Spirit of the Wheel Meditation deck

Is anyone still using this?

I have been thinking of this deck for a while and now I keep seeing it in my usual shops, tempting me from the display cabinet. Are the cards as lovely as the image on the box? Is it too "feel good" or does it have depth and substance?

Any pointers, particularly from any non-Native Americans or those who knew nothing about the wheel of the title, would be helpful. I wonder if it is very culturally specific. I also wonder whether the cards are particularly attractive as they seem to have an awful lot of text on them.

Any pointers and thoughts welcome.

I recently purchased this deck. I'm more of a collector than a reader, so please bear that in mind as I offer my two pennies.

~The cards are fairly wide, so the words and borders don't shrink down the images to the point of extreme detail loss, though the text seems a bit unnecessarily large and distracting.

~I enjoy the artwork of this deck. The images are very cohesive and the style is not hyper-real. The theme and mood of the deck is consistent in terms of the art. The cards feel very neutral as whole - nothing is overly depressing or overly optimistic. The imagery is mostly of animals, but people are portrayed as well.

~This deck has more structure than an oracle deck, so I would say there is more thought and attention to detail in the card meanings than many mass market oracles. For example, there is information about the wheel and the significance of the seasons before the cards themselves are described. The card meanings are also very detailed. I did not go back and read the entire LWB again before posting this, but I recall that it does suffer a little bit from the redundancy among card meanings that is common in an oracle deck, but it was too a much lesser extent, and not enough to be off putting at all.

~The LWB is a "pudgy" USG type. If you are familiar with the LWB in the Imperial Dragon Oracle, for example, it is similar to that in terms of girth and content. It is a satisfying companion to the deck in the absence of an actual book.

~I paid around 10 or 12 US dollars for my deck and I think it was worth that price. In closing, the deck feels a bit more "sophisticated" (for lack of a better word) than some oracles because of its structured approach and because the artwork feels more purposeful than in decks that appeal more to aesthetics than symbolism or cohesion.

I hope this helps - I'd be glad to tell you more if you'd like.

Thank you Mythic Silence. I'm glad somebody answered. I was beginning to think that nobody used this deck anymore. Or maybe this oracle forum doesn't get much passing traffic.

What you wrote helps me a lot. I think I get where you're coming from. I wish there was less writing on the cards and more animal! I think I get a sense of what the deck would be like. Thank you!

hy there Le Fanu!
I thought about writing a lengthy review for you but then remembered, that the one Solandia wrote a while back is very well balanced and well worth reading.
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/spirit-wheel-meditation/review.shtml
I use this deck for affirmations with some of my patients and sometimes as meditation images at our drum circle, encouraging people to drum and visualize themselves into the scene and see, if the Being in it have some message for the individual participants.

Sometimes it is a bit tricky, when now, in Spring you pull a card for Winter or fall.... as many are of the wheel of the year as seen by this particular deck creator. not all the things she writes are traditional First Nations wisdom. Many are quite "white-washed towards the rosy-positive with all the shadow sides of the Manitous taken out... but - you would know, how to handle that. Tle LWB is a better read than most. but is is, as i mentioned, the deck creator's vision only......
If you get it for a good price, it will ad to your collection

Well, what d'ya know, I bought this deck today! And I really rather like it (your recommendation pushed me in the right direction, Mi-Shell!). Stunning artwork, nice size, excellent production. I would complain about all the text on the cards and wish that the images filled the whole card but if that were the case, it wouldn't be quite so readable. Perhaps with Oracles it's good to have keywords; it means that we really do use them! I'm not sure I would get much from the images only, but with the keywords - reading alone, for oneself, nobody looking - it's actually quite comforting having keywords. And the three keywords are useful ones, not vague at all!

BodhiSeed said:

GryffinSong,
You might like Sun Bear's book called "Dancing with the Wheel":
http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Wheel...d_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211573960&sr=8-2
It is based on his vision of the medicine wheel (rather than a particular Native American group like the Lakota for instance). His book seems like it could easily be a very indepth companion to the Spirit of the Wheel deck.

