Medicine Wheel Astrology

Because I teach people about traveling through time and space, I am familiar with the Medicine Wheel. I consider it a useful tool to reconnect with both natural rhythms and spiritual spaces. Rather than a Native American construction, I think of the Medicine Wheel as a Neo-Pagan one.

When I read Sun Bear’s book, “Earth Astrology”, I regarded it to be traditional Western Astrology with Native American trappings. Instead of Virgo being helpful and practical, it was Brown Bear. For me, Medicine Wheel astrology was another example of New Age syncretism.

I liken Sun Bear’s book to Ann Williams-Fitzgerald’s “auz astrology”. She changed the traditional Zodiac to Australian animals for Australians. Like Sun Bear, she included colors, crystals, and other elements in her astrology. I see their approaches as infusing Western astrology with new ideas and approaches.

The commonality between Medicine Wheel astrology, Celtic Tree, and Chinese is the same as between Western astrology and those two modalities. Celtic Tree astrology shares the most commonalities because it tries to explain people’s character by the seasons. Chinese astrology, which is based on different ideas, has little in common with Medicine Wheel astrology.

However, I think that by playing with Medicine Wheel astrology, it could resemble Chinese by adding the plant, mineral, direction, element, and color. As Chinese astrology has five elements, you can use the Medicine Wheel’s elements in a similar way. Since the Wheel is an arc, you could add these elements to deepen the readings.

Before I would use Medicine Wheel astrology, I would play with it first. Working out how the plants, etc, could be combined with the animal would be an interesting challenge. Medicine Wheel astrology has the potential to expand Western astrology into a more fun direction for the general public.

Works Cited:
Bear, Sun and Wabun Wind, The Medicine Wheel Earth Astrology, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1980.
Williams-Fitzgerald, Ann, auz astrology: the australian animal zodiac, Oracle Press, Moorooka, Australia, 1997.

Copyright: Virginia Carper, Animal Teachers, 2009,
contact me at animalteachers @ gmail.com
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