Daily Feast Of Wisdom (Tsugitsvnvda Danalisdayvhvsgv Agadohvsdi ) (ᏧᎩᏨᏅᏓ ᏓᎾᎵᏍᏓᏴᎲᏍᎬ ᎠᎦᏙᎲᏍᏗ)

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Comment by David White Hawk Administrator on April 5, 2012 at 10:38am

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

It doesn't seem that a simple thing like going fishing could have such excellent results when the world suddenly seems too much. It is a very difficult thing to worry when your mind is fixed intently on a little red and white plastic float bobbing in the water.

Just taking one's mind off the general routine of living for even a short time is like a much needed and appreciated vacation. We seldom recognize the need for getting away from the monotony of following each day with another day exactly like it. We lose the value of the hours and minutes and lump them all together and plod along expecting miracles to come someday and save us.

The effort we have to give is in releasing the problem and concentrating on something beautifully simple and uncomplicated. Living doesn't seem so ominous when we can go fishing for a little peace and quiet, and sidetrack the things that weigh so heavily on our minds.

Good health is such a blessing. We don't all realize how much we aid or harm our own health. In fact, we give much more thought to being careful not to get wet than being careful not to get angry. And it is said that anger can lower resistance to colds much quicker than getting wet.

It is a proven fact that to feel love builds a resistance to illnesses while resentment and hate can destroy both mind and body.

Longfellow once wrote that joy, temperance, and repose would slam the door on the doctor's nose. There's no doubt but that most doctor's noses are safe. But they, too, would be glad if more patients would exercise their abilities to lift themselves out of much of their ill health by knowing some measure of joy rather than self pity, some healthy thoughts and less thought of self.

We lower our resistance to ill health in many ways, but none works against us as surely as worry, anxiety, and care, plus our inability to recognize the fact that we are our own greatest enemy.

Comment by David White Hawk Administrator on April 4, 2012 at 3:21pm

April 4 - Daily Feast

Our choices have brought us to this place. Other people affected us to some degree, but never so much as what we chose to do and how we choose to react. We are at the point the Cherokees call the hour of tsu du go at nv, the place where we decide who is to sit at the forefront of our lives to guide the way. The hardest part is to stop thinking dilemma and start thinking and talking solutions. There is no room in problem solving for self-pity, not even revenge. Past events may have been wrong, but now we have to see it as change, not always our doing, but we have to handle it anyway. It is here that we decide to be happy, to be examples so that younger ones will want to follow. It is a worthy thing to be a good example. We may never know who will be watching.

~ Convince the world by your character that Indians are not as they have been shown. ~

JOHN ROSS

Comment by David White Hawk Administrator on April 4, 2012 at 3:21pm

Elder's Meditation of the Day - April 4

"You can pray for whatever you want, but it is always best to pray for others, not for yourself."

John Fire Lame Deer, LAKOTA

When you are selfish and you pray, you are requesting things to flow only to you. When you are selfless, you are praying for things to flow to others. The old ones say this is the highest form of prayer. Praying this way is according to the Natural Laws.

Great Spirit, today, let my thoughts be about others.

Comment by David White Hawk Administrator on April 4, 2012 at 3:20pm

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Remember all those times when you made three trips to the other room to get something, and before you got there you had already forgotten what it was? Didn't the thought of age dimming your member enter your mind at those times?

There's really no need to waste time thinking that deep. It is not the case of a scattered memory, but a skittery mind, jumping from one subject to another with only circumstances to remind you.

And haven't you awakened sharply in the middle of the night because suddenly you remembered something you should have done, or something you must do? Age again? No, it was the only time your subconscious mind ever found you quiet enough to remind you of something you wanted to remember.

Life would be so much more orderly if we took several minutes night and morning to sit completely away from outside sights and sounds to recall the important things. As long as we are able to see and hear the activity about us we have difficulty thinking soundly. The conscious mind is capable of carrying just so much, and then the debris must be cleared away before the "filed away" things in the subconscious can be remembered.

"Be still and know...."

Comment by David White Hawk Administrator on April 3, 2012 at 6:35am

April 3 - Daily Feast

Why must we judge ourselves by what someone else is saying? They only think. Is it possible to fit our lives into the narrow confines of theirs? Let us search our souls. We have spiritual connections uniquely our own - deeper in many ways than those of people who want us to be like they are. But there is no way we can be like another person. We can only be better people in our own way. We know right from wrong, regardless of how the world-at-large has tried to condition us. Nothing can keep us from hearing our own voices of common sense - nothing, that is, but the noise and clamor of outside voice. And yes, maybe some are inside. But they have no good purpose; they mean to destroy. We need not dally with trouble. We can refuse to be a part of anything that was not a gift of Galun lati - the Great Spirit.

