WITH ITS HEALING PLANTS, sacred directions, and prayer cairns, the medicine wheel garden is truly an altar, laid out on the earth. Everything you add to it for its beauty and renewal enhances its efficacy. Similarly, the creation of a miniature medicine wheel indoors can provide a special focus for remembrance, renewal, and prayer. When you create this little personal altar, you will be in tune with long-standing American Indian spiritual practices. Native people create altars, large or small, prominent or discreet, temporary or permanent, for countless needs, and they have done so for many centuries. Traditional American Indian altars are usually created on the earth and open to nature.
But indoor medicine wheels can be especially rewarding for use in winter, during stormy weather, or as a gift for friends and family members, especially people who are elderly or shut in.
As with the outdoor medicine wheel garden, the circle of special stones carefully placed on a favorite plate or round tray sets
the basic form for your miniature medicine wheel altar. Hiking along backcountry roads or beachcombing, I pick up stones along the way that look special to me. Some days I’ll light on dark, smooth stones; other times I’ll select white quartz or feldspar with jagged edges and odd shapes. Sometimes I find perfect garnets with eight smooth, beveled sides.
If you make a habit of looking out for special stones while walking in your own neighborhood and when you travel, you will accumulate a wonderful collection to draw on for your indoor medicine wheel altars.
One small medicine wheel altar that I created has an outer circle of shiny black river stones intermixed with smooth white beach stones. Within this circle I placed tiny Zuni fetishes around a central “sun face” stone resting upon a bed of cedar and sage leaves. I created another altar from white coral fragments found during a winter walk along a Hollywood, Florida, beach.
Another favorite altar is one I made with small, select beach stones picked up from shores around Long Island Sound. The outer ring is divided into four quadrants of ten or eleven small stones each: one of white quartz, another of black or gray quartz, a third of gold feldspar nuggets, and the last of speckled conglomerates. For the inner cross I chose smaller white quartz stones. Very unusual red and pink stones I encountered on a visit to New Mexico are stacked in the center. A small candle, my quilled medicine wheel ornament, my special spirit stone spear point, and a cowrie shell fill the inner quadrants of this altar. I change this arrangement often and vary it according to what my meditations and focus seem to dictate. I made a small leather bag to hold my altar stones, and I take them with me when I travel.
A stunning medicine wheel altar can be created with polished gemstones. Perhaps your outer circle will accommodate five each of rose quartz, clear quartz, leopard-skin jaspar, and jade, with special crystals in the center. Or you might want to choose groups of special stone beads and string them together into a simple necklace. When you are not wearing the necklace, you can lay it out as the rim of a small medicine wheel altar. Whatever your choices, it is important to change this small altar often. Wash all of the stones and clean the other elements that you add to your altar. Each time you do this you add more of your own personal energy to this creation.
Inside the altar’s stone circle, an arrangement of fresh or dried herbal blossoms, leaves, seeds, or roots can embody some of the vital healing plants that grow in the outdoor medicine wheel garden. Pinches of sage, tobacco, sweetgrass, and bearberry or corn-meal, representing the sacred plants, can be set in tiny bowls in the four quadrants. Or you may evoke the four elements: Four more tiny bowls, one in each quadrant, can hold water, a candle symbolizing fire, a pinch of earth, and a small feather to symbolize the wind.
Placing sacred foods on the medicine wheel altar can help you or someone close to you when experiencing digestive problems. Separate tiny bowls can hold bits of the “three sisters”: cornmeal, dried beans, and dried or fresh squash or pumpkin. Or you might choose tiny bits of your own choice foods. You will want to offer a daily prayer to invoke the spirit of the foods with the spirit of healing.
Small milagros can further bless your altar arrangement. Mila-gros, “little miracles,” are tiny symbolic offerings that express gratitude for an important need in your life fulfilled or hope for fulfillment of such a need. A milagro may be made of silver, gold, tin, brass, or other alloy and can take the form of anything from a roadrunner or a car to an arm, leg, breasts, or a kneeling angel. If you have visited churches in the Southwest, you have probably seen entire walls covered with these offerings of faith and thanksgiving.
A candle in the center of your medicine wheel altar or several candles within the arrangement of other offerings will help focus prayers and healing energies. Small candles in suitable colors can mark the cardinal directions: yellow or gold for east, blue or purple for south, red or magenta for west, and white or silver for north. Fragrant candles are an especially nice touch, especially for meditation. I always set a clear glass or bowl of water nearby to catch the reflections of the candle flames. If you live in a place where white birches grow, you may want to add small strips of fallen birchbark collected in the woods to hold the names and
prayers of loved ones. You can also use slips of paper wrapped in sweetgrass for this purpose. But make absolutely certain not to place these materials close to burning candles—they are highly flammable.
