Adjusting to the Direction of South

The Fine Points and Broad Encompassing Curves of the Medicine Wheel

A Message for the Trecena of Serpent/CHICCHAN
by Minisa Crumbo Halsey

SUMMER

By the calendar of the natural world we completed the first quarter of summer sometime within the elastic middle of May, three weeks from the energetic ingress of summer.

Often, the last three weeks of a season and the first three weeks (21 days), will display classic transitional patterns so look for the unusual in everything. The unusual may be connected with completing , seating or initiating both the 21 days marking the ending and beginning of seasonal transitions. There may be a push-pull dynamic which can result in a kind of stasis or stop action so listen to the mind, heart, body and spirit message that may be distracted or feelings of overwhelm… set intention to honor and take mindful care of the whole system. These fine points do require the attention of time, rest and thought. Take refuge in silence and solitude when possible. There may also be concurrent rapid change and growth which can stretch and near exhaust resources and reserves and when the two follow closely upon one another, overlap or stack, it is time to call TIME OUT! No one can really do this to or for us as well as we can ourselves and often, carefully planned timeouts will not even be noticed. Repair, nourishment of all kind, and restoration are a wise (and enjoyable) course to integrate into the busiest and most demanding season of the year.

CHANGES

Chicchan, this new trecena ruler, is viewed as serpent or snake energy. Snake Medicine, neutrally represents current or immediate CHANGE in much traditional thought. When a snake is seen don’t we all stop short! This is a pause moment from the natural world to review recent changes and to also scan and prepare for possible unexpected changes to occur SOON, very soon!

The snake head may be viewed as the fine point and the body as the encompassing curves and paths of change, so also may the Medicine Wheel center be the head-focus-sacred flowering tree which fans out in a linear way to describe the directions and seasons, contained by a curvaceous boundary. Perhaps there are other ways or understandings you would bring to expand this mighty metaphor for our relationship with the change and chaos which defines much of our experience with the natural world.
Now, to speak of the order of the natural world. Would we remember that summer is seasonally opposite winter? The NORTH-SOUTH diagonal axis of the Good Red Road, connects us with that precious medicine time when we ‘fired the seeds of inspiration’ for the current summer growth. The winter-inner fire is now the summer-outer fire. The Chicchan that hibernated is now out of the vision quest place bringing changing conditions by which to promote, support and exemplify the all important growth of this season, the issue of which feeds all things through the rest of the year.. mostly from this time! Very important.

HONORING GRIEF

Many of the growths and seeds we prayed and dreamed of, wrote of, asked for and worked toward are coming to pass and many ‘fired seeds of inspiration’ will fall on rocky or dry ground and will not know new life, expansion and growth. This is the origin of SOME of the push-pull we may now be feeling and these feelings may suggest that recent disappointment, difficulties or transitions need to be praised and honored for what they were and perhaps might have become… And raise a voice in praise for these beings that life can go on ‘in a good way’.

FINE POINTS AND CURVES

A look out the window will reflect comparative seasonal push-pull weather activities and will affirm a personal resonance, not dissonance, with the larger world. Astrological influences, world events, health concerns, financial and work issues combined with relationships of outer and inner natures all arise out of our fine point center, radiating out with the season to occupy the broad sweeping curve of our personal Medicine Wheel wedges.

BE THE CHANGE

Draw a Medicine Wheel and make it a new/old calendar of the Circle of Life with plans, aspirations, hopes, dreams, prayers and petitions placed upon and within it. Name a tree being of choice, ask permission to live within this Being and place it at the center of your drawing, knowing that these drawings curving boundaries extend far beyond the limits of the page. Relax and savor BEING the Sacred Flowering Tree, rooted in the exact center of your life. Be with this tree being through all of the coming hours and days..the mid-days and mid-nights, the dawns and dusks, the rains and winds..the flowers, fruits and nuts it may bear, the tiny claw feet climb and run, beaks peck, young are being born and nesting, inch worms are climbing; lichen and moss are growing on north exposures; heat, cold and dry..it’s your tree (perhaps it’s a shrub), what is happening? Think about it. Ask. Listen. Watch. Feel. Know. Confide. Offer. They are our relatives. We are their relatives.

SANCTUARY

Consider borrowing from winter medicine-memory and revisiting (or creating) a hibernation-estivation (heat hibernation) vision quest sanctuary of the moment. Snake medicine brings big change and with it can come the rigors of rapid expansion and fatigue. Water your green and woody plant body and rest when possible, as the plants do..from sundown to sunup. Remember to ‘be breathed’. Move activities outdoors, sleep with a window open, feel the wind beings as another ‘inner lightening in the blood’, build a purification fire and feed it some tobacco and prayers of gratitude and acceptance for all known and unknown mysteries. Think summer frog and dawn bird song. Think fresh water and all young and innocent things. Think medicine thoughts. Take sanctuary in the good medicine thoughts. Think beauty, love, courage and bravery; patience and appreciation…balance and harmony. These are changes born truly of the heart …that know no fear.

REMEMBERING

No-where or no-thing would be present or visible if it were not for our Father Sky -Sun and partnership with our Mother the Earth, first, most beautiful and enduring of gifts from the Master of All Breath.

STRENGTH IN TIMES OF RAPID OR SLOW CHANGE

May we know strength from silence and solitude. May we know strength from joyous sound, community and right livelihood. May we know no separation with our highest selves, those of others or the Creator. These are worthy changes to have and to hold as we continue to ‘write our tomorrow’s‘ from the heart of the mighty Sacred Flowering Tree which resides at the center of our personal Medicine Wheel of Life, us.
We are partners with these things, FIRST. When this remembering comes FIRST, all things fall into alignment and everything goes better…now and forever more.

AHO!
Dawnwoman

FEATURED AUTHOR:

Minisa Crumbo Halsey, is a member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi of the Shawnee, OK agency and Muscogee Creek of the Okmulgee, OK agency. “In the way I was taught, or, ‘helped out’ by my teacher, Marcellus “Bear Heart” Williams, Muscogee Creek, in Indian talk… everything of life, is ceremony. Therefore, it is always about remembering… for the old ones say, “It is not whether you will do ‘it’ but whether you will remember it”, and, at the core of our remembering lives our sacred nature and the sacredness of all creation.” ~Minisa

Minisa is an artist, teacher, photo-journalist, video producer and author of “Spirit Talk – a Book of Days” that shares traditional teaching on the Medicine Wheel page.