Waboose, the Spirit Keeper of the North position on the Native American Medicine Wheel, is represented by the element of earth. Its mineral is alabaster. Its plant is the sweet grass. Its animal is the white buffalo. The color associated with Waboose is white. The season is winter. The time of day is midnight. The time of life is both the time when we are elders with the snow upon our heads and the time of life when we are newborns coming back into the world. Waboose directly influences all the moons in the northern quadrant: the Earth Renewal Moon (December 22 to January 19; Snow Goose), the Rest and Cleansing Moon (January 20 to February 18; Otter), and the Big Winds Moon (February 19 to March 20; Cougar).
The North is the most paradoxical time of the Medicine Wheel. It is the time when things seem to be sleeping. Yet within this apparent dormancy some of the deepest growth is occurring. It is in the winter when seeds lie frozen within the earth that they take into themselves all of the earth's energy that allows them to grow in the seasons that follow. It is in the north that our bodies cannot move as easily as they have in the past or will in the future, that we seem forced to take into ourselves the wisdom of the Spirit we will use as we continue our journey around the wheel.
The time of Waboose is a time of slowing down, of apparent restriction, when outward activity definitely diminishes. It is a time of darkness, quiet, and dreams. It is a time when humans are fragile, when their skin is wrinkled and resembles the soil and the face of the Earth Mother herself. It is a time when people tend to reminisce and from their reminiscences share the wisdom they have gained. It is a time of assessing accomplishments and aims and of preparing for the major giveaway of death and of birth. It is a time when many people come to an understanding of their own life, and acceptance of what they have or have not achieved. It can be a time of peace, and a time of power, a time of forgiveness and compassion for all around you. It is a time to give up old pattern, to surrender to the small changes of body and mind in preparation for the major changes that will come.
Waboose is a time of both ending and beginning, of life and death, of new life cloaked in apparent death. In the winter the earth appears dead, but there is much happening within. The same is true in human life. Even when we shed our human envelopes, our spirit, our energy goes to a place that prepares us for the new beginning that will come.
The major lesson of Waboose is that of the giveaway. When we are elders, it is our responsibility to give away to the people all of the knowledge that we have gained. It is our responsibility to impart to our relations what we have learned as we have journeyed around the Medicine Wheel of life. It is our responsibility, ultimately, to give away our body to the Earth Mother who has fed us during all the time we have walked on her. When we are infants we readily give away all of the love we have gained in the world between, knowing then that the more we give the more we have available.
One of the gifts of Waboose is an intuitive understanding of this giveaway. Coming with this understanding are increased psychic abilities and a great acumen in attuning to dreams or visions, both your own and those of other people.
