My Journey with the Medicine Wheel and the Sacred Echoes of South America:

My journey with the medicine wheel didn’t begin on a mountaintop or with a sacred ceremony. It began, strangely enough, in the pages of a book I found when I was 15. Carlos Castaneda’s writings about the Yaqui shamans opened something in me — a longing to understand reality in a deeper, wider, wilder way. Something inside whispered, “This is familiar.” And so I listened.

Years later, I found myself in the lands that once whispered through those pages — the dusty stretches of Bolivia, the sacred valleys of Peru, the raw edges of Chile. The mountains, the winds, the silence — they taught me more than any textbook could. I wasn’t on a tourist route. I was following something… older. A call that came from the earth itself.

The Quero people of Peru hold a powerful map of the soul — the Medicine Wheel — and it began to shape the way I see the world. Their teachings are not abstract philosophies. They’ve   lived. Felt. Woven into every step on the soil. And when I walked their lands, I felt it — that ancient rhythm, that circular wisdom that aligns with the elements, the directions, the animals, the spirits.

The Medicine Wheel isn’t just a tool. It’s a mirror. A way of seeing life through four key gateways: the Serpent, the Jaguar, the Hummingbird, and the Eagle/Condor. And although those animals don’t live in my part of the world, their presence speaks to something far beyond biology — they represent the soul’s passage, the phases of transformation we all live through.

🐍 The Serpent taught me to shed. To release. To slither through fear and not resist change. She’s the body, the earth, the now. She reminds me that wisdom lives in the ground and in our bones.

🐆 The Jaguar walked beside me in moments of fear. She’s the fierce one, the protector, the one who faces death without blinking. She taught me how to move through shadow without losing my power. When I doubted, she growled, “Trust your steps.”

🐦 The Hummingbird, that tiny warrior, showed me sweetness in the unknown. She doesn’t fly in straight lines. She dances. She travels great distances, fueled by joy. Her message? Follow the nectar. Even when the path makes no sense.

🦅 And then the Eagle — or the Condor — came. Wide-winged and ancient. Soaring high to see the full picture. In that vast sky, I remembered the soul’s purpose. The clarity that comes when you rise above the noise and return to your highest vision.

These archetypes align beautifully with my Sanatana Dharma path. Both traditions honour the sacredness of the elements, the eternal dance of birth and death, and the oneness of all things. Whether I’m reading the Bhagavad Gita or sitting quietly with a mesa in the Andes, I feel the same truth humming beneath the surface: we are part of something vast, alive, and loving.

It’s not always been a smooth ride. There were long periods where this path would go quiet — hidden under the weight of life’s responsibilities or distractions. But it never left. The wheel keeps turning. The call keeps returning. And each time I come back, it’s stronger, more embodied.

Joseph Campbell spoke of the hero’s journey, and the medicine wheel echoes that same story: descent, trial, transformation, return. Jung spoke of archetypes — and these animals are archetypes, dancing through our subconscious, helping us remember who we are.

To walk this wheel is to return to a deeper rhythm. It’s not about knowing everything. It’s about remembering. Listening. Trusting. Honouring the land. Honouring the body. Honouring the spirit.

Every time I sit in silence and feel the wind or press my hands to the soil, I feel that teenage seeker still alive in me — curious, open, wide-eyed. And I smile. Because I know now: this path wasn’t something I chose. It chose me.

And I’m still walking.

Hari om tat sat.