"The law is that all life is equal in the Great Creation, and we, the Human Beings, are charged with the responsibility, each in our generation, to work for the continuation of life."
Traditional Circle of Elders
Every generation is accountable to leave the environment in healthy order for the next generation. Every generation is accountable to teach the next generation how to live in harmony and to understand the Laws. We need to ask ourselves, "What are we teaching the next generation?" Each individual is directly accountable.
My Creator, teach me intergenerational responsibility.
Forgiveness seems to be continually with us - the need to forgive, to be forgiven, is directly tied to loving and being loved - or lovable. We sometimes love better at a distance. Time and space have a way of putting things into perspective so that we can see the right and the wrong to be able to forgive or ask forgiveness. We never gain ground as long as we are obstinate about forgiving. A grudge is a stone wall that forbids us to move in any direction. The Cherokees have labored long to understand the reason for the Trail of Tears - the same way other tribes have tried to understand. Life has a way of working itself out to certain ends, a time for everything, and what has been lost will be regained many times over. When? There is an exact moment. Yoweh knows.
~ When we are at peace we hunt freely, our wives and children do not stand in want....We sleep easy. ~
A lady of much wisdom has often remarked, "If you want to feel well all the time and feel alive, you have to keep the rhythm in your body." Rhythm, the gentle, easy flow of life.
Ordinarily we think of keeping time with music when we think of rhythm. The very idea of allowing one's self the frivolity of feeling rhythm - and such a wonderful idea!
There is an underlying rhythm to all of living. Wherever there is life, there is that pulsating rhythm that has everything on the move. There is harmony and there is a subtle smoothness to finding one's own pace. When we get out of step and resist that pace, we have "one of those days" when everything goes wrong.
William Shakespeare wrote, "The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted."
"Indians living close to nature and nature's ruler are not living in darkness."
Walking Buffalo, STONEY
There are many Indian people who are living according to nature and according to ceremony and culture. They may not have a lot of material things, but that doesn't mean they are not successful. What is success anyway? Can success be measured by material things? What is it we are really chasing anyway? The Elders say that what everyone really wants is to be happy and have a peaceful mind. Material things by themselves do not bring happiness and peace of mind. Only spiritual things bring happiness. When we live a spiritual life we will not have darkness. Instead, we will be happy.
How frightening to be out of touch - but how normal! There are times and places we go through that are strange - both in feeling and understanding. We experience an uneasy feeling and want to rush back to the familiar - even though it isn't the place to be either. In growing, we go through strange places and think unusual thoughts. Fear of the unknown has made us wary, questioning, reaching for something to steady us, to give us direction and purpose. But we must expand our spirits, enlarge our thought to accept or reject what we have yet to learn. The American Indian has known the strangeness of new lands, new customs, has fought and lost - only to fight and win. Some are caught in between, but their staying power is in the Great Spirit who ever holds our hand and intercedes on our behalf.
~ I would that I could make the red people as great as the conceptions of my own mind, when I think of the Great Spirit that rules over us all. ~
Leisure - what is it? It is that beautiful something that escapes us most of the time. Leisure, like most everything else, can be found if we truly want it. We seem to have the ability to do most of what we set our minds to do, and the less important things can be set aside for this particular thing.
We get pretty stale when we never take time to relax. A few hours of getting away from even a beloved madhouse will make a new human being out of a bundle of nerves.
Pursuit of leisure is to lose it. We can't suddenly say that the next five minutes will be for complete relaxation. It takes that long to begin to unwind. Gaiety and rhythm and frivolity are shunned by most minds. But if there are none of these, even in the smallest amounts, then leisure is more of a restless shuffling - like a night out with no place to go.
We need to exercise our minds a little to achieve any goal, and leisure is definitely a goal!
"The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power...The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing..."
Luther Standing Bear, OGLALA SIOUX
Have you ever noticed the relationship between children and the soil? Watch how happily they are touching the dirt. The children play in it and eat it. If you are stressed, go to a spot on the Earth, sit down, put your fingers in the dirt, dig in it. Wash your hands in the soil. When you touch it, notice what it does to your hands. Our bodies love to touch the Earth. Sometimes we get too busy and forget these simple things. Maybe you'll even want to plant a garden or flowers. These things are mentally healthy.
Great Spirit, today, let me touch the Earth so the Earth can touch me.
Life stirs up our priorities - makes us think beyond our usual knowledge. There are enormously important things basic to all of us such as the family. The family as a whole is important, and so is each individual. Family makes us consider health and spirit and the capacity to take care of ourselves. The invisible circle gathers all we love close to us. But the final arc involves the making of who we are personally. Each person must know contentment, must be in awe, reverent toward the spiritual, recognize truth, and not go strictly by the depths and height of feelings. Searching for happiness leads us far afield when the search is for self, for a divine connection, a knowing that we are indeed divinely centered. We are a part of the earth, part heaven, one with every living thing. For this reason we love. The ga lv quo di, the precious, the dear truth is that we love.
