"From Choctaw elder Steven Charleston, author of the beloved Ladder to the Light, comes this stunning collection of short meditations on the four directions. Charleston's reflections on the four hallmarks of Native spirituality--tradition, kinship, vision, and balance--radiate the profound and poetic wisdom that readers have come to love. When the Spirit speaks to him in his daily prayers, Charleston takes a pen and writes down the messages. Now, in the pages of Spirit Wheel, find more than two hundred poem-like blessings that turn our attention to beauty, mystery, common sense, and how to live with compassion and hope and justice in hard times. The Spirit Wheel is the life we inhabit together. Charleston's Choctaw ancestors called it the medicine wheel, the hoop of the nations, the great circle of existence. We are all on that ever-turning wheel, he says--all of creation, people and animals, rocks and trees, the whole universe. Together we can turn toward the wisdom of our ancestors, kinship with all of Mother Earth's creatures, the vision of the Spirit, and mindful balance of life. This compilation can be used for daily meditation or as a gift. Find in these pages a wisdom as ancient as creation and as young as tomorrow. Find the wheel of history and help to hold it steady. Find the Spirit who loves without exception, is the source of all good medicine, and watches over every soul beneath the stars we share"