Click to expand...

Indeed this is a good book and it explains the Medicine Wheel in-depth without putting the reader to sleep. I find this book fun and insightful.

ou can find it pretty cheap sometimes on eBay or Amazon Le Fanu. I think you may like it and it is a whole lot easier to understand that Hermetic writings... a nice break from that is refreshing I have found.


Freddie

To be honest, I find the deck itself is quite enough. I quite like this deck. The keywords mean I don't have to try too hard. The image and the prompts seem to me enough.

A soothing, non-tarot alternative. Excellent artwork. I'm developing a soft spot for these North American totem decks. The artwork on this is much better than the OOP Wolf Song Cards I received this week.

Not predictive, just telling me what I need to hear, how I might view things.

Freddie said:

Indeed this is a good book and it explains the Medicine Wheel in-depth without putting the reader to sleep. I find this book fun and insightful.

ou can find it pretty cheap sometimes on eBay or Amazon Le Fanu. I think you may like it and it is a whole lot easier to understand that Hermetic writings... a nice break from that is refreshing I have found.


Freddie

Click to expand...

Here in North America
if you are among Native American people and mention the name Sun Bear,
you instantaneously become "bad weather" and people will turn away....
This guy - and a few others - are 'persona none grata' -even while he was still alive, because how "invented" his so called "teachings" are.
So he went over to Europe, where people do not know any better....
Now, a decade or 2 later, what he taught took on a life all its own and is coming back yet again to haunt and enraged First Nations Elders that try to preserver their authentic teachings....

Mi-Shell said:

Here in North America
if you are among Native American people and mention the name Sun Bear,
you instantaneously become "bad weather" and people will turn away....
This guy - and a few others - are 'persona none grata' -even while he was still alive, because how "invented" his so called "teachings" are.
So he went over to Europe, where people do not know any better....
Now, a decade or 2 later, what he taught took on a life all its own and is coming back yet again to haunt and enraged First Nations Elders that try to preserver their authentic teachings....

Click to expand...

Hi Mi-Shell,

I would say this deck is based on a New Age concept of Native American spirituality (Same as Sun Bear books), but maybe I am wrong. We can agree to disagree on this one.

At any rate, which books do you suggest?




Thanks,

freddie

This is my first oracle deck - I normally work with Tarot but I know I need to broaden myself now before I get too caught up with only one way of reading. This is a stunning deck.

The artwork is breath taking with it's natural curves, use of colour, and fluid movements. I appreciate the Native American acknowledgements as well (appropriate for being a Medicine Wheel Oracle) - at least one of the animal names are in Cree which made me really happy (my first language a long time ago but I don't speak anymore). I love the use of the lesser known power animals as well, such as the turtle - my little brothers power animal.

When I first used it, I was very confused by it because I'm used to Tarot where it's very clear cut and to the point. I thought for a first deck, a Native animal oracle would be easier to use. With some practice and study, I have a feeling this will be a great companion with my Tarot. While it didn't feel natural at first, I started looking at the images and the keywords - and working with my intuition. It flows beautifully I found once I got the idea of what I was meant to do.

I do use the companion guide - which I found is a great guide for the images of the cards - but I'll start my own study campaign on my own and make my own meanings based on what I see in the images, keywords, and my own thoughts and intuition.

What I don't like about this deck - the back. I don't how the front and back look similar, and I don't like the words of the trademarked name. It's great for not getting decks mixed up, sure, but I still wish it was different.

The packaging was great, and I love how it includes a large medicine wheel spreadsheet (mine did anyways) for meditation. It came with a slip box, and a fold up box for the cards - which is flimsy and is going to wear pretty fast, but it came with one and that's something I'm not taking for granted. I wish decks came with pouches.

All in all, I love deck and give it a 8.5/10.