~ It is the command of the Great Spirit, and all nations and people must obey. ~
Did you know that when we poke fun at someone else we're covering up our own embarrassment?
We all have shortcomings, peculiarities about ourselves that we take no pride in nor want others to know about. So, frequently we call attention to the "different" traits of others. Sometimes we believe they are not aware of their own problems, but they are. They are superconscious of them, and because of it they must escape through finding something about someone else they believe is worse than their own.
Truly wise persons are those who take their own unique qualities and build around them. Some of the most fascinating people are those who surround their unusual features with such exquisite mannerisms and beautifully developed personalities so handsomely as to make others ordinary.
It has been written by Augustine, "This is the very perfection of man, to find out his own imperfection."
"Modern civilization has no understanding of sacred matters. Everything is backwards."
Thomas Yellowtail, CROW
Modern civilization says, don't pray in school; don't pray at work; only go to church on Sunday. If you don't believe what I believe, you'll go to hell. Deviancy is normal. Our role models cheat, drink and run around; these are the people in the news. The news sells bad news; no one wants to hear good news. Kids are killing kids. Victims have little protection. Violence is normal. Leaders cheat and lie. Everything is backwards. We need to pray for spiritual intervention. We need to have guidance from the Creator to help us rebuild our families, our communities and ourselves. Today, I will pray for spiritual intervention from the Great Spirit.
Grandfather, we pray for your help in a pitiful way.
Those of us who have seen a grass fire know that when one flame is smothered, another can break out in a different place. It takes trained minds to perceive where the next will happen - not so different from our daily lives. Sometimes it is hard to do anything new because of the emergency work. This is all a part of the business of living. We never quite reach perfection - not all at once. Even if we do, we are off to something else that needs more help, more work. If it were not for the moving and stretching of time, perfection might become a dead nothing. The Cherokee would tell you not to build your campfire near loose tinder. What earthly purpose is there in starting a fire with a match or a tongue, in places and in ways where we have no business?
~ No one ever saw an Indian destroy something the Great Creator gave to man for his needs. ~
There's a song that says "....it ain't necessarily so," and it certainly isn't! How often we accept someone's casual remarks as fact. Even appearances can be misleading. But, knowing this, we still have a tendency to take a thread and build a yard cloth.
It makes all the difference in the world when we believe. To simply accept an opinion, even our own when hastily formed indicates a lack of sound thought.
We sometimes have the failing of believing everything we hear. But it is far wiser to know with certainty, the facts about a teaching by looking at its followers.
The eyes and ears of our hearts and spirits are often more accurate in determining right from wrong than we can expect from normal hearing and seeing. However blessed we are to have our faculties, we are still in dire need of that sixth sense known as common sense.
Only the very foolish can close their eyes to truth and accept without question the many issues of life that face us daily. Surely we must form opinions and carry on, but we need those who have the ability to think clearly and truthfully. All else is merely opinion.
"All living creatures and all plants derive their life from the sun. If it were not for the sun, there would be darkness and nothing could growâ??the earth would be without life."
Okute, TETON SIOUX
This is why we call the sun, Father Sun. Father Sun shines life on Mother Earth and from this Father and Mother all life forms exist and continue to reproduce. The Sun shines on all; it is not selective. We should not allow anything to block the Sun from shining on the Earth. We must not pollute the air because the pollutants block the light of life to the Earth. If the Earth cannot receive this light, then life will start to be affected. We must live in harmony with the Sun and Earth. Otherwise, we are harming ourselves.
My Creator, give me the wisdom to live in harmony with all things.
We, the old settlers here in council with the late emigrants, they are perfectly friendly toward us.....we have full confidence they will receive you with all friendship.
SEQUOYAH
May 1 - Daily Feast
A country road in May hums with activity. Bees comb the clover fields for nectar. Buttercups and dayflowers open to the sun and a mockingbird sets out to mimic every sound it has ever heard - even the baby chick. Wild onions and pink verbena share the space and the buttery blooms of buffalo peas nod in spring breezes. Only now the air has warmed to the sun and the plants and leaves of oaks grow so much overnight that the sky closes in like a cocoon. Now is the time to slow down and enjoy the minute changes as they come hourly, the scents, the roadsides filled with new plants, and the green hills and valleys. They come quickly, the di ga ne tli yv sdi, changes, that sometimes mature before we see the difference. If we are not careful, our clouded thought and vision shut it out until we have missed the best part.
