Medicine Wheel Path

The Path of the Medicine Wheel

The Path of the Medicine Wheel is a holistic healing and development process that uses drum journeys, energy work, and ceremonies, together with modern coaching methods. You will reconnect with your True Self, your inner strength and the wisdom of the universe. Then you will learn how to implement insights and changes that came up in your session, and create lasting, positive transformation of your life.

What is the Medicine Wheel?

The Medicine Wheel is a map of the universe and a roadmap for your healing and development journey. The four main directions represent aspects of your life, which can be in harmony or get out of balance. For example; you may be strong in the East (developing lots of ideas and initiating new beginnings), but not so powerful in the West (failing to manifest your vision). If you notice such a dissonance, you can learn how to strengthen and integrate the different aspects of your life.
The Medicine Wheel - sometimes under different names - is reflected in many ancient societies: the First Nation People of the Americas and Australia, the Jewish Kabbala, and the Wheel of Life of some Asian cultures.
Similarly, some of the methods we are using, such as soul retrieval or drum journeying - have been inspired by shamanic cultures from across the globe. We combine these with modern-day coaching tools, so that you can explore your assumptions, thinking patterns, gifts and resources, and bring your dreams alive.

Important

If we talk about "healing", we mean deep, soul-level healing, not curing medical symptoms. Your session at the Fireside Lodge should not replace seeing a doctor if you are in pain or have physical or mental health issues. Modern medicine and energy healing methods can support each other.

How we will work together

Live sessions in West London, or remote sessions per phone and zoom.
In the first session, we find out what you need. I provide some questions that help you reflect and then we have a chat. An initial drum journey can help you find and connect with your Power Animal, and learn how to work with it in your everyday life. Further journeys will be about an intention of your choice, or I will suggest a topic for you.
In some sessions, we may use energy-healing methods, such as unblocking energy barriers, or you can empower your new life path with a transformation ceremony. More details about these methods are below.
All sessions end with a debrief chat where we explore how you can apply your new insights to your life, and what kind of follow-up work you might need to do.

How many sessions?

Sometimes, one drum journey session can inspire and empower you, so that you feel you can re-start your life. However, it is more likely that you need three to six sessions to feel a difference, especially if you work an a deep and difficult issue.
Some people make journeying a regular practice and come to a session every month.
If you like to do soul retrieval or other deep healing work, these are longer sessions that combine several of our methods, usually a half days work with follow-up.

This work can help if...

You are searching for a new path in your life and don't now where to even begin.
You have been struggling with the same issue for a while, without making much progress. You are over-thinking things and cannot move on.
You are going through a major life change, such as getting married, moving abroad or taking on a new job. You need some support for the transition.
You suffered loss and can't move on. This may be emotional or physical loss: the ending of a relationship, the death of a loved one, loosing your job, etc.
You suffered from trauma, feel let down or abused and need inner healing and empowerment.
You failed and cannot forgive yourself.
You would like to celebrate or reinvent yourself for a special occasion; for example, doing something special for your birthday or your retirement.

Mentoring

If you already are on a personal development path or use drum journeying on a regular base, I can support you as a witness, mirror and guide. Our sessions can lead you to a deeper level and give you some new tools. This will enable you to accelerate and fully integrate your development work with your everyday life. I can also journey on your behalf, if you have a question that is too close to your heart.

Your Self-Healing Path

Feeling ill, fatigued or disconnected has many faces, including emotional, physical, social and mental aspects. Our development work focuses on the drivers behind your feeling unwell, and these drivers are grouped in three categories: Lack of inner power, soul part loss and energy blockages. Each of these can be addressed by one or several healing techniques, which are featured below.

This work will reaffirm your self healing capability and your ability to positively transform your life. I won't deliver healing "to you", but function as a facilitator who opens the door for you to connect to your heart, and the wisdom of 'Spirit'. There is no short-cut or magical solution that comes from the outside. On this facilitated healing journey, you will be working with your deepest essence, some call this the 'Soul'. If you don't like this term, think about it as the part in yourself that is truly you; your core; your heart; your beautiful, true, unharmed Self.

Examples of the Healing Path

Inner Power

Inner Power has nothing to do with external status or manipulating others. It is focused energy; the driving force of your Life, the petrol in your tank.
There are several reasons why you may lose part of your power. There are external influences, such as environmental pollution, and internal reasons, such as not living your purpose or blocking yourself.
It is quite normal to lose a bit of power every once in a while; we all can self-heal and have ways to regenerate it.
If you cannot regain your power, you may feel tired or ill all the time. The world may look grey, people seem to annoy you, and you may have no perseverance at all. It may be tempting to engage in bad habits or addictions when feeling powerless, to try to 'fill the gap'. But bad habits just dis-empower you even more.
Retrieving your power animal can help you regain your power. There are other ways - working with power songs, movement, dreams, etc. We will find the right method for you through the preparation journey.

