And the south’s colour is red for that is where the sun is hottest
For it is in the South where the Red Race is
And we remember the Shawan where we blossomed
Ningabianong - West
Getting settled in the West
For that is the time of the sunsets
And Autumn – Dgwaagi begins, bringing harvests and storms, changing leaves and dying off
We are adults now and it is a busy time
It is a time of reaping all the challenges and learning through the changes in our lives, of having
our children, we harvest our growth and the storms, the challenges are meant to test us
and teach us
The West’s colour is black, for that is where the storms come and the black clouds bring rains
and water, thunder and lightning
And life starts to die back
Ningabianong is where the Black Race is
And where we remember Ningbianong lessons that made us smarter
Kewadin - North
Going home to the North
For that is the time of the Night where we must say good bye forever to that day
And Winter – Biiboon
Brings her white coat of snow and plays it in our hair, telling us to go inside out of the cold
We are Elders now and know the lessons of growing old for it is a learning time to slowly lose
what was given in Mnookmi
Older and wiser and getting ready for the other side It is a time of introspection, a spiritual time of
going inside and remembering and telling our stories when all is sparse in our physical lives.
This is where the White Race is
It is our Kewadin and where we learn to be spiritual before we go to the other side
And the Creator is in the center of it all
LauraLee K. Harris
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