~ This brings rest to me heart. I feel like a leaf after a storm, when the wind is still. ~
All things in sequence, first the bud and then the flower. We can no more hold back the blossom than we can the daylight. It is inevitably there, beautifully delicate and subject to crushing. Only through very careful tending will it withstand the winds and rain and pressures of the outside.
Sequence is the order of human life. God intended us to unfold as the flower: first the seed in fertile soil, the birth, the growth, the learning, the discoveries, the knowledge, the desires, the fulfillment as each phase of life follows its own sequence. We hold back the flowering of life only if we want it to be nonexistent, for it must progress. And in some of the most tender spots progression must be slow, easy, and reverently handled, for it can be as fragile as the flower.
There is within us a delicacy of thought which entwines itself throughout our beings, crossing from phase to phase, creating within us conflicts not easily understood. Something out of sequence in one phase may postpone the flowering of another phase. The very roots of our souls must be watered with reverence to successfully follow the sequence of life. If no other human understands or cares to understand, if we do, then continue - first the bud and then the flower.
Of all the intricate and complicated creations in the world, humanity occupies the first place. Our lives are made up of such flexuous combinations of body, soul, and spirit that we do not even understand ourselves.
We all desire to know what makes us tick and how to go about making ourselves tick better. Whether we realize it or not, we are in search of the truth of our own being. Why are we here? What step should we take next? One problem after another, questions after question brings us to this place again and again.
They are our personal problems and the wisest of persons cannot give us the answers. We will always need help to encourage us in our search, but we must go within ourselves to cure, to live, to feel, to believe.
We must win our own hearts before we can find happiness with others. We must know what we want and be willing to share it with others, for it is written that life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses win and preserve the heart.
English divine John Mason wrote these words, "By these things examine thyself: By whose rules am I acting: in whose name; in whose strength. In whose glory? What faith, humility, self-denial and live of God and to man have there been in all my actions?"
If we let our minds wander, we will come up with a lot of junk: maybe bad thoughts about a brother or sister, maybe angry thoughts, maybe self-pity thoughts. Our minds are not the boss. We can instruct our mind to think about whatever we want to think about. We cannot stop thinking, be we can choose what to think about. The Elders say we move towards what we think about. That's why they say, "Think about what is holy, think about the Grandfathers, think about culture, think about values, think about ceremonies, and think about good."
Great Spirit, today, empty my mind and let me experience what it would be like to think about what is holy.
It is true that if we get past this one hard place, all our problems will be solved? But each day has its share of such places - if not in our lives, then in the lives of those we care so much about. We are so interchangeably connected that whatever touches one of us touches us all. A ne lv to di, one strong effort, one day at a time, one step, one question, Are we reliable? Or do we get other people to cover our tracks so that we can go on doing what we want to do? When a hard spot, a habit, an addiction dogs our tracks, it is because we have not made up our minds to turn around and face it. Trying to make it acceptable only robs us of what we need most of all - to love ourselves and to respect ourselves. But we cannot do it alone. Only the Great Holy Spirit, and He alone, can give us the power.
~ The Great Spirit does right. He knows what is best for His children. ~
Are you one of those people who degrades yourself in idle conversation until it becomes a fact within your mind? Has it become your belief that this is true humility, talking down your abilities, hiding your light, refusing to accept your rights as a child of God as being meek and humble?
This thing called life is given to us for a purpose, never to downgrade; no more than we should blow it out of proportion by thinking too highly of ourselves.
Each life is important, each breath for a purpose, each moment a time for learning. Walt Whitman has written in Leaves of Grass: "Whoever you are! Motion and reflection are especially for you; the divine ship sails the divine sea for you. Whoever you are! You are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, you are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, for none more than you are the present and the past. For none more than you is immortality."
By our words we reveal our minds. It is so easy to refuse to be a channel through which the best can reveal itself. And it is so easy to forget that our song of life, as Whitman has written, "The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him. I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete!"
Human beings worry a great deal about what others think. It is a nagging worry that somehow the curtain that protects our privacy from the eyes of the world will suddenly drop and allow us to see all the things our pride has hidden.
Why is it that we seemingly need to be clever in order to handle the world? Why can't we just live honestly and openly, without scheming and trying to appear that we are something we are not? The world is so heavy laden with priggish pride that the clean simple truth is lost in playing it cool. Why can't we quit being something pent up inside and be something like sunshine or showers right out here where we can enjoy it or get over it?
Socrates said that the shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be. And we may just as well, because if there isn't a good cake under all that frosting, someone is going to know it anyway. To drop all pretense and say with genuine honesty, "This is the way I am" would be to find a whole new way of enjoying the simplicity of being ourselves.
"But I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit."
