So the inspiration for this illustration came from something I learned from an elder that attended the same indigenous women entrepreneurship workshop last week. She did a presentation and she talked about her journey in her business and how she created all of her designs for her regalia, beading, etc. So I thought a bit about what I should ask her, and then a big question I had was: How do you stay motivated to keep designing and keep working without burning out or losing interest in your passion?

She answered: with ensuring I take care of all aspects of the medicine wheel: Emotional, Physical, Mental, and Spiritual. If you take care of those daily, you will be centered and everything else will follow suit. I never thought of my daily life like that and it really opened my mind to what I have been doing recently. I haven’t taken care of everything and I realized I need to start getting back into good habits & health.

So to continue on with my illustration I wanted to put my own twist on the medicine wheel while still incorporating the 4 colours (red, yellow, black, and white). Then when I thought of the elements I felt each one has a factor to tie in with the medicine wheel and, I felt it was perfect, so:
* Physical/Earth - strong like the mountains
* Emotional/Water - let’s your emotions flow
* Spiritual/Fire(Sun) - Tsícwalus - the ability to see things
* Mental/Air - lighten our minds

Then to tie it all together I created a guiding start that incorporated more water aspects.

I hope you all take something away from this and maybe even incorporate it in your own daily lives and have a good self reflection!
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