Happy New Year!
What a beautiful time to recognize and appreciate the ending of a year
& The passing through to a new!
This is a potent time to reflect on the previous year. This is also a potent time to clarify your intentions for the upcoming year – helping you to manifest and create the life of your dreams. Intention-setting practices like meditation or yoga or ceremony, vision boards, art, music, dance, and any other form of creation or expression is a beautiful way to call in the energies you wish to cultivate in the upcoming year. Through these conscious actions and efforts, we create space for our intentions to manifest and ground into our Earthly life.
I have felt a deep pulling, now more than ever, to work in closer harmony with The Medicine Wheel – especially during this compelling time of transition and completion, commencement and rebirth. The Medicine Wheel is of Native American decent, and it represents the cycles of life as they turn and turn around the symbolic Wheel of the Year. Appearing as a circle, the Medicine Wheel as a whole teaches us about the never-ending lessons, rhythms, and evolutions of life – spinning around and around as each year passes. The Wheel is split into 4 parts, a part for each of the 4 Directions/Elements/Seasons correlating with one another to share a similar message and teaching. For each section of the Wheel, there is also a Gatekeeper – a specific power animal that holds the “medicine” of that part of the cycle.
For those of you that have worked with me before or who know me well, know that I LOVE learning from Earth and her natural rhythms, as it encourages me to recognize and honor MY own cycles. The Medicine Wheel is a powerful Shamanic tool that helps us do this. If we embrace the “medicine” of the Wheel (otherwise known as the teaching), we can embody the different powers, strengths, and wisdoms it holds. If we implement into our Lives what reverberates and resonates for us, in return each rotation around our Wheel of Life is smoother and filled with greater peace and knowing. You can find many different variations of The Medicine Wheel out there – I offer one below that resonates with me. As always, you may discover your own and choose differently. 😊
Traditionally we rotate clockwise, beginning in the East. The element that correlates with the East is Air; the season is Spring; the color is Yellow. The Gatekeeper of the East is known as the Eagle. The Eagle offers us the medicine of clarity, of sight, of perspective. The Eagle soars high in the sky, blown by the wind, gazing down onto Earth and all of its workings. The Air in which the Eagle soars is representative of breath, of intuition. This part of the Wheel symbolizes new beginnings, as the sun rises in the East each and every day. It is said that we first enter our Earth bodies in the East; it is also the place of conception. You can observe and feel this conception taking place during the Spring – when the Earth is waking back up from the silent solace of winter. We give our gratitude and respect to the East for bestowing us with a new day, new beginnings, with clarity and perspective, and with the chance to start anew.
Transitioning to the South, it is the place of Fire, of Summer, of the color Red. The Gatekeeper of the South is known as the Coyote. The Coyote offers us the medicine of resilience, perseverance, determination, and a whole lot of playfulness and trickery. In the South, the heat of Summer burns like Red Fire to transform and grow and play. The South is a place of passion and action, of coming together in community to thrive. Beginnings conceptualized in the East gain momentum and shapeshift in the South, allowing for Divine manifestation.
Transitioning to the West, it is the place of Water, of Fall, of the color Black. The Gatekeeper of the West is known as the Bear. The Bear teaches us about renewal, hibernation,rejuvenation, and acceptance of the dark. The Bear is also a fierce protector and nurturer. The sun sets every evening the West, encompassing the sky with Black darkness. It is said that when we are ready to leave our Earthly bodies, we will exit through the doors of the West. We also call upon this Watery energy to become comfortable with fluidity, with our emotions, with the rain; Water is known to have very cleansing and purifying properties, too. You can feel or imagine this time similar to the final stages of pregnancy – where the fetus lies in the dark, watery womb, replenished and renewed.
The final transition is to the North – the Element of Earth, Season of Winter, Color of White. The Gatekeeper of the North is known as the Buffalo. The medicine of the Buffalo is that of knowing and wisdom, gratitude and abundance. When Native Americans would hunt and kill a Buffalo, they used EVERY part of the animal. This was seen as a representation of the ultimate surrender and an action that honored the cycles of life and death. The buffalo was respected greatly for it’s life-giving qualities. Everything comes full circle in the North. It is said that this is place where the Elders, Ancestors, and Spirits reside. I see Earth and the North as a place of coming home – of grounding into our foundation for the next turn of the Wheel. Do you remember Harriet Tubman? With help from a friendly white woman, she followed the North star to run away because she feared being sold as a slave. Once free, she went back to assist hundreds of others on their way to freedom on “The Underground Railroad”. Through the support of the North, she helped to close one cycle AND begin a new for the hundreds she saved.
We lean into the support of the North during this time of year – as we are preparing to cross the threshold into 2019.
Blessings & Best Wishes for you in 2019…
Enhance. Embody. Empower.
Always Love,
Shanin Weisberg
Yoga Teacher, Chef, Shamanic Energy Healer
You can easily bless your home (or any space) through your thoughts, words, and actions.
Always Love, 
Happy Holiday & Winter Season!
