YoniSpeak: Men's Journey on the Medicine Wheel of Life

Men are born into the Air.

As children, boys ask "What Interests me?" The focus of attraction is on the mind. What attracts the mind, the curiosity. And this is their introduction to the earth plane - through the mind.

Air changes direction quickly, and can blow in more than one direction at once. So can the mind. Curiosities are many, and one is easily distracted from one interesting thought to the next. The mind can even consider more than one thing at a time, and sometimes the winds blow in concert together, joining thoughts and interests and weaving them into innovation.

At puberty, boys are initiated into Fire, through the liquid fire of hormones that sparks the fire of their passion. The attractor force that comes into play now is that of passion. "What do I want? What do I desire? What drives me?" The young man is driven by the forces of attaction upon his fire.

Fire is chaotic. It changes faster, though less often, than air. And likewise, passion is fickle, switching quickly from one object of desire to the next, seemingly without reason or rhyme. Fire is "destructive" only in that it transforms whatever it touches. With a certain given amount of fuel to burn, it has a beginning and an end. In order to keep fire alive, one must feed it new fuel and give it new air.

Relating this to passionate loving, one must provide variety, or new sensations and experiences to be wanted, along with new ideas and perspectives and curiosities, if the fire is to be kept burning at a near-constant rate.

The mature man is initiated into Water. Nearing his midlife, he asks, "What nurtures and nourishes me?" He is drawn to mating, to having children in his life. He is attracted to that which helps him feel worthy, alive, and purposeful. This is romantic love, or at least the male version of it. It is longing for the love of mother through the love of partner.

This love flows more steadily, but it is changeable still. The male romantic love is prone to feeling betrayed, abandoned, and mistreated. It is prone to victimhood. When it perceives itself being taken for granted, it has the feeling "No matter what I do, it is never enough for her," and it contracts, allowing fire to take over while it weeps over its wounds. Fire comes in as protector, and grabs for the fuel around it that will feed the passion.