the medicine wheel, and Andean Cosmology 🌿 roots & wings festival 🌿 Japan's golden apples

NURSERY NOTES: The Green Corn Project's silent auction closes tonight at 9 p.m. Lots of gardener-friendly things available, and all the funds go to support this amazing organization: G.C.Project 🌿

The Roots & Wings Festival is in full swing. St. Edward's invites gardeners to drop by tomorrow morning (Sat.) to visit the university's 2-year-old food forest to learn about "The Unsung Heroes of Pollination." Food Forest 🌿 Later, at 1:30 p.m., a procession led by drummers will make its way to the Jones Auditorium for a performance based around Stevie Wonder's "Secret Life of Plants." Cosmic Intuition. 🌿 Next Sat. (Nov 2) visit Windsor Park for Eco Fest 2024. Over the past month "the Shade Brigade'" has been knocking on doors offering free shade trees, provided by TreeFolks, and these trees will be available at this event. Congressmen Lloyd Doggett and Greg Casar will be there, along with Thom the World Poet and a host of other activists and activities. Shade Brigade 🌿

GABION WALLS: with some robust netting and some big pebbles, you can fairly easily create a nice wall for your garden, writes Janet Hall. Gardenista ❦

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THE GOLDEN APPLE: if you are on a quest for the perfect apple, a good place to start might be Tokyo, where they can cost as much as $30 each. In this video, Sharmeleon visits a Japanese orchard and learns about the practice of putting bags over the apples as they growing. Sharmeleon ❦

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this publication) Many thanks in advance. PayPal link ❦

Editor's note: last month Jessica presented a beautiful speech on medicine wheels and Andean cosmology at the Austin Organic Gardeners Monday meeting. This article is based on her presentation.

{ PART ONE }

I would like to share information about the wonderful and well known medicine wheel.

For the past six years I have been studying shamanic practices and I came to encounter this powerful oracle. There was an inner revolution taking place, in terms of understanding how this symbol can be used as an ally and a fascinating tool.

I also wanted to see that if I applied these ancient practices, I would be able to achieve a profound connection with my surroundings and environment.

I will share three powerful ways you can apply the wisdom of the medicine wheel into your daily lives. But first things first. What is the medicine wheel?

The medicine wheels are ancient tools that indigenous or native nations have used for understanding and relating to the cosmos. The origin of the Medicine Wheel, also known as the Medicine Wheel or Wheel of Harmonies, dates back to civilizations as ancient as the Celts, the Wiccas, the Pagans, and the Native Americans such as the Lakotas or the Mayans.

The exact date that they were discovered is still unknown, but some have been dated to 4000 BC. Medicine Wheels exist all over the globe from the Great Stone Circle of Europe, Stonhenge, or those created in the wheat fields in England to the Mandalas in India.

The most frequently used version of the wheel comes from Lakota tradition, but there are many variations and none are right or wrong.

Writer Jessica Arroyo

They are a great universal legacy of connection with the hidden reality of nature and living energies. They are symbols focused on observation and connection with nature and the universe.

Medicine wheels have been developed in different cultures and times throughout the world. And although there are differences between them according to their cultural context, they have essential structures that are repeated and are common in all of them.

There is a magical and mythical universal network that unites them. It is a symbol of totality and perfection, balance and plenitude. This symbol can guide our journey and help us to unify ourselves with our surroundings.

The medicine wheel can help us see where we are located in order to know more about ourselves and complete what we start. Without inner journey there is no initiation. Everything we do has to do with what is occult within ourselves, and the impulses of our behaviors and habits.

The shamanic medicine wheel gives us the opportunity to situate ourselves and externalize our gifts, personality, conditioning, limitations and growth alternatives.

Gaining wisdom comes from moving in front of oneself and constantly evaluating who we are. The wheel teaches us to use all the elements in our favor to heal, know and understand ourselves.

It will allow us to fully connect with the living energy of nature and this planet. The power of the medicine wheel exists outside and inside of us. It is an oracle that many ancient civilizations followed to connect with their unconscious state of mind, in which we can fall into.

It is a map that guides in unity to the earth, and to protection when we undertake internal and external journeys. Exploring the medicine wheel is to better understand the world around us, and the life that creates us (or exists around us). It allows us to deeply enter into the mythical, personal cosmovision, and develop impeccably our personal goals, desires and dreams, and to contribute to the purpose of good living (caminar bonito).

Walking the sacred path of the ancestral wheels improves us, and is a window for transformation, strength, and flourishing.

It’s important to make the visual connection between ourselves and the symbol of the medicine wheel. Below you will find the Lakota medicine wheel and the Chakana which is representative of the Andean cosmovision.

{PART TWO }

I would like to share with you three ways in which we can understand the medicine wheel. Let’s see how each of these features can be applicable in the day to day.

1. UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE

The medicine wheel is a symbolic representation of the universe. It collects complementary opposites: the masculine and feminine, the moon and the sun, the sky and the earth, the up and down, time-space. The four elements, four directions and four seasons. It represents the three worlds or dimensions (above, middle and below). It also embodies the unknown, and the sacred.

It is also a sowing and harvest calendar, as well as a powerful tool for connecting with the cosmos. For ancestral communities, understanding the universe goes beyond the perception of the eye and what we can see. For them, understanding the universe is to know that everything around us is alive.

They honor and respect the living energy or life: the connection that we establish with every living thing. In this area the medicine wheel invites us to understand that everything is alive and always speaking to us, if we allow ourselves to listen with respect and acknowledgement.

We are part of everything and everything is part of us. It is a declaration to the universe that we are existence. The earth has always served as a collaborator to express the myth, prayer, and memory.

