In Anishinaabe tradition, as well as in many other Native cultures, the medicine wheel represents the ever-churning cycle of life. Broken into four equal segments of yellow, black, red, and white, it starts on the right-hand side, reflecting the east as the source of the rising sun and beginning of all things. The four segments represent, among other things, the four directions, the four seasons, the four sacred medicines (tobacco, cedar, sage, and sweetgrass), and the four stages of life (birth, youth, adulthood, and elder).
The medicine wheel can also represent the repeating cycle of creation, destruction, and re-creation that has defined all of human history but has particular resonance for Indigenous communities. This cycle is reflected in the Anishinaabe creation story: The world was created by Kiche Manitou (the Great Spirit), then destroyed in a great flood, and then re-created by the Sky Woman, who fell from the sky while pregnant, clutching a handful of seeds. Seeking refuge on the back of a turtle, she created Turtle Island, the Earth anew.
Our histories have been one never-ending turn of this wheel: We create, they destroy, and we create something new out of the ashes of what was left behind, saving what we can, and creating new things from the memories of the old. What’s re-created isn’t necessarily superior or inferior to what was destroyed. It is simply different.
In hindsight, the Americas’ pre-colonial past can be imagined as a generative period of creation. For centuries, we were a continent of self-governing tribes that responsibly managed and lived in concert with the land. We built cities, trade networks that stretched from the Arctic to the Andes, and a system of governance so sophisticated that it eventually influenced American democracy. There was no reason to believe we wouldn’t live this way forever.
Anishinaabe tradition teaches that when you create something, you’re not just creating for the moment — you’re creating for the future as well. We learn to make decisions from a seventh-generation perspective, which you may recognize as a green marketing slogan, but, like so many aspects of American culture, it was our idea first. It’s taught a couple of ways: One is to consider how each decision you make will impact others and the Earth seven generations in the future. We’re also taught to consider the impact of decisions in the context of the three generations that came before you, your own generation, and the three generations ahead of you: Will it honor your past and lay the foundation for a good future?