Just as our country chose the eagle over the turkey as its national symbol, and each state has an animal and bird symbol, many people are drawn to one or more animals that for them symbolize strength and confidence.
You can create a miniature medicine wheel garden with living plants indoors, perhaps in a round basket or clay dish or shallow bowl. I do this seasonally for the pleasure of having the small, fresh plants nearby—I especially enjoy the fragrance of plants, earth, and stones when I mist the garden. This kind of miniature garden also makes a lovely gift.
Recently I assembled a miniature Mother Goose garden in a shallow, round bamboo basket lined with a clear plastic tray. I selected young parsley, sage, and thyme plants, set in small plastic pots, for the outer rim of the tray and placed a nice young rosemary plant in the center. I used clumps of Spanish moss to cover all the little pots. Quartz cobbles and crystals, carefully placed, added a particularly festive feeling. I tied a quilled Plains Indian medicine wheel ornament to the basket’s handle, fastening it in place with a tiny bundle of sage and sweetgrass. A shiny red ribbon set off everything proudly.
This tiny garden is the center of my spring altar for the May full moon to honor the regeneration of my full-scale medicine wheel garden outside. To pay my respects to the four cardinal directions, I placed a small, hand-carved Zuni fetish of deer (for the east), wolf (for the south), eagle (for the west), and bear (for the north) on the quartz cobbles. These are the “power animals,” along with crow, that guard my work, especially my gardens.
Before first frost in autumn, I create a similar indoor altar centerpiece using selected cuttings of a few choice plants that I have rooted from my outdoor medicine wheel garden. I plant the cuttings in fine soil in a large, shallow clay dish more than a foot in diameter and about three inches deep. (The kind of plastic tray with low sides that is set under a large garden pot will also serve this purpose.) I like to have young cuttings of sage, sweetgrass, bearberry, and strawberry and a few little tobacco seedlings. Like my large medicine wheel, this miniature garden features its tiny peace pole in the center surrounded by pretty little pebbles piled in a cairn. The four cardinal directions are marked with trimmed stems of goldenrod or yarrow and adorned with thin ribbons of appropriate colors. Small beach stones mark the crisscross pathway and larger beach stones surround the rim of the clay dish. I treat these plants in bonsai fashion, clipping them judiciously to keep them small and misting to prevent them from getting leggy.
My living garden altars often feature my tiny Zuni fetishes, each on a small piece of white quartz. A fetish is a small object whose form resembles a living being. It may be made of bone, ivory, stone, or shell. Many are carved of semiprecious stones. Sometimes they are adorned with tiny arrowheads, or pearl or stone amulets. When honored
and treated with respect, the fetish becomes a helpful amulet for the person who possesses it.
Native American clans and bands have always felt a close kinship with the birds and animals around them and have long had sacred animal totems and affiliations. Fetishes are one way of representing these affiliations. In some tribes, members of the Badger Clan were the fiercest fighters, while the Deer Clan had the swift runners and good providers. The Panther Clan wore the mark of supernatural powers, swift hunting abilities, and special medicine powers. The Kit Fox Society of Plains Indian warriors were noted
Black crow or raven platform pipe, Hopewell culture, Mound City, Ohio
hunters and skilled diplomats. In many tribes, members of the Bear Society were the medicine people. Of course, this varies from tribe to tribe.
Shamans in particular had, and have, power animals that serve as their special guardians and spirit helpers in the other-world. Animal and bird symbols are often painted on their drums, rattles, whistles, and ceremonial clothing. Native people felt an equally close kinship with the cosmos—the sun, moon, stars, comets, and plants—and it was the strength of the power animals that allowed one to journey to the outer cosmos.
Some sacred Native American sites honored the vital animals so respected in their beliefs. Effigy mounds especially have immortalized the eagle, bear, snake, and lizard for all time. We look at these sites today as ancient reminders of an earlier reverence for the myriad powers in nature. They are truly amazing earth altars imbued with ritual ceremonial energies.
Eagle medicine, like bear medicine, is especially powerful, and the eagle or the bear is often a central figure in medicine ceremonies. Skilled healers who know the sacred formulas have handed them down, over many generations, among different tribes. Wearing or carrying the fetish or claws of either of these two animals was a sign of great power. Traditionally, the right to wear eagle feathers or bear claws was earned by acts of valor and sacrifice. It was understood that one could not lie or commit misdeeds in the presence of a bear claw or an eagle feather.
Both the eagle and the bear are considered sacred beings. Eagle feathers represent courage and honesty, bear claws strength and courage. And both are symbols of good fortune. Many tribes believe that the bear and the eagle also bring healing and wisdom, and each can mean a great deal more to those for whom they are totems and guides.