If you are interested in using this map in order to build your own garden, start by speaking to the earth, the seeds, the plants, the birds, the water. You can build your own medicine wheel outside of your home if you have the space, or draw one on paper and place it inside. It will act as a mandala that focuses and floods your living space with cosmic energy.

We are living in a world where division, confusion, and negligence toward our environment is serving as disconnectors from the simplest forms of living. Nature and rituals have always offered light in the darkest moments.

A great way of applying the wisdom of the medicine wheel is to reconnect with the natural world. This is an invitation to establish a deep communication with the elements, the directions, seasons, plants, animals, and people.

Experiment saying "hi" to everything, including people. This is a great first step to understanding how Native people came to collect the wisdom they mapped in the medicine wheels. Channel your distractions, and create your own way to bring beauty and meaning into all areas of your life.

2. UNDERSTANDING OURSELVES

The medicine wheel can also assist us in taking a journey within ourselves. We are constantly discovering who we are or what the meaning of life is.

If we take a look at the graphics I shared above we can see that the Lakota medicine wheel is divided into four quadrants and it speaks to us about the four stages of life.

Infant represents rebirth, your true self, a pure state of spirituality. Youth represents growth and transformation. The adult represents introspection, healing, wisdom, and change. The elder represents reverence for all the things the earth offers, abundance when all our relationships are honored, sacredness, peace, and life.

The medicine wheel also offers a holistic approach to our human experience. If you are looking for a journey of discovery where you can see yourself as a whole, we can take the four stages of being, mentioned in the map.

It shows four states of being: physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. Each one is interconnected and when one is out of balance, it has a consequence on the next one. This approach invites us to integrate all of the mentioned states as a basis for a healthy life.

For example, cultivating emotional intelligence will assist in our mental well-being, which will support a healthy and balanced physical body and pave the path for a harmonious spiritual connection.

The Chakana from the Andean cosmovision maps three important values to create harmony with ourselves and the universe. Allin Ruray speaks to not being lazy, putting your best foot forward, and endeavoring with all of yourself for the good of a cause or your community.

Allin Munay is the concept and value of accessing the willpower to do what needs to be done through love and care.

Allin Yachay teaches us to study and put to good use the ancestral wisdoms of our people. It instructs us that we are here in this time and space to learn what we can in order to be effective in service.

The instructions from this part of the Chakana are to work, to love, and to learn. The invitation here is to start to take interest in ourselves in order to create a positive impact in our own journey on this earth.

The aim is to find practical ways, that resonate with us, to build a strong, deep relationship with who we are. Too often we can experience disconnection and practice habits that will create disharmony within ourselves, giving the power to external sources to tell us who we are.

The medicine wheel is a map that we can use to return to our true self, to find out for ourselves what divine treasure we have been neglecting.

We are given the opportunity by the ancestral wheel to understand ourselves and externalize our gifts, personality, conditioning, limitations, and give us alternatives for growth.

Growing in wisdom comes from moving in front of oneself, and constantly reflecting on who we are. The wheel teaches us to use all of the elements in our favor, to heal, know and celebrate ourselves, and co-create with the universe the life that we want.

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3. EXPLORING RECIPROCITY

The Wheel of Harmonies, among other things, is a philosophical system, a kind of map or compass that guides us and unites us to the Earth, and gives us protection when we embark on inner journeys.

Harmony means a sense of perfect balance with our surroundings. The Chakana maps the value of Ayni, which speaks about the act of giving in order to receive. In the tradition of the Andean cosmovision, human beings are part of nature and belong to it and not the other way around.

Because Andean culture is centered on nature, Ayni can only be understood from a deep and intimate relationship with Mother Earth. For the Andean people, reciprocity with nature is a moral duty, since Pachamama is the one who gives us life, food and existence.

Everything we have to take, we must give back. If the bond of reciprocity with nature is broken, then the human being destroys his own habitat and attracts hunger, misery and tragedy to the human community (does that sound familiar?).

This Andean ethic of caring for nature can be practiced by those who have learned to love all living beings, and respect all forms of life.

For the Andean people, animals are not an inferior species just for the service of humans, but rather life companions who existed before humans and were very important in our culture and worldview.

Even a small ant or bee makes human existence possible. Ayni with living beings implies caring for them and loving them as our very existence. The invitation is to start practicing caring and generosity, and to respect every form of living energy and honor the forces of nature.

All can be sacred if we allow it. The beauty of the medicine wheel is that we can start to understand that when we give our best, we receive the best in return. Start practicing building altars in your garden, your nightstand, your balcony, anywhere that resonates with you.

Imagine that you are preparing a holiday meal with the certainty that it will bring love, joy, and nourishment to those who you love. In the same way that the trees, plants, animals, rivers, mountains, wind, sun, have given so generously themselves to you, it is time to offer something in return.

This gift can be in any form. You can take flowers to the creek, create a mandala in the sand, take some seeds to the birds . . . get creative. The importance of this practice is that you start connecting with the intention to give, bless, be grateful and create balance and harmony.

Remember that the intention is to give back not as an obligation but as a recognition of the commodity we have accustomed to take, take, and take some more. This will be our expression of gratitude to restore balance on this earth. To start creating a path of beauty and abundance of the life, you want to live for the period of time that it lasts.

I invite you to connect with the harmony and beauty of the Medicine Wheel. Initiate the journey to create your own myth. It is a good time to take a position in your existence. Not only is the human being within the Universe, but the universe is also within the human being. ❦

Jessica Arroyo is a plant medicine facilitator. She studied at the Shamanic School of Initiation, and has been a facilitator of plant medicine circles with Ayahuasca, Kambo, Cacao, Hape, and Sananga, among other sacred plant medicines. Contact Jessica at Medicine Wheel ATX