LightSong School of 21st-Century Shamanism and Energy Medicine Talking Stick Podcast podcast

S2 E9 The Medicine Wheel, Life Cycles, and the Hero's Journey

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S2 E9 The Medicine Wheel, Life Cycles, and the Hero's Journey

Talking Stick Podcast – Medicine Wheel – 12-30-25

In this episode of the LightSong Talking Stick Podcast, Jan Engels-Smith and Micah Schwader explore the medicine wheel as a living map for understanding life cycles, creative processes, grief, healing, and purpose.

Through a grounding invocation and an expansive conversation, they contrast Western linear thinking with Indigenous cyclical wisdom, revealing how life unfolds through seasons of beginning, growth, reflection, and letting go. They discuss why modern culture resists rest and reflection, how burnout and depression can signal an incomplete cycle, and how honoring the full wheel creates ascension rather than stagnation.

Micah connects the medicine wheel to the Hero's Journey, showing how this ancient pattern shapes storytelling, writing, business, and personal transformation. Jan shares personal reflections on long seasons spent in the North—where loss, wisdom, and deep healing emerge—and explains how multiple areas of life can occupy different directions at the same time.

The episode also touches on vision quests, daily reflective practices, nature as a living mirror, and the necessity of completing the circle— there is no single "correct" medicine wheel.

A rich conversation for anyone navigating transition, creativity, grief, identity, or the question of legacy and meaning.

Podcast Tags (Hashtags)

#MedicineWheel
#ShamanicWisdom
#LifeCycles
#Hero'sJourney
#VisionQuest
#SpiritualGrowth
#IndigenousWisdom
#PersonalTransformation
#GriefAndHealing
#LettingGo
#SacredCycles
#StorytellingAsMedicine
#Shamanism
#InnerWork
#CreativeSpirituality
#LifeTransitions
#WisdomOfTheNorth
#NatureAsTeacher
#SoulJourney
#LegacyAndPurpose
#TalkingStickPodcast
#LightSongSchool
#MicahSchwader
#JanEngelsSmith

Gratitude donation- If you would like to make a donation to Jan Engels-Smith and keep Manifesting Miracles active please use Venmo @Jan-Engels-Smith or contact Jan with other payment options [email protected]  

 Manifesting Miracles:  This podcast is in a series of gatherings that are held bi-monthly on zoom calls.  Participants from around the world that are interested in making positive changes in their life: career, relationship, health and finances are on this call.  Jan starts this series with the most important tips in conscious manifestation.  If you want the world to change, if you want your situation to change you must change within.  You must become an energetic match for the things that you desire. Jan as a tenured teacher for 30+ years shares her wisdom on intentional manifestation and shamanism.   Jan teaches, discusses and answers questions.  

For more information about Jan Engels-Smith and her work, visit LightSong.net.

For more information about Micah and his work, visit ShamanSezz.com.

For more information about Micah's memoir, Stumbling Into Grace: The Adventures of a Transgender Shaman, visit ShamanSezz.com/stumbling-into-grace-the-book/

 

 

 

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