Perhaps you have a special animal, domestic or wild, prehistoric or contemporary, that comes to you in your dreams and visions. You may even carry a fetish of your totem animal(s), or wear it in your medicine bag for clarity and protection. If so, you may wish to find a way to incorporate a representation of this animal on your medicine wheel altar.
I am inspired by the Zuni ceremonial practice of making prayer sticks and prayer ties for sacred events and at times of special needs. For example, the Zuni have a specific prayer for preparing prayer sticks for the winter solstice. These objects are usually placed in a special spot on the land or in the house or given to a person who needs particular help.
Prayer feather from a wild turkey wing feather, shed after spring mating
Winter Solstice
This many are the days since our Moon Mother.
This many days we have waited.
Appeared, still small:
When but a short span remained till she was fully grown,
Then our daylight father, Pekwin of the Dogwood Clan,
For his Sun Father, told off the days.
This many days we have waited.
We have come to the appointed time.
My children, all my children, will make plume wands.
My child, my Father Sun, my Mother Moon,
All my children will clothe you with prayer plumes.
When you have attended yourselves in these,
With your waters, your seeds,
You will bless all my children.
All your good fortune you will grant to them all.
To this end my Father, my Mother:
May I finish my road; may I grow old;
May you bless me with long life.
Miniature prayer sticks or prayer feathers can be readily made to fit the scale of your medicine wheel altar, using feathers, found materials, and small harvests from your outdoor medicine wheel garden. On my countryside and beach walks I will often pick up feathers from various birds to wash and clean, carefully smudge with sage, and save for special offerings.
To make a prayer stick or prayer feather, select a stick or feather that appeals to you. Make a tiny smudge stick of fragrant
herbs from your garden: perhaps a sprig each of sage, pennyroyal, sweetgrass, and wood sage that you tie up with a red string or bit of red wool yarn. Any color will do, but red has particular value as a sacred color. Tie the little herbal smudge stick to the stick or feather. You might even add a small bead or milagro for extra emphasis. There are more directions in Chapter 14.
Among American Indians, each major or minor event and special gathering invites the creation of an altar. Such altars vary greatly from tribe to tribe. The Oklahoma Pawnee place a long, narrow table against the wall and dress it with a fine, bright cloth. On top they arrange their finest crafts and traditional foods. Two or three cloth dolls, adorned with colorful beadwork necklaces and bracelets, stand as sentinels. Four beautiful blue bowls are filled with sacred foods for the four cardinal directions: cornmeal, whole dried corn kernels, sage leaves, and dried beans. Branches of juniper bring the promise of evergreen life, and whole ears of corn placed on the altar reassure the people that abundance will continue along with their prayers and blessings.
Pueblo Feast Day altars honor their sacred foods, sacred plants, selected kachinas, and prayer sticks. Ornate basket trays and traditional drums and rattles flank the central offerings. This arrangement and presentation will vary from one home to another, and changes seasonally. Such altars assure the spirits that the people still remember the sacred traditions.
Sweetgrass and cornmeal altars of the eastern Algonquian and Iroquois people might also feature coastal seashells and wampum beads, or bone and wood carvings and prayer feathers. Fine curly baskets woven in the shape of an ear of corn or a bowl serve as emblems of outstanding craftsmanship, especially the tightly woven strawberry and blueberry baskets trimmed with sweetgrass for which these eastern tribes are famous.
Altars should be changed and refreshed often. Each gathering
or celebration necessitates different displays of ingredients and seasonal produce, fresh flowers, and prayer feathers.
Our regular drumming circle, which meets monthly at the Institute for American Indian Studies, always makes a central altar that everyone contributes to, and we drum around it each month when we meet. Surrounding this altar’s central lighted candle and smudge shell we place various rattles, drums, Tibetan singing bowls, and bells. A sweetgrass braid, some sage, and white cedar also adorn the altar, along with a photograph of the drum group. Sometimes we create a prayer basket in which we place the names of loved ones and friends who need extra prayers for healing and help, understanding and guidance as they endure difficult times. Remarkable things can occur when good people work in concert around the altar that they have created.
My friend Irene awoke from a dream and immediately went outside and built a small sacred altar near her garden. She saw the altar precisely in her dream. Its natural earth elements are drawn from the surrounding environment. It now rests at the base of a hickory tree. A medley of carefully selected stones is placed in this special clearing. Everything in and around this sacred space seems energized!
Sunpath in the Stars
Time takes me on its wing and I travel to the sun and am consumed by fire.
Time takes me on its wing and I travel to the river and am drowned in water.
Time takes me on its wing and I travel into the earth and am a mountain not yet risen.
Each place I go others have gone before me.
That is why the sun dances, the wind weeps, the river leaps and the earth sings.
Neither the sun nor the wind, the river nor the earth did these things
Before man was placed in this world to believe it.
—Taos Pueblo saying