Chapter 9: The Healing Power of the Dagara Medicine Wheel
Beyond Our Intellect
The process of healing emotional pain requires something that goes way beyond our intellectual knowing. Authentic healing requires more than our ability to reason, to analyze, and think rationally. I’m not talking about healing as covering up pain, or convincing yourself that you just have to grin, bear it, and get used to living with it for the rest of your life. I’m talking about eliminating the suffering and misery you feel when you’re all alone, and before you get the chance to unconsciously or consciously transfer that pain onto everyone and everything around you! Transforming emotional pain means eliminating it, and THIS IS NOT AN INTELLECTUAL EXERCISE!
The Dagara Medicine Wheel contains a power within it to heal and transform emotional pain because it can bypass our intellect. The Dagara Medicine Wheel has the spiritual power to connect us to our Soul. It came into being at a time when humans had to believe in their direct connection to the Earth, to the animals, the stars, to their gods, the Universe, and to each other. This belief in unity consciousness is what enabled them to emotionally and physically survive in a world without the modern conveniences we take for granted. Our ancient ancestors had to believe in their Soul power to overcome trouble, pain, and the natural obstacles to living in harmony, peace, and love. Otherwise, none of us would be alive today.
In this post-modern world we live in, it is very challenging to believe that a Greater Order and Direction, a mysterious, unknowable force really has our back. We doubt that the mystery we call “God” is always in support of our healing and evolution. We’ve learned to read and write and question even that which is unknowable. That rational “seeing is believing” part of our mind will do whatever it can to block us from fully engaging with the healing power of God, the Universe, the Great Mystery. It is only by connecting to our Soul that we are more able to access the unbounded knowledge and love from something much greater than what our human brain can fully grasp.
When emotional pain shows up, to avoid dealing with it, our intellect will tell us stuff like this:
There’s no reason for you to be in pain. That mess happened 20 years ago. You should be over that by now!
This pain ain’t real because you read that self-help book, you attended that weekend workshop, you paid for the on-line spiritual class, and you’ve already cried about this mess 100 times!
Why is this pain coming up now? You don’t have time for this! Pull yourself together, man-up, and don’t let the pain win! Just ignore it and it will go away.
Your intellect, your rational mind, and let’s not leave out your fear, will always try to block you from being connected to your soul. That’s what they do. However, unless you have a soul-connection (also called your love-connection), you will not be able to truthfully acknowledge, accept, feel, and release your emotional pain.
Pain must be recognized, acknowledged and released before it can be transformed. Now let’s be clear, you have to be conscious of the truth of who you are at the soul level in order to choose to let go of, and eliminate, your suffering and misery. This is why the Dagara Medicine Wheel is such a powerful ancient, sacred treasure. Whether you see a picture of it, hear about the creation story it carries, feel a resonance with the element you were born through, or open up to learning about more ways to access its medicine, this wisdom from West Africa is automatically connecting you to your Soul.