April 28 Daily Feast, Elder's Meditation, THINK on THESE THING

April 28 - Daily Feast

How frightening to be out of touch - but how normal! There are times and places we go through that are strange - both in feeling and understanding. We experience an uneasy feeling and want to rush back to the familiar - even though it isn't the place to be either. In growing, we go through strange places and think unusual thoughts. Fear of the unknown has made us wary, questioning, reaching for something to steady us, to give us direction and purpose. But we must expand our spirits, enlarge our thought to accept or reject what we have yet to learn. The American Indian has known the strangeness of new lands, new customs, has fought and lost - only to fight and win. Some are caught in between, but their staying power is in the Great Spirit who ever holds our hand and intercedes on our behalf.

~ I would that I could make the red people as great as the conceptions of my own mind, when I think of the Great Spirit that rules over us all.~

TECUMSEH

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

Elder's Meditation of the Day April 28

"Indians living close to nature and nature's ruler are not living in darkness."

Walking Buffalo, STONEY

There are many Indian people who are living according to nature and according to ceremony and culture. They may not have a lot of material things, but that doesn't mean they are not successful. What is success anyway? Can success be measured by material things? What is it we are really chasing anyway? The Elders say that what everyone really wants is to be happy and have a peaceful mind. Material things by themselves do not bring happiness and peace of mind. Only spiritual things bring happiness. When we live a spiritual life we will not have darkness. Instead, we will be happy.

Great Spirit, today, let me walk the Red Road.

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

A lady of much wisdom has often remarked, "If you want to feel well all the time and feel alive, you have to keep the rhythm in your body." Rhythm, the gentle, easy flow of life.

Ordinarily we think of keeping time with music when we think of rhythm. The very idea of allowing one's self the frivolity of feeling rhythm - and such a wonderful idea!

There is an underlying rhythm to all of living. Wherever there is life, there is that pulsating rhythm that has everything on the move. There is harmony and there is a subtle smoothness to finding one's own pace. When we get out of step and resist that pace, we have "one of those days" when everything goes wrong.

William Shakespeare wrote, "The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted."