June 30 & July 1 Daily Feast, Elder’s Meditation, THINK on THESE THING

June
Dehaluyi

Sunday
Dodaquasgvi

2013

June 30 - Daily Feast

If we could change one thing about ourselves to see the greatest gain, it would be to stop being the victim. Too many believe they are destined to be victims of broken relationships, disease, poverty, and overbearing personalities - and they say it over and over again. How we see ourselves makes all the difference. If being browbeaten is security, we will always be the underdog. Day after day we throw ourselves into the path of what we think we deserve. But we can change the pattern. We can stop repeating what we have heard all our lives, and begin talking to ourselves with good words. We have hidden gold within us and as soon as we learn it, we will get out of the lunacy of being the perpetual victim.

~ We must help one another and the Great Spirit will help us both. ~

PIED RICHE

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

Elder's Meditation of the Day June 30

"Words hypnotize and deceive everyone at one time or another, but these hypnotic words cannot last long in the hearts of true warriors."

Barney Bush, SHAWNEE

We are a part of an interconnected system. Words in themselves have no meaning. It is the spirit and intent behind the words that really show the meaning. We are connected to each other at the center of the atom which makes up the air and our body. The center of the air's atom system is connected to the center of our body's system. I am connected to you and you are connected to me in the center of our being. If my words have no meaning, you can feel this through the center of your being.

Great Spirit, help me make my word good. Let me do the things I say I will, and let me say the things I will do â?? and do it.

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Some of the dearest moments ever spent are those on the road I didn't want to travel. And some of the most magnificent doors I've ever passed through are where before there was no way.

Some of the kindest people I shall ever know are the ones I didn't want to meet. And the greatest abundance I've ever received came from a pittance I wanted to withhold.

Tears I have wanted to shed have turned to happiness because for a moment I could see beyond them. And hope has saved everything when I wanted most to give up in despair.

And suddenly I realized how great my progress could be if I could get myself and my emotions out of the way. How hard I push against the door that opens inward - inward, where faith and hope and trust abide.

There's not enough ambling done any more. There are too many deadlines. Time for a favorite TV show, time to take pills, time for appointments, time to catch a plane. Life is one continual alarm clock.

Never a gentle gait, but always at a dogtrot to meet those deadlines. It seems that dawdling along or staring into space is a waste of time, as the ambitions, eager for superiority, move dangerously ahead.

Many great people have known the wisdom of safeguarding their health and security by taking time to analyze, not in the role of fact sifting, but by allowing the mind to amble, to drift openly from thought to thought. This sitting idly on the sidelines and fishing quietly in the mind can catch many a solution that casting would never hook.

After a period of creative silence, attacking any deadline is made ample. The mind has had time to lay down the brittle aggressiveness and is ready to operate efficiently. Even physical weariness passes and the goal ahead isn't so far in the distance.

When there isn't time to go fishing, remember the words of American author William Mathews: "Knowledge is acquired by study and observation, but wisdom cometh by opportunity of leisure. The ripest thoughts come from a mind which is not always on the stretch, but fed, at times, by a wise passiveness."

July
Guyequoni

Monday
Dodaquonvhi

2013

Tsa lu wa'nee
CORN IN TASSEL

My people have kept me in the harness....I have never deceived them....I have done the best I could.

CHIEF JOHN ROSS

July 1 - Daily Feast

In these times of instant everything our patience wears thin when we have to wait. Who has not pushed an elevator button a number of times to get there faster? Waiting may well be the hardest work we do. We are less than tolerant of those who keep us waiting. Is their time more important than ours? So we keep pushing, racing our engines and taking chances in order to save five seconds. We can wait wisely - seeing that, sometimes, delays save us from a problem we could have met. How long has it been since we have had such a good excuse to just sit quietly and watch others trying to beat the clock. Time was when our mothers sat all afternoon and embroidered, while their heads and feet rested. Could we not take thirty minutes?

~ We are hoodwinked, duped more and more every year; we are made to feel that we are free when we are not. ~

WASSAJA

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

Elder's Meditation of the Day July 1

"I'm an Indian, I'm one of God's children."

Mathew King, LAKOTA

My Creator, today let me remember the reason I'm here on Mother Earth. Let me look into my own eyes and see the beauty You have created. Let me have good thoughts. Being Indian is not the color of my skin. Being Indian is to listen to my heart, to think only the things You have taught, to watch nature and live in harmony. Being Indian is to walk in prayer, to talk to You constantly during the day. Being Indian is to act and to walk in a sacred way.

Today, let me think in beauty, let me walk in beauty, let me pray in beauty.

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Why is it that we require so much scientific proof for the most ordinary things these days, when the very fact that we lie down and close our eyes at night is the highest proof that God's world is in order. Though perhaps our personal world may not know such sequence. There comes a time when our human limitations insist that we lay down our questions and accept by faith the only way to survive ourselves.

There are those who say they must have tangible evidence that the world and all its wonders be displayed before their eyes to see in wisdom the way things really are. And yet who said the human eyes could see or ears could hear more than one tiny bit of the wonder. Who could be so bold as to believe their senses were strong enough to know, except through faith.

Who could see with the visible eye the hand that changes the seasons, or hear Job's stars that sang together at dawn. Who set the day at rest and brings the morning in all its newness.

Only so far....then explanations know no more....and though we try to disbelieve when all goes wrong, there comes a time when we want no more explanation than that God's world is in order - and we cannot change it.

Surely if someone took our hand and asked us to walk along the world and view the wonders so magnificently displayed....If by some miracle we could see the vastness of it all at once, and still bear up under the beauty of it.....

If we can see the rolling rise and fall of the land - the purple, pink, and golden hues of shadows hung along the mountain sides....If our ears could hear the music of the rippling streams, the rushing waters, the graceful falls.

If by some mere chance we could sense the ebb and flow, the push and relaxing of the tides, the rise and set of the sun, the glittering stars and soft-faced moon that ignores the fact that other worlds encircle ours.....

And as the seasons sprinkle rain and flowers, golden leaves and snowfall....On this continuous circle....always new....always beautiful....

If we can see all this, how then, can we doubt that the earth that God created and saw as good is good. This is our land, and only our own forgetfulness of its source can make it different.

Donvdagahv'i
David White Hawk
Tawodi Unega

"Be good, be kind, help each other."
"Respect the ground, respect the drum, respect each other."

May The Creator walk with you.