One of the things little children do first is to sing and chant to themselves…

Gary Snyder, The Real Work

Cynthia's Journal:

The Human Dimension on the Wheel

East is the place of the Men and masculine energy.

South is the place of the Children and childlike energy.

West is the place of the Women and feminine energy.

North is the place of the Elders and anceint wisdom energy.

Once you know how to arrange people on the Wheel, you can narrow or widen the focus of any question or concern.  Something as simple as knowing where your place can inform you where to take your seat in a room, tent or teepee (based upon your age and gender). 

If you’d grown up using the Wheel, you would automatically know where to sit. 

Notice how Elders balance the Children on the Wheel, and Men sit opposite the Women.

Ideally we can use these position to put ourselves in each others places so we can consider things from all these perspectives. 

Children are in the South, the place of noontime sun and summer, as well as the emotions.  During this South Week, try to look at life through your emotional lenses.  Try seeing the Wheel, and everything else, through the eyes of a child.    

To make good decisions, it is important to consider how they will affect everyone and everything.  You can take any proposed idea and run it through the various quadrants of the Wheel to incorporate the views from all sides.  You can do this alone, or with people actually present, to speak on their own behalf, so you don’t forget to take their perspectives into account. 

Here's a practical example, to illustrate how you can use the Wheel. If you wanted to write a book, or make a movie that would appeal to the widest possible audience you could put the manuscript or the movie script down in the center of the Wheel and ask a series of questions.  How will Men see this? How will Women? Children? And Elders see it?  Are they, or their views, represented in the book or film script? The Wheel also reminds you to advertise in age appropriate ways.

In the native world, the Elders remember to remind everyone else to consider the next seven generations.  How will any decision impact the unborn?  Long-term planning is one thing, but all planning should wisely take future needs into consideration.  Here are a few ‘categories’ of questions the Wheel might remind you to ask: 

How will emotional, mental, physical and spiritual health be affected?

What effects, if any, will the seasonal changes have?

Does gender make a difference? How?

Could age be a factor?  Perhaps a resource? 

Tomorrow we’ll widen the human dimension to include the global population.