No. VII of XII
Your birth totem
The Salmon
The Upstream Will
Jul 22 – Aug 21
Thunderbird (Fire) clan · born in high summer, at full strength
You move toward what you want with an energy other people find either magnetic or exhausting. You give everything to the goals and the people you believe in, and you expect the same back — not out of ego, but because half-hearted is genuinely foreign to you. When you are pointed at something worth doing, very little in this wheel is harder to stop.
What it gives you
- Enthusiasm that pulls other people along
- Giving your whole self to what you've chosen
- Persisting where the current is against you
What it costs
- Burning through your own reserves first
- Taking a lack of intensity as a lack of care
- Swimming hard upstream past the point it's worth it
Where you sit on the wheel
The Medicine Wheel divides the year into twelve birth totems, each belonging to one of four elemental clans. Yours is the Thunderbird (Fire) clan, and your stretch of the year runs Jul 22 – Aug 21 — high summer, at full strength. Your keywords on the wheel are confident, energetic, generous.
Magnetic and driven, Salmon move upstream with purpose. Your enthusiasm is contagious, and you give your all to the goals and people you believe in.
The Salmon beyond the wheel
The birth totem is one system among many. The Salmon's full symbolism — what it means as a spirit animal, in dreams, and across the traditions that tell stories about it — is set out in its own guide, with sources.
Keep your Salmon
We'll email this reading so you can find it again — the card, and the link to the whole thing.