January 11 Daily Feast, Elder’s Meditation, THINK on THESE THING

January 11 - Daily Feast

The owls call to each other early on a midwinter evening. Just as the last rays of sunlight sink into a rosy glow, a silence settles over the countryside. For a short time, everything is hushed. In that near-dark hour the wind lays and no sound is heard - as though the whole forest listens. The moment is brief as daytime creatures find their nests and those of the night begin to awaken. It is time to rest from our own activity, to find a quiet hour to let pressures ebb away. One of the greatest wonders is the rhythm and order of nature. But even greater is the flexibility of human nature - that we can move, think, project, plan and see all of it in perspective. And as the day wanes we can put it all down and take on the peace of nature.

~ Heed little the melancholy nights that keep tune with sorrowful thought. ~

CHIEF RUNS THE BATTLE

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

Elder's Meditation of the Day - January 11

"Race and language makes no difference; the barriers are gone when persons can come together on high spiritual levels."

Rolling Thunder, CHEROKEE

Not only are race and language barriers overcome by spirituality, but all things are overcome by spirituality. Inside every human being is the spirit. When we see people, we can choose to look at their outside or we can choose to look at their inside. Spirituality resides inside of others, we must be able to look at our own inside. If we see spirituality inside ourselves, we will see spirituality inside others. The saying is, "what you sees is what you gets."

My Creator, let me see all my brothers and sisters through the spiritual eye.

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

We want much. It seems sometimes that wanting is all we ever get done. And yet if it were not for the desire of our hearts, there would be little incentive to work and plan and expect.

Some would have us believe it is wrong to desire any more than absolute necessities. But good desires channeled in the right direction can do nothing but better the one who seeks.

Sometimes getting is only a substitute for the true desire. Humans have a way of looking outside themselves for things to satisfy their spiritual hunger. It may be prestige. Or it may be anything that will inflate their egos and given them feelings of security.

Emerson wrote, "The implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feels it." we have the ability to rise far above what we think we can. We have within us the answers if we but have the wisdom to seek those answers.

And perhaps we should consider, even before we begin to seek, the wisest of all instructions, "With all your getting get understanding."