February 10 Daily Feast, Elder’s Meditation, THINK on THESE THING

February 10 - Daily Feast

Turn around right where you are and face the frightening situation, the lion, hlvdaji, on your path. Don't waver and dodge. Look the problem in the eye and call it nothing. Speak to it in definitive words so that there is no doubt that it must go. Wisdom tells us to get out of harm's way at times, but it never tells us to weep with fear. Once we turn to face it, a quiet determined strength pours in to end the terror. Fear is terrorism. It is not running from it that cripples us but refusing to call it what it is. When fear takes over it flows through all our thinking. If we have any faith at all, it is scared faith, but faith will grow when we charge it with determination and powerful words.

~ Make everything straight and strong. ~

DRAGGING-CANOE

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

Elder's Meditation of the Day - February 10

"The ground on which we stand is sacred ground. It is the dust and blood of our ancestors."

Plenty Coups, CROW

Mother Earth is the source of life and the place all life returns to. She gives us life. She feeds us through our journey and she waits for us to return to her. The Indian way is to recognize the earth as the place of our ancestors. That is why certain places on earth are considered sacred areas and sacred land; this is the place of our ancestors. We all need to reflect upon the earth, the place where our ancestors lived. We need to have love and respect for the earth.

My Creator, let me honor the place of our ancestors, Mother Earth.

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

The longest face and the saddest cry
Always seem to come with the question why
Why did you take what belonged to me?
It has always been mine, or can't you see
That you have no rights, not right to claim,
And you did just that, you're to blame
For all my unhappiness, all of my tears.
Well, perhaps not all, part were my fears.
And I suppose if I think I can also say
That if I've lost anything, it's really the way
That I treat the things that used to be mine.
I saw clouds on the days where there was really sunshine,
I turned often to darkness instead of the light,
I saw all of the wrong, but never the right,
And in all honesty I suppose I must say
If I've lost anything, I gave it away.