May 3 & 5 Daily Feast, Elder’s Meditation, THINK on THESE THING

Saturday
Dodaquidena

2013

May 4 - Daily Feast

Little things speak to our hurts. Sounds, fragrances, music that would mean nothing to others, reach into our souls to do a work that the obvious could not touch. Simple remedies can heal the deepest ills - a smile, a contented whistle of a passerby, the sounds of birds twittering at dusk - these things warm us and give us hope. But we have to listen for voices, inner and outer, to give us rest - and turn away the negative talk, the negative circumstance. We don't always believe we have a choice - but we have more space there to work than we know. We can no longer scoff at the power to help ourselves. We have a bigger hand in it than imagined, and it is our decision to get down to business and be open to help and healing from unlikely sources.

~ Day and night cannot dwell together. Your religion was written on tables of stone, ours was written on our hearts. ~

SEATTLE

'A Cherokee Feast of Days', by Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Elder's Meditation of the Day May 4

"Dead -- I Say? There is not death. Only a change of worlds."

Chief Seattle, DWAMISH

There are two Worlds that exist. The Seen World and the Unseen World. Sometimes these worlds are called the Physical World and the Spiritual World. The Elders say, when it is time to go to the other side, our relatives will appear a few days before to help us enter the Spirit World. This is a happy place; the hunting is good; the place of the Grandfathers, the Creator, the Great Spirit, God, is a joyful place.

Grandfathers, today, let me look forward to the Spirit World. Bless all my Relations.

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Is there ever a perfect time? A wise mother says there isn't. She advises us to take life by the hand and march right into the middle, and then start digging out the corners. She says not to wait for a perfect time to do anything, because a perfect time never quite makes it. We simply have to go ahead and make it as near perfect as possible.

A perfectionist is usually someone who can never find the perfect way, and gives up in futility. But the one who aims at perfection and does not wait for it, is at least moving and there's nothing useless about that. Unless we are moving, we resemble Tennyson's description: "Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, dead perfection; no more."

We have to face life, not under the pressures of perfection, but by pure faith. We have to go on accepting and rejecting as we come to each phase.

"For perfection does not exist," said eighteenth century writer Alfred de Musset. "To understand it is the triumph of human intelligence; to expect to possess it is the most dangerous kind of madness."

In the rush of too much to do, we stack up for ourselves things we are going to do, things we ought to do, and things we intend to do. We do first the things of necessity, we take time to think a little about what we ought to do, and the rest is left to good intentions.

Frequently the good intentions hold the key to our happiness. While we bog down in the necessities of living, the things that mean so much slip away unnoticed. We always expect other people to know that we intended to do this or that, but we must realize that they cannot read our good intentions. Good intentions have the same look as nothing at all. And we have to draw our own conclusions as to what our thoughts and feelings are. Only if we express them can we ever hope for others to know what we would like to do, even though circumstances may hinder us.

It has been written that intelligent beings have what it takes to surpass themselves. By sensible thought we can actively express our good intentions and this opens the way for fulfillment.

Sunday
Dodaquasgvi

2013

May 5 - Daily Feast

Remembering can be painful and sometimes without any real benefit. But much of the time it helps us move ahead like a spur that tells us not to tarry but to go on and do what we have to do. It is far too easy to carry around, a u s ga nv tsv, a false guilt, a wrong idea, to override our good memories. We lose sight of the positive things we have done and the happiness we have shared by recalling a thousand impossible wishes we wanted to come true. But it does no good to dwarf the present time because the past was not what we hoped it would be. We cannot help but recall things and times and people dear to us - but to remember them with pleasure does them more honor than to focus on what we did or couldn't do in the past.

~ Our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch of our ancestors as we walk over this earth. ~

SEATTLE

'A Cherokee Feast of Days', by Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Elder's Meditation of the Day May 5

"There are many things to be shared with the four colors of man in our common destiny as one family upon our Mother the Earth."

Traditional Circle of Elders, NORTHERN CHEYENNE

The Elders tell us the time will come when the four colors of Man will unite into one family. According to prophecies, we were told this would happen when the Sun was blocked in the Seventh Moon. There was an eclipse of the Sun in July, 1991. We are now in a new Springtime called the Coming Together Time. Each of the four colors of man has knowledge that the other colors need to heal their families. Let us all be willing to sit in a circle and respect our differences.

Creator, let me be willing to have an open mind.

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Realizing that there is a multitude of wonderful things to appreciate, we must shake them all together in our minds and wait for the chosen ones to rise up the top like bubbles. Life is such a challenge, such a joy to live when it is appreciated. If we could only realize who gave is life, we would understand even more why the Creator intended us to appreciate and love all that is about us.

The things we can appreciate are never in any particular order, but mingled together as they are in our lives. We can so beautifully and joyfully appreciate the sound of our children's laughter when sudden happiness overtakes them; the tremendous and moving power of silent prayer; a strong voice singing a song of inspiration, or of sentiment; early morning sunrises, misty pink and fresh; a mockingbird singing out its heart in the depth of night; the touch of souls in understanding; violin music; and our children in prayer, in spells of delight, or in any other movement.

To name them all would be an impossibility, to live them all is a blessing. We must not pass these things by without appreciating them. We must not lose them by failing to give thanks. These are the things we always have near us, and we can appreciate them merely by attuning our senses to them.

Donvdagahv'i
David White Hawk
Tawodi Unega

"Be good, be kind, help each other."
"Respect the ground, respect the drum, respect each other."

May The Creator walk with you.