~ To fight is to forget ourselves as Indians in the world. ~

MONTEZUMA

Comment by David White Hawk Administrator on April 3, 2012 at 6:34am

Elder's Meditation of the Day - April 3

"We know that in all creation, Only the human family Has strayed from the Sacred Way."

OJIBWAY Prayer

How have we gotten so far off track? What has happened to us? What is happening to our family? How did it happen so quickly? Every individual needs to answer these questions for themselves. What do we need to do to start living the Sacred Way again? Pray! Today I will start praying. I pray the Creator will lead all Native People to a great healing. I pray we'll be free from alcohol and drugs. I pray we will return to the culture, to spirituality and to unity.

My Mother, help us to heal ourselves. Make us strong again.

Comment by David White Hawk Administrator on April 3, 2012 at 6:34am

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Frequently quoted American editor and author Christian Nestell Bovee wrote that sensitiveness is closely allied to egotism - indeed excessive sensitivity is only another name for morbid self-consciousness.

He wrote that the cure for it was to make more of our objectives and less of ourselves. And it isn't easy to make less of ourselves.

Everyone at some time has felt extreme sensitivity toward people and surroundings. It is a sensitiveness that does not always have a good effect - seemingly for no reason at all we exercise no control over the emotions. It can be frightening to realize that we are quite as capable of destroying as we are, at other times, of building.

It is written in the essays of Aristotle that there are right things to say and a right way of saying them; and the same is true of listening. So often we make a casual remark, not mean to be tactless, but somehow it turns out that way. When there is a desire to appear witty, or clever, at someone else's expense, there should be no pride in the results.

And when we listen to someone's casual remark and take offense, we must examine our own thoughts. If we allow our minds to run in channels of vulgarity and mockery, then we can also expect to interpret others' words to mean the same things.

We can so easily read the wrong things into others' conversations, and in our own efforts to express ourselves say such foolish things that we lose the priceless gifts of relaxation and fun of conversing with other people. And for these reasons we must cultivate the art of speaking and listening with the warmest heart - which harbors nothing that is not right.

It is a good idea in the most sensitive times to recognize them for what they are and to make a pact within one's self to by pass this time for serious thought and decision making. This, above all, should be a time for relaxing against the wind of oversensitivity. To resist it only strengthens it, and to look at it clearly and coolly will take away its mystery and its heat.

It is well to remember that the too-sensitive person is not the true self, but the one with the marvelous mental attitude most certainly is - wait for that person!

Comment by David White Hawk Administrator on April 2, 2012 at 2:24pm

April 2 - Daily Feast

What we know in our heads is not always workable until we get it down in our hearts. The heart is the very core of us - the spirit, the vital u li s go li yv. Some call it the subconscious, the file room of our experiences and beliefs - the substance of who we are. Sometimes we file things in this inner-storage that are not to our benefit - fear for the most part. And fear is the subtle destroyer of the human spirit. But there are other things there as well, some of it information we neither remember nor even know we have recorded. Like old files, it needs to be cleaned out. But how can we clean out what we do not know we have? By self-monitoring, by plumbing the depths in writing, drawing out our own thought the way we prime an old pump to draw up water. It takes honesty spiked with a good sense of humor. Getting to know oneself is worth the effort.

~ Again....I recall the great vision you sent me. It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. ~

BLACK ELK, 1912

Comment by David White Hawk Administrator on April 2, 2012 at 2:24pm

Elder's Meditation of the Day - April 2

"With children we always have to think about seven generations to come but yet unborn."

Janice Sundown Hattet, SENECA

What we do today will effect the children seven generations form now. How we treat the Mother Earth will affect the children yet to be born. If we poison the water today, our children's children will be affected by the decision we made. Our children are the gateway to the future. Let us conscientiously think about the children and the seven generations to come.

My Creator, I thank you for my ancestors, seven generations ago.

Comment by David White Hawk Administrator on April 2, 2012 at 2:24pm

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

It is always amazing to hear someone scoff at the serious things. Perhaps they only scoff because they can't recognize anything really serious outside their own personal problems....Or maybe they are just afraid to acknowledge anything they don't understand.

Whatever it is that keeps people thinking in such a limited area adds to the residue of dullness in their minds. And until they can mature enough to believe in something worthwhile, they continue to add layer after layer of residue to the mind.

It is not surprising that some people believe themselves in possession of all knowledge to the point that they feel free to ridicule those who are still in the process of thinking things out. We can never truly judge another's reasoning. We can only see the results and with time it may be the person will break through that accumulation to wisdom and kindness that is so necessary in tolerating others' opinions and beliefs. Then will the residue diminish and there will be a renewal of the spirit.

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