South — The Direction of Trust, Growth, and Innocence
The South in the Medicine Wheel corresponds to summer's heat, the fire element, the adolescent stage of life, the color red, the mouse who sees only what is close — and the teaching that trust and innocence are sacred gifts, not weaknesses.
The South is the direction of summer — abundant, warm, full of growing things. Its power is trust: the open-hearted willingness to receive life fully, to be present to this moment without armor. The mouse, who sees only what is near and small, is sometimes the sacred animal of the South — a reminder that to see clearly what is immediate and close is itself a form of wisdom. The South also holds the teaching of courage in vulnerability: the adolescent who has not yet learned to protect himself is closer to the sacred Mystery than the armored adult who has forgotten how to be moved. In ceremonies of healing, a person who has lost the ability to trust is called to work with the South — to recover the innocence that allows life to flow through them again.
The wisdom of innocence is the greatest wisdom.
Hyemeyohsts Storm's Seven Arrows, while controversial among some Indigenous scholars, provides an accessible elaboration of Southern Plains Medicine Wheel teachings that has influenced generations of readers.
Lakota oral tradition
Written about in
- What Native American traditions say about raising children
The South is summer, adolescence, and the mouse who sees only what is close and near. Its claim is uncomfortable for anyone training a child to be careful: the unarmoured adolescent is held to be nearer the Mystery than the guarded adult. Trust is treated as a faculty that can be lost, and someone who has lost it is sent back to this direction to have it healed.