Your “wheel” helps you see where you are in the world. It enhances your strengths and bolsters your weaknesses. It can show you your path. It can protect you.

There is this tendency for a teacher or an author to say “this plant/element/color/critter/season is in the North and this one is in the East, this one in the South, and this one in the West,” with no regard to a person’s heritage, where in the world they are, or anything else. Your placement in your Universe is distinct, individual, and specific to you. Some of the things that can go into it are:

• Your ancestral lineage
• Your spiritual lineage
• Where you are from
• Where you live now

You may have even noticed that not every author or teacher’s designations match.

Think about it – if you lived on an island, in which direction would the element of water be for you? If you lived on the east coast of the US, would your placement of water be different than if you lived on the west coast? If you lived near a volcano, would your placement of the element of fire logically be in the south, or would it be in the direction of the volcano? If you lived south of the equator, would your direction for winter still be north?

I live in Southern California, but I grew up on the East Coast, and the home of my heart is a peninsula on Maui. My close ancestry is predominantly Celt and Norse. My spiritual lineage is from all over the globe. Should my world view and directional association of the elements match those of someone who lives in a landlocked place where storms almost always come from the north? And what makes someone an expert on which elements go where?

Likewise, your understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics of a given animal may not line up with what the books or websites tell you. Those sources either contradict or repeat each other anyway. What associations do you have with a given animal? What vibe do you get off a critter? What are they doing when you encounter them, either in the physical or in a meditative journey?

It’s like assuming that, because we are in a certain part of our orbit around the sun, it is this season or that season, regardless of what latitude and climate we find ourselves. it doesn’t fit.

If you are connecting to the Universe using someone else’s designations, how is that different from being a member of an organized religion? Either way, you’ve got a mediator between you and the Divine.

…to be continued…