Walking Buffalo, STONEY
Nature is the greatest teacher on the Earth. Nature produces many different plants, animals, trees, rocks, birds, insects and weather patterns. Nature designed all these various things to grow and multiply while at the same time live in harmony with each other. We can learn a lot of we observe and study Nature's system of harmony and balance. Today, go sit on a rock and quietly observe and ask to be shown the lessons.
Great Spirit, Nature is my teacher. Today, let me be the student.
Living catches up with us quickly when we let everything become drudgery. We stop learning. We quit looking with interest, and we stop being aware of our own needs and feelings. Everything becomes routine and nothing new is on the horizon. We blame far too much on age. Age has little to do with the blue fog we let settle over us and the things we usually care about. It is our lack of energy brought about by our lack of vision. A ga yv li, the elderly, are held in high regard in all Indian tribes. They have to remember so they can tell the young - and they would tell us to watch our mouths so not to speak negatively. They would tell us to renew our vision. They say our potential is unlimited and we will know when something or someone lights our candle.
~ What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night....it is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset. ~
Is there ever a perfect time? A wise mother says there isn't. She advises us to take life by the hand and march right into the middle, and then start digging out the corners. She says not to wait for a perfect time to do anything, because a perfect time never quite makes it. We simply have to go ahead and make it as near perfect as possible.
A perfectionist is usually someone who can never find the perfect way, and gives up in futility. But the one who aims at perfection and does not wait for it, is at least moving and there's nothing useless about that. Unless we are moving, we resemble Tennyson's description: "Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, dead perfection; no more."
We have to face life, not under the pressures of perfection, but by pure faith. We have to go on accepting and rejecting as we come to each phase.
"For perfection does not exist," said eighteenth century writer Alfred de Musset. "To understand it is the triumph of human intelligence; to expect to possess it is the most dangerous kind of madness."
In the rush of too much to do, we stack up for ourselves things we are going to do, things we ought to do, and things we intend to do. We do first the things of necessity, we take time to think a little about what we ought to do, and the rest is left to good intentions.
Frequently the good intentions hold the key to our happiness. While we bog down in the necessities of living, the things that mean so much slip away unnoticed. We always expect other people to know that we intended to do this or that, but we must realize that they cannot read our good intentions. Good intentions have the same look as nothing at all. And we have to draw our own conclusions as to what our thoughts and feelings are. Only if we express them can we ever hope for others to know what we would like to do, even though circumstances may hinder us.
It has been written that intelligent beings have what it takes to surpass themselves. By sensible thought we can actively express our good intentions and this opens the way for fulfillment.
"Dead -- I Say? There is not death. Only a change of worlds."
Chief Seattle, DWAMISH
There are two Worlds that exist. The Seen World and the Unseen World. Sometimes these worlds are called the Physical World and the Spiritual World. The Elders say, when it is time to go to the other side, our relatives will appear a few days before to help us enter the Spirit World. This is a happy place; the hunting is good; the place of the Grandfathers, the Creator, the Great Spirit, God, is a joyful place.
Grandfathers, today, let me look forward to the Spirit World. Bless all my Relations.
Little things speak to our hurts. Sounds, fragrances, music that would mean nothing to others, reach into our souls to do a work that the obvious could not touch. Simple remedies can heal the deepest ills - a smile, a contented whistle of a passerby, the sounds of birds twittering at dusk - these things warm us and give us hope. But we have to listen for voices, inner and outer, to give us rest - and turn away the negative talk, the negative circumstance. We don't always believe we have a choice - but we have more space there to work than we know. We can no longer scoff at the power to help ourselves. We have a bigger hand in it than imagined, and it is our decision to get down to business and be open to help and healing from unlikely sources.
~ Day and night cannot dwell together. Your religion was written on tables of stone, ours was written on our hearts. ~
Realizing that there is a multitude of wonderful things to appreciate, we must shake them all together in our minds and wait for the chosen ones to rise up the top like bubbles. Life is such a challenge, such a joy to live when it is appreciated. If we could only realize who gave is life, we would understand even more why the Creator intended us to appreciate and love all that is about us.
The things we can appreciate are never in any particular order, but mingled together as they are in our lives. We can so beautifully and joyfully appreciate the sound of our children's laughter when sudden happiness overtakes them; the tremendous and moving power of silent prayer; a strong voice singing a song of inspiration, or of sentiment; early morning sunrises, misty pink and fresh; a mockingbird singing out its heart in the depth of night; the touch of souls in understanding; violin music; and our children in prayer, in spells of delight, or in any other movement.
To name them all would be an impossibility, to live them all is a blessing. We must not pass these things by without appreciating them. We must not lose them by failing to give thanks. These are the things we always have near us, and we can appreciate them merely by attuning our senses to them.
