January 6 Daily Feast, Elder’s Meditation, THINK on THESE THING

January 6 - Daily Feast

Dare to believe in miracles. Look beyond the mud on the windshield, beyond the impossible, and know life is more than anguish and stress. Reach out to someone, when your heart is too heavy to feel the sunlight or to taste the rain. Rid yourself of dark thought and melancholy. Open your mind to fresh air, to the unlimited music in your soul. Thoreau wrote of waking in the night to hear a strain of music dying away - travelers singing. He said his whole being was so expanded and infinitely and divinely related that he knew how narrow his own thinking had been. The Cherokee always teach their young to listen. We hear not the crash of cymbals or the noise that rise the airwaves - but the sweet song of the meadow, the even rhythmic sounds of nature. It is here where the dikanowadidohi angel sings.

~ Speak to yourself in spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. ~

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

Elder's Meditation of the Day - January 6

"When we're through with this earth and all these problems, we don't have to come back. But as long as we're here we have a job to do and a purpose to fulfill and that means dealing with the circumstances around us."

Rolling Thunder, CHEROKEE

We are put on the earth to participate in life. We have a beautiful mind, we have the ability to pray, we have the ability to change, we have the ability to accept, and we have choices. All things God created are constantly changing. This constant change causes our circumstances to change. Sometimes we say life is difficult. During these times we need to use our tools: the tools of prayer, and the tools of meditation. We are designed to change and live joyfully on this earth. The only requirement for living joyfully is to live according to the laws, principles and values given to us by the Creator.

Great Spirit, give me Your courage today, and guide my footsteps.

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Think on pleasant things. Deliberately turn your thoughts to something pleasant when the pressures are too intense. And be careful as undisciplined thought quickly sifts back to the unhappy, unsettled mind.

The greater part of the time we are victims of our emotions. They play havoc with our peace of mind and are great friends of pessimism. They tell us things are true with such sincerity that we believe them into fact. They convince us things are a certain way and that we cannot remedy them with any amount of effort.

But stop where you are and consider what it is you are listening to and how it affects your feelings. Do a turnabout and take the positive route of deliberately replacing thoughts of unhappiness, injustices, and misunderstandings with the thought that these are merely chariots to carry us past all that has withheld freedom.