Soul Retrieval

When you experience trauma, parts of your Essence (some call this the Soul) may leave to seek safety in the spiritual dimension of reality. The experience of trauma is subjective - it can be anything from being abused or witnessing violence to losing a beloved toy in your childhood.
You can also give away part of your Soul - for example when you love 'too much' in co-dependent relationships.
Soul parts often come back of their own accord. You can help this by doing things you love to do, also by finding time for meditation and prayer, being in nature or with people who nurture you.
If Soul parts do not come back, you may feel lost or torn, unable to fully engage in relationships and prone to chronical illness or addictions.
If I notice that this might be happening to you, I will journey in pursuit of the lost Soul parts and bring them back. You will learn how to integrate this part of your Essence, and prevent further soul loss. This work often enables other healing to happen. Read more about Soul Retrieval in our blog post.

Energy Balance

Your vitality and wellbeing can be disturbed when you have been exposed to negativity; other people's or your own. Blockages might build through any kind of pollution, conflict, mobbing, cursing and self-cursing, dysfunctional thinking patterns, guilt or an unrealistic self-image.
Negative influences may also come down the ancestral lines. Maybe you picked up a behavioural or thinking pattern of your parents, which does not reflect your True Self.
If your ancestors were involved in conflict, war or traumatic events, some negative echo of these tensions can still shine through.
In some rare cases, energy disturbance can also be caused by someone who has died but could not fully transcend to the light. For more information about this, see 'Psychopomp below.
If I find energy blockages in your system, I can remove and neutralise these. We will then chat about how you can build more independence of external influences and negativity, or possibly do a Cord cutting ceremony.

Finding your deepest wisdom: Drum Journeys

Drum Journeys are guided meditations to the sound of the drum. They will allow you to connect to your deepest Essence and the wisdom of the Universe, to "Spirit". This will give you direct access to new inspiration, healing and transformative energy.
This method is part of the cultural heritage of many native cultures; and it is still used in different formats all around the world: Drum mediations, chanting, using the Earth Drum....
The regular drum beat slows your brain waves down, which will allow you to meditate with a question or intention in mind. Through the journey format, you can interact with the 'non-ordinary reality'; ask questions, explore emotions, build relationships with helpful guides or spirit animals. Journeying is safe and you always have free will. We only journey to the realms of the light, where you can find healing, teaching and empowerment.

Examples of Drum-Journey Work

Working with your Night Dreams

The Path of the Medicine Wheel offers a unique way of interpreting dreams, which is rather different from the psychological way. We use hardly any prescribed scripts or interpretations of dream language, besides maybe some archetypes that are connected to your ethnical background or the history of your community. Deep dream work is all about individual interpretation of the dream and receiving its direct teaching and transformation energy.
If a dream seems powerful, but does not immediately make sense to you, you can journey to the dream and ask why it came. For example, if you had a dream about a dog who kept trying to get into your house, you could visit the dog again on your drum journey and ask her what she needed and why she was there. You can do this journey work yourself in a guided session, or I can do it for you.
As usual on drum journeys, the message may come as a metaphor. The imagery is geared to you, so you are the only one who can make full sense of it. However, I will act as your mirror and guide when you work with the dream and help you apply its teachings to your life.

Balancing your Medicine Wheel

We will always be inspired by the Medicine Wheel, but these sessions use it in a more intense way. As a map of the universe, the Wheel contains everything that is. Exploring its energies and dynamics can make you feel at peace with who you are and how you relate to the world. The teachings can be very practical; for example, helping with problem solving and working through conflicts.
The Medicine Wheel will be marked as an energy system in the room (or we might build a wheel together outdoors). I will guide you on how to 'walk' the wheel by visiting the four directions, learning about the teachings, gifts and shadows they can hold, and exploring a problem or a goal in several areas of the wheel.
You may be led to the centre of the wheel, the sacred place of full potential. What you find there might leave you in Awe, and positively change the way you look at your reality and go about your life.
This work is also available for groups and families who would like to build a Medicine Wheel together on their land, and then walk it to explore the potential of the group.

Meeting your Spirit Animal

The simplest way of working with spirit animals is doing a Power Animal retrieval. You can do this for yourself, on a guided drum journey, or I can do it for you. You then will learn how to work with your personal Spirit Animal in everyday life, exploring its qualities and teachings.
You can also explore your chakras, the energy centres in our body, which often host specific wisdom keepers or Spirit Animals (similar to the animals aligned on a totem pole). Connecting to them and linking them with each other will bring new insights and healing.
Once you have found your 'team' of Chakra helpers and know how to work with them, you can visit them and ask for their advice for challenges of your life.
Chakra journeys are also appropriate for people who have been working with chakra healing for a while, and now would like to explore these concepts from a different angle.
This work is inspired by Steve Gallegos' method of the Personal Totem Pole. Our approach is close to his teaching, but combines it with our unique journey work.