"There are many things to be shared with the four colors of man in our common destiny as one family upon our Mother the Earth."
Traditional Circle of Elders, NORTHERN CHEYENNE
The Elders tell us the time will come when the four colors of Man will unite into one family. According to prophecies, we were told this would happen when the Sun was blocked in the Seventh Moon. There was an eclipse of the Sun in July, 1991. We are now in a new Springtime called the Coming Together Time. Each of the four colors of man has knowledge that the other colors need to heal their families. Let us all be willing to sit in a circle and respect our differences.
Remembering can be painful and sometimes without any real benefit. But much of the time it helps us move ahead like a spur that tells us not to tarry but to go on and do what we have to do. It is far too easy to carry around a u s ga nv tsv, a false guilt, a wrong idea, to override our good memories. We lose sight of the positive things we have done and the happiness we have shared by recalling a thousand impossible wishes we wanted to come true. But it does no good to dwarf the present time because the past was not what we hoped it would be. We cannot help but recall things and times and people dear to us - but to remember them with pleasure does them more honor than to focus on what we did or couldn't do in the past.
~ Our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch of our ancestors as we walk over this earth. ~
Henry David Thoreau, whose cry was "Simplify! Simplify!" went to great measures to prove to himself, and perhaps to society, that life could be lived in the most simple manner and at the least expense. With only a few dollars he managed to provide for himself the things of absolute necessity for quite a long period of time.
Not many of us would care to exist on the absolute necessities. We have become too much accustomed to easier living. Things that were once thought of as luxuries are now considered necessities. And yet, with all of this, life is anything but simple. We seem to have the ability to complicate the best laid plans and find ourselves shadow boxing.
Like many of the trite old adages, "Life is what we make it," is so true. By our own minds we accept of reject, by ignoring or by searching out the causes of shadows and removing the cause. It is whatever we elect to do about our individual lives that makes the difference. But we shall make great strides when we recognize the supreme excellence in all things of simplicity.
We don't need to worry about doing without the necessary things in life - if we have a grateful heart. A grateful heart is not just remembering to write a few words to someone who has done a kindness, or saying thank you graciously and at the right moment. A grateful heart is the feeling of great blessing which precedes that thank you note and that verbal expression.
A grateful heart is one that always known the fullness of that rich feeling of first being grateful without cause. And then, all other gratitude and its expression comes naturally.
Perhaps true gratitude is a grateful thoughts toward heaven that I should be chosen to fill this spot, do this work, and have been given the strength to do it.
It was Romaine, the English theologian, who said, "Gratitude to God makes even a tempered blessing a taste of heaven." We can have so much more heaven with a grateful heart.
"We must remember that the heart of our religion is alive and that each person has the ability within to awaken and walk in a sacred manner."
Thomas Yellowtail, CROW
The Native Spirituality is full of life. When we seek it we become alive. Even if we have gone astray and have conducted ourselves in a bad way, we can look within and have a new awakening to life. Maybe we have drunk too much alcohol; maybe we have cheated on our spouse; maybe we have done things that make us feel guilty and ashamed. If we look outside ourselves, we will not find life; if we look inside, we will find life. Anytime we choose to change our lives, we only need to look inside. How do we do this? Take some sage and light it, close your eyes and say to the Great Spirit, I'm tired, I need your help. Please help me change.
Great Spirit, I know you exist inside of myself. Let me awaken to your teachings.
When we let down our guard, habit is waiting to reclaim its territory. It seems innocent and it is so familiar that we seldom suspect what teeth it has! Once we decide to change something, we can't expect to do it in one great sweep. What has taken us over by such tiny degrees must be edged out the same way. The fact that we are taking small steps does not minimize a very great commitment. Little by little, we reform our habits, making sure we leave no void for any other bad habit to fill. If we have a ne lo at nv, made an effort or tried to change and failed, it is probably because we tried to do it along or denied the need to change. The Cherokees believes he needs a u na li go sv, a help or a partnership, to give him support. It may be another v da di lv quo at nv, a special or blessed person that is grounded in the Galun lati.
Today I heard the laughter of children at play. Their voices filled the air almost like chimes. And I felt their arms about my neck and their sticky kisses on my face. How blessed I am! Today I heard a mockingbird trilling out every single song it ever heard from its winged friends. I closed my eyes and in the trees I heard all the voices I've heard since childhood, and it took me through all the happy, breathless, precious times I loved so much.
Today I heard my mother's voice calling to me happily. It was a good, strong, healthy voice that has called to me courage, and hope and peace, and shall continue to call down many lanes to me.
Today I heard my child's voice. I heard her singing, I heard her praying, I heard her laughing and talking. I heard her teasing and moving from place to place in all the activities I love to see her in.
