NB: The Native American teaching, with which I am most familiar, comes from the traditions of the Marten Clan of the Red Lake Band of the Anishinabe tribe. In that teaching, the traditional entrance into the Medicine Wheel is in the East.
The First Direction: The East
 Qualities, Aspects and Traditions
The animal totems of the East are the far-sighted winged ones: Eagle, Hawk, and Crow. Listen to the messages from Spirit that they carry on the whispers of Sister Wind. Soaring high and seeing far, with absolute clarity, their vision encompasses the breadth of the vast field of potential upon which we play out these lives. Imagine that field as an endless sea of green grass. See the lines of the several paths that you have trodden, etched upon that green field. See the twists and turns, the dead ends and false starts, the various forks we have encountered, and the paths finally chosen that have led you to your own Here and Now.
We see those paths spread out in front of us as on a sea of green grass; we acknowledge those people whose own paths have crossed ours. Some we have embraced, some we have had to let go, and some of whom have agreed to sacrifice our own good opinion of them (imagine that!), each with Love and Gratitude.
Yellow is the color of the East, as the new day’s Sun, the Dawn of every new day, which is always Now. It is the Spring, the season of new life and our youth, the flower’s first bud.
The Element: Fire. This is the fire of the dawn Sun and the Divine Fire of Transformation through which the Eagle is transformed into the Phoenix rising from its own ashes.
Spirit Guide: Wounded Warrior Woman
Minerals: Hawk’s Eye and Opal for Visualization; Silver for Intuition
Lessons: Illumination; Clarity; New Beginnings; the True Value of Freedom
Astrologically, the East relates to the First House, aka the Ascendant. Because it illuminates what is visible, it represents what we see by its light. It is how we behave because we can only behave in accordance with the world we can see. In turn, it represents the way others perceive us because the judgments of others are often based on the way they see us behaving.
So these are some of the attributes of the East, and, since WE are the Wheel, they are elements of each of us.
Embrace them in your heart, feel them within, and say: I AM the EAST!
Aho!