August 9 & 10, 2016 Daily Feast Of Wisdom (Tsugitsvnvda Danalisdayvhvsgv Agadohvsdi ) (ᏧᎩᏨᏅᏓ ᏓᎾᎵᏍᏓᏴᎲᏍᎬ ᎠᎦᏙᎲᏍᏗ)

2016

August
Galoni
ᎦᎶᏂ

Tuesday
Talineiga
ᏔᎵᏁᎢᎦ

August 9 - Daily Feast

Conversation does not reflect the grand training our mothers and grammar teachers hoped we would remember. But we are aware that when we say "ain't", it ain't right. Frequently, those little words express what we want to say better than what is considered correct. Why is it that we notice these things when dozens of vulgar and offensive words are used without anyone showing surprise. Maybe people are not aware that words are creative and shape who we are - coarse and without polish or gentle and caring. We have a responsibility to keep ourselves clean and it begins with our words.

~ The mental capacity of the Indian is of far superior order. ~

COL. RICHARD DODGE - 1882

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

Elder's Meditation of the Day - August 9

"Praying to seek a vision, to seek truth is always right. Truth builds upon itself - as the true mark of a warrior who conducts himself/herself accordingly - so that its beauty may shine in the faces of our children."

Barney Bush, SHAWNEE

We move toward and become like that which we think about. What we think about creates our vision. If our thoughts are wise and good, then our vision becomes strong and truthful. If our thoughts are junk, then our vision becomes contaminated, so it's important to be aware of what we are thinking about. As I live my vision, my children watch and they will live their lives the same way. We need to live the walk of the Warrior. We need to walk in beauty and respect.

Oh Great Spirit, give me a vision for today. Let me see truth. Let me walk in beauty. Let my heart guide me in truth. The law says the truth shall set you free. Let me be free today.

"THINK on THESE THINGS"
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

All things in sequence, first the bud and then the flower. We can no more hold back the blossom than we can the daylight. It is inevitably there, beautifully delicate and subject to crushing. Only through very careful tending will it withstand the winds and rain and pressures of outside.

Sequence is the order of human life. God intended us to unfold as the flower. First the seed in fertile soil, the birth, the growth, the learning, the discoveries, the knowledge, the desires, the fulfillment as each phase of life follows its own sequence. We hold back the flowering of life only if we want it to be nonexistent, for it must progress. And in some of the most tender spots progression must be slow, easy, and reverently handled, for it can be as fragile as the flower.

There is within us a delicacy of thought which entwines itself throughout our beings, crossing from phase to phase, creating within us conflicts not easily understood. Something out of sequence in one phase may postpone the flowering of another phase. The very roots of our souls must be watered with reverence to successfully follow the sequence of life. If no other human understands or cares to understand, if we do, then continue - first the bud and then the flower.

Of all the intricate and complicated creations in the world, humanity occupies the first place. Our lives are made up of such flexous combination of body, soul, and spirit that we do not even understand ourselves.

We all desire to know what makes us tick and how to go about making ourselves tick better. Whether we realize it or not, we are in search of the truth of our own being. Why are we here? What step should we take next? One problem after another, question after question brings us to this place again and again.

They are our personal problems and the wisest of persons cannot give us the answers. We will always need help to encourage us in our search, but we must go within ourselves to cure, to live, to feel, to believe.

We must win our own hearts before we can find happiness with others. We must know what we want and be willing to share it with others, for it is written that life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses win and preserve the heart.

English divine John Mason write these words, " By these things examine thyself: By whose rules am I acting; in whose name; in whose strength; in whose glory? What faith, humility, self-denial and love of God and to man have there been in all my actions?"

2016

August
Galoni
ᎦᎶᏂ

Wednesday
Tsoineiga
ᏦᎢᏁᎢᎦ

August 10 - Daily Feast

Voices echo in our minds even after we are grown. They can be whispers that only the subconscious mind can hear - but it is an exacting voice that can give us courage or suggest failure. We've no idea how fenced in we are by those voices of old. The subconscious mind is a road map, a map with many mistakes, and who is to know what they are? Nothing is set forever in one direction, and we are able to read the signs and change them. Not because they may sound old-fashioned but because they are foolish and suggest that we take paths that have no destination except ruin. We can change it and we must.

~ If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted, and it was the same way with the Indians. ~

WAMDITANKA - SANTEE SIOUX

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

Elder's Meditation of the Day - August 10

"Nature is the storehouse of potential life of future generations and is sacred."

Audrey Shenandoah, ONONDAGA

We need to honor and respect our Mother Earth. She is the source of all life. The sun shines life to the earth, then the earth produces life in all forms and in a balanced way. Everything is here to serve everything else. If we interrupt the flow in any way, we leave nothing for the future generations. Before every decision is made, we should ask, and answer, a final question, "If we do this, what will be the effects on the seventh generation? What will we cause our children to live with?" We need to have respect and love for all things and for all people. We need to do this for ourselves and for all the children still unborn.

My Creator, let me look at nature today and let me have the highest respect for all the things I see. All the two legged, the four Legged, the winged ones, the plants, the water, the air, the Mother Earth. Let me have respect for myself.

"THINK on THESE THINGS"
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Are you one of those people who degrades yourself in idle conversation until it becomes a fact within your mind? Has it become your belief that this is true humility, talking down your abilities, hiding your light, refusing to accept your rights as a child of God as being meek and humble?

This thing called life is given to us for a purpose, never to downgrade; no more than we should blow it out of proportion by thinking too highly of ourselves.

Each life is important, each breath for a purpose, each moment a time for learning. Walt Whitman has written in Leaves of Grass: "Whoever you are! Motion and reflection are especially for you; the divine ships sails the divine sea for you. Whoever you are! You are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, you are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, for none more than you are the present and the past. For none more than you is immortality."

By our words we reveal our minds. It is do easy to refuse to be a channel through which the best can reveal itself. And it is so easy to forget that our song of life, as Whitman has written, "The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him. I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete!"