Now, even more than ever I realize how grateful I am that God has given me the excellent faculty of hearing. I shall with all diligence try to hear nothing evil, but only love and peace which is my heritage.
Mother Earth is the source of all life. We should not only be concerned about the part of the Earth we live on, but we should be concerned about the parts of the Earth that other people live on. The Earth is one great whole. The trees in Brazil generate the air in the Untied States. If the trees are cut in Brazil, it affects the air that all people breathe. Every person needs to conscientiously think about how they respect the Earth. Do we dump our garbage out of the car? Do we poison the water? Do we poison the air? Am I taking on the responsibility of being a caretaker of the Earth?
Great Spirit, today, I will be aware of the Earth. I will be responsible.
If we ignore everything beautiful and look down the road to some future time, chances are it will be the same. This is the time, the e to a, the now, the present, to see the dearness of other people, the chance to be grateful - to enjoy. Why wait? Perfect times are elusive. They create an atmosphere that life should be lived on some high emotional level instead of experiencing love. Time goes by. The peaks were not what made life worthwhile - but the in-between times that gave us a chance to stand in the quiet of a wooded glen, even if it is just in our hearts, and know that love made it all worthwhile. Love will continue to make each a giant of peace in our souls.
~ I want to tell you if the Great Spirit had chosen anyone to be chief of this country, it is myself. ~
Most successful ventures have behind them some hardships. We as human beings, demand such experiences before we can truly appreciate the meaning of victory. No one promised that life would be son long gala event, but if we're made of durable stuff, we neither let it hinder us nor make us run roughshod to get ahead.
We must always recognize past hardships for what they are. We cannot ignore them, for they are a part of our makeup. But neither can we let them become crutches to lean upon when there's a need for an excuse.
Bitterness over past experiences wastes valuable time. Perhaps it was those hardships that gave us the strength to rise above the mediocre things. However crude, ugly or unhappy, even when combined with all our other knowledge they form the perfect circle and play no more important part than all the rest.
Whenever we walk on the Earth, we should pay attention to what is going on. Too often our minds are somewhere else, thinking about the past or thinking about the future. When we do this, we are missing important lessons. The Earth is a constant flow of lessons and learning, which also include a constant flow of positive feelings. If we are aware as we walk, we will gather words for our lives, the lessons to help our children; we will gather feelings of interconnectedness and calmness. When we experience this, we should say or think thoughts of gratitude. When we do this, the next person to walk on the sacred path will benefit even more.
My Creator, today, let me be aware of the sacred path.
Honeybees that relied on early flowers in the garden can now feast all across the meadows. Red clover, honey locust trees, and rose-colored Indian paintbrush abound in clusters to feed the bees and give peace to the eye. An evening chorus of field sparrows trills in the wheat field and a nesting killdeer demands privacy by doing her broken-wing act to sidetrack walkers. The whole meadow teems with activity until dusk - and then a silence pervades, only to be broken by the throaty voice of the tree toad. It is common knowledge among the Cherokee that every animal, except man, knows the main business of life is to enjoy it, and he, the Cherokee, sides with nature.
~ Seed time is here but your grounds have not been prepared for planting. Go back and plant the summer's crop. ~
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.
"All the stones that are around here, each one has a language of its own. Even the earth has a song."
Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA
To believe that every tree, plant and insect can talk takes an open mind. Go by yourself into nature and sit quietly. Then pick up a rock and listen to your thoughts. After a while, put that rock down and pick up another rock. Your thoughts will change. These are the voices and wisdom of the Stone People. Each one has different wisdom and they are willing to share their wisdom with you. Many of the Stone People are very old and very wise.
Great Spirit, let every rock and leaf be my teacher.
Country people do not find it strange to hear the pond is turning over. They know it is not doing a flip but everything that has fallen in it suddenly comes to the top. It is nature's way of cleaning house. It isn't pretty but it does work. The whole pond of human affairs needs to turn over at times. When everything seems to happen at once, friends disagree, and coworkers are suddenly mired in stuff from the bottom of the pond, it is time to clean house. It isn't always u wo du hi, beautiful or pretty, but it does work. The best part is that it doesn't last long. Everything rights itself with time - for a while. It helps to know that when something unclean falls in the water, eventually the pond will turn over to get rid of it. It just takes time.
~ We took an oath not to do any wrong to each other or to scheme against each other. ~
Until you've walked in the rain you cannot truly appreciate the protection of shelter.
Until you've felt the heat from a sweltering sun you cannot fully enjoy the coolness of shade.
Only after the clatter and bang of crowded places can you find quietness and solitude so soothing to the nerves.
Before you can stop worrying and start living, there must be an elimination of fear which is the cause of all worry.
Sometimes, unfortunately, we must collide with the bad before we can totally appreciate the good.
