Balancing and Wobbling

I’ve had fun with the light tone of the last couple of blogs. And fair enough, I’ve been a professional cartoonist for a large part of my life. But as a counselor, I’m also capable of more serious, sober moments. There are times in life when we laugh, but there are also times when we must cry.

The point is, we need balance. That’s why I love the Cherokee Medicine Wheel.

Picture a circle, with a straight line going from top to bottom, and another from left to right. The lines cross each other at right angles, so now you have a wheel with four spokes. Each spoke has a different color. The one pointing east, or 3 o’clock, is red. The
One at 12 o’clock, pointing north, is blue. In the west at 9 o’clock, the spoke is black, and at 6 o’clock in the south, the spoke is white.

The colors and directions have multiple meanings, but for now, let’s go with these: the east is associated with spirit, the north with mind, the west with the body, the south with all creation, or all the universe.

Now picture yourself in the center, your life a perfect balance of spirit, mind, body, and your relationship to the rest of creation. That’s where you want to live: in the center of the Medicine Wheel, in balance. When you start to get out of balance, and you start to move in an unbalanced way along one of those spokes away from the center, your whole life begins to wobble, like a tire on your car that’s not balanced. If you don’t get back in balance, pretty soon your whole life is rattling and shaking dangerously.

Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a main focus of athletics, or intellect, or whatever in your life, just don’t neglect the other aspects of life. Whatever you do, do it in a balanced way.

And that’s today’s holistic health tip!