Creating Energy for Change: Transformation Ceremonies

Transformation Ceremonies help you create a specific energy shift when you feel stuck or disconnected. They consist of guided journey work, reflection, and a series of symbolic actions: which can be as simple as arranging some candles to express parts of your True Self. Or they can be longer and more complex, some examples are below.
After a ceremony, we will debrief together and explore how you can implement these energy shifts in your life.

True Self Reconnection

This is a guided meditation in a ceremonial setting, which will lead you to the 'non-ordinary reality' where you meet your True Self; the place in yourself that contains your deepest wisdom and your purpose for this life.
Once you have met your True Self, you will practice a simple method to connect to it in your everyday life. This will enable you to receive guidance and support from that deep place within you whenever you need it.
You then can re-evaluate your life out of a "True-Self" perspective: What is serving your path here in this world, and what is in your way. A journey to a healing place will allow you to release what you no longer need.
A Soul Reading can be part of this ceremony. I will journey for you and bring back something that represents and honours the strength of your Soul (such as a story, a chant, a magic word, a power-dance, etc).

Medicine Basket - Vision Work

The Medicine Basket offers a powerful ceremony to help you let go of things that no longer serve you, and attract the things you would like to invite as part of your journey into the future.
The Medicine Basket can also represent your 'Spirit Womb'. You honour the place in yourself that creates new life. This does not have to be a child, but it can cover all aspects of being creative and giving room for new seeds to grow and blossom in your life. The Spirit Womb is also a deep, warm cave where you can find safety and a place to hibernate. Sacred darkness will enable your eyes to see more...
Women - especially those who have lost their physical womb or go through menopause - often feel healed and empowered by Spirit Womb work. However, this work is not just for women - everybody has a Spirit Womb.

Manifestation and Cord Cutting

Being 'tied down' by dysfunctional relationships, ideas and projects can hinder you to bring your dreams alive. Manifestation and Cord Cutting are two related ceremonies. In Cord cutting, you will cut the cords that tie you to co-dependent, draining relationships, while strengthening the positive cords that connect you to the Universe and 'all your relations'.
The Manifestation Ceremony will help you clarify your vision and goals - from a place of your "True Self". So this is not about societal expectations of who you should be - but an in-depth exploration of who you want to be to honour your True Self. You then gather your resources and learn about concrete action steps to manifest your goals. You send your intention out to the universe through a powerful ceremony. The last step is letting go - surrender and find peace with the suiting power of the Water.

Example: Liz recounts herDrum Journey

Here is the account of a specific drum journey and how a client applied it to her life:

"The purpose of my meditation was to seek guidance on how I can find more clients for my catering business. When the drum started, I was guided to imagine myself walking in a lovely garden. I was told to look around to see whether I could find a bird or another animal, and sure enough, there was a Spotted Woodpecker. I introduced myself to the Woodpecker and asked him whether he could show me some answers to my question.
He invited me to come and fly with him, and we both took off high into the clouds. Up there, I saw a neon sign, bright with red and yellow colours. Nothing written on it though; it was just a blank board. Woodpecker told me to write my name on it. I did not know how to do this, and I asked woodpecker for help. He plucked one of his feathers and used it as a writing pen. His ink was a drop of blood that had come out from his skin when the feather was plucked. He gave me the feather and told me to write. I felt reluctant and shy to do it. Woodpecker kept encouraging me. Finally, I wrote my name on the neon sign, and it lit up even more and started to turn. Then I heard the call-back signal of the drum, Andrea told me to give thanks and say good-bye. Then I went back to the garden and into normal reality.

What did the Journey teach me?

I noticed that I had been reluctant to believe in myself before this meditation. Yes, I wanted to put my name ‘out there’, but I was not self-confident enough to really stand out from the crowd and believe in the quality of my offerings. Woodpecker taught me that I had to be more self-confident and really put more of myself - even a ‘drop of blood’ - into this business. This was a real boost for me. I keep imagining the neon sign and I still see it turning and shining up there - a good reminder that I ought to believe in myself".

The Power of Journeying

Here is the voice of a client who learned Drum Journeying at the Fireside Lodge, and then used it in his daily life:

"Journeying has made a *colossal* difference to my life. I struggle to put into words how it’s helped my sense of wholeness, wellbeing, balance and purpose.
I had two big breakthroughs. The first was discovering how to journey to make friends with a specific part of myself which I struggled with. For example, I journeyed to make friend with the part of me that is unhappy, wants to be looked after, or hides from the world.
The second big breakthrough, only in the last few months, is discovering Journeying to be available to a specific part of myself that I used to supress. For example, I want to be available: to my deep sense of weariness, or to my feelings about a particular life change, or also to my joy without feeling guilty about it.
Both break-throughs have been huge. I feel so much better able to navigate the next few decades of my life.
So let me express my gratitude, and hopefully you’ve got a sense of why the words “thank you” aren’t enough for me."

Journey well!

​The Path of the Medicine Wheel