It is said that we too often must be reminded of our obligations before we take charge of them.
Frequently it seems we must have our freedom threatened before we muster enough patriotism to defend it.
Too many shoulders are bowed by our thoughtlessness before we finally learn the key to real success is kindness.
We never know how truly wonderful it is to be loved until we are loved when we've failed to deserve it.
M.R. Smith's words, "God's plans, like lilies pure and white untold - We must not tear the close shut leaves apart - Time will reveal the calyxes of gold," reveal, after all, that patience does its perfect work.
"But the great spirit has provided you and me with an opportunity for study in nature's university, the forests, the rivers, the mountains, and the animals which include us."
Walking Buffalo, STONEY
What we really need to learn is how to live life. Nature is the greatest university when we want to learn about balance, harmony, the Natural Laws and how to live life. But we will never learn unless we spend time in the "living university." Nature is full of examples, lessons, and exercises about life. Nature will help humans learn. Nature will help humans heal. Nature will help with Medicine, knowledge and healing. The reason our Elders are so wise is because they have attended the right educational system - nature's university.
Sometimes it takes another person standing on the outside of our emotional problem to do for us what we can't seem to do for ourselves. We need those who can see beyond appearances and will let us lean on them until we are in control again. It isn't the Cherokee's natural bent to discuss a problem openly with anyone. Silence is not only golden, it is safer and does nothing to make a problem grow as he believes talking will. But he knows the time, the place and the right person will avail themselves to him, and then he can talk. It isn't that we fear showing a weakness, but that we know the power of the word to make matters worse if we talk in a negative way about our needs. Even prayer should not be to reiterate our wants. Yoweh knows what we need. He waits for our adoration and thanksgiving that the needs are already provided for.
~ There is a dignity about the social intercourse of old Indians which reminds me of a stroll through a winter forest. ~
It takes such a little whiff of memory to carry us all the way back. Small things tucked here and there remind us of some place, something, some person who has played a special part in our lives.
We want to go forward, try new things, know new people, visit new places, yet how nice to slip on those comfortable old slippers of the familiar bygones and remember loving faces and happy times.
It is said that we should never return to places that have a sacred spot in our memories. Everything changes with time, so little remains recognizable to us. We begin to think that perhaps those hallowed places were not so wonderful as we remember.
But they were, for in their time and that place it was as it should have been, happy and meaningful. They may have changed, but so have we.
A little of every place and every person goes with us in the building of even happier times. We have not lost anyone or anything but it is the combination of all that we have lived and learned that builds our character and teaches us the way of life.
"Prayer is the best answer to all of the trials that face us, because without prayer, even if we succeed in accomplishing some great goal in the eyes of men, we have failed in our sacred responsibilities, and thus we have failed in what is truly important."
Thomas Yellowtail, CROW
What are our sacred responsibilities? One is to be of maximum service to the Creator, and two is to serve the people. In a way, it's like the Great Spirit is the employer and we are the employees. We live each day, do what we do, accomplish our goals, face our difficulties, overcome them all to the Glory of the Creator. We do these things to make Him proud! Even if we work for a company, agency or tribe, they are nor really our employer; the Creator is our employer. Working for the Creator is better than working for a human being, because each night we can talk to the Creator and ask Him, "Well, how did I do today?" He answers back each night, "I'm proud of you, my child; sleep well, and in the morning I'll give you a new set of growing experiences."
Great Spirit, today, let me work for you. You will be my new boss.
How many times she called me to her side to share something beautiful - the glowing embers in a sunset, the call of a whippoorwill, or one of those rare moments when Venus draws near the new moon. How many times she held my hand to comfort me through hope and fear, birth and death, happiness and unhappiness. How many times she taught me that no one is ever alone. We are always in the presence of Father-God who loves us - no matter what might appear to frighten us. How many times she said, "You can do it!" and how many times she refrained from saying, "You'll never make it." And how many blessings I wish upon her - my mother!
~ I will come with my family and pitch my lodge in your camp, that others may see....you are under my protection. ~
Whenever we stop to consider where we are on the road of life, we might also think about why we are there. Whether it is success or failure, or wavering in the middle of the road, we are where we are because of someone or something.
Nearly every person can pinpoint the time in their life when there was a turning point, a change for worse or for the better. And usually there is someone to whom they give the credit for such a change.
Throughout our lives we contact many people and they each leave an impression. As living continues the combination of all those thoughts and feelings and actions forms our opinions, our likes and dislikes, our fears and our loves. But there is one basic factor in all of this that turns us one way or other - the individual, the personal self. It is how we take life, what we expect, how we do our daily tasks, where we place our values that make the difference.
We are born with the right to choose - and whatever we choose there will always be someone there to help us be good or bad. But first, we must give credit where credit is due.
"We must have respect and understanding for women and all female life on this Earth which bears the sacred gift of life."
Traditional Circle of Elders. ONONDAGA
At a gathering of Native Elders we were told that many men of today had lost their ability to look at the Woman in a sacred way. They said we were only looking at Her in a physical sense and had lost the ability to look at Her sacredness. They said the Woman has a powerful position in the Unseen World. She has the special ability to bring forth life. They told us to start showing Her respect and to look upon her in a sacred manner. We must start this today.
Our willingness to work at whatever we can opens doors to new opportunities. Willingness breathes life into us and gives us vision. Hope is good but determination is even better. It sets the tone to move, to do the thing set out for us. And we can do anything when we do not stop to consider what if we were to fail, or what is we are not appreciated. Cherokee women were never considered inferior to the men. They were honored and respected and educated themselves so they could teach their children. It meant hard work and determination to perfect what they could so they could pass it on. Sometimes, the main objective of our work is not just to prosper us but to do a worthwhile thing well. We keep labor on a high level, never taking the easy way out. There is honor in work - even in the most menial job. Success is short-lived when the work is done for appearances.
~ If our children should visit this place.....they may see and recognize with pleasure the deposits of their fathers. ~
We want much. It seems sometimes that wanting is all we ever get done. And yet if it were not for the desires 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 give 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."
"It's time. If you are to walk the path of heart, then it is time..."
Nippawanock, ARAPAHOE
If not now, when? If not me, who? To walk the path of the heart is a great honor. Every human has the choice to walk this path, but very few will decide to make it. Why? Well, because you can't act and behave like everyone else behaves. You must be the person who will learn to look within. You must be the person who will be fully accountable for yourself. You must be the person who prays and meditates. You must be the person who will sacrifice. You must decide to be a Peaceful Warrior. What will you decide today?
Oh, Great Mystery, lead me on the path of the heart.
There is a chance that a decision we make will lead us into battle, an inward and an outward battle against our own will and against the negative flow of the world in general. A cherished goal challenges us that we cannot do it - we can't possibly do what smarter people have tried and failed to do. But chances are we have a source of wisdom that others may not have had, though everything points to their advantages over ours. Maybe we have a source that is more reliable, that no weapon formed against us can prosper. Chief John Ross taught the Cherokees to be persistent. Not a moment could be wasted in apathy, but we had to be there with muscles and mind toned and ready. The tribe's willingness to follow through with honor and integrity helped us to survive.
~ Our cause is with God and good men, and there we are willing to leave it. ~
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day April 27
"The law is that all life is equal in the Great Creation, and we, the Human Beings, are charged with the responsibility, each in our generation, to work for the continuation of life."
Traditional Circle of Elders
Every generation is accountable to leave the environment in healthy order for the next generation. Every generation is accountable to teach the next generation how to live in harmony and to understand the Laws. We need to ask ourselves, "What are we teaching the next generation?" Each individual is directly accountable.
My Creator, teach me intergenerational responsibility.
Apr 27, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
April 27 - Daily Feast
Forgiveness seems to be continually with us - the need to forgive, to be forgiven, is directly tied to loving and being loved - or lovable. We sometimes love better at a distance. Time and space have a way of putting things into perspective so that we can see the right and the wrong to be able to forgive or ask forgiveness. We never gain ground as long as we are obstinate about forgiving. A grudge is a stone wall that forbids us to move in any direction. The Cherokees have labored long to understand the reason for the Trail of Tears - the same way other tribes have tried to understand. Life has a way of working itself out to certain ends, a time for everything, and what has been lost will be regained many times over. When? There is an exact moment. Yoweh knows.
~ When we are at peace we hunt freely, our wives and children do not stand in want....We sleep easy. ~
CHEROKEE
Apr 27, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
A lady of much wisdom has often remarked, "If you want to feel well all the time and feel alive, you have to keep the rhythm in your body." Rhythm, the gentle, easy flow of life.
Ordinarily we think of keeping time with music when we think of rhythm. The very idea of allowing one's self the frivolity of feeling rhythm - and such a wonderful idea!
There is an underlying rhythm to all of living. Wherever there is life, there is that pulsating rhythm that has everything on the move. There is harmony and there is a subtle smoothness to finding one's own pace. When we get out of step and resist that pace, we have "one of those days" when everything goes wrong.
William Shakespeare wrote, "The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted."
Apr 28, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day April 28
"Indians living close to nature and nature's ruler are not living in darkness."
Walking Buffalo, STONEY
There are many Indian people who are living according to nature and according to ceremony and culture. They may not have a lot of material things, but that doesn't mean they are not successful. What is success anyway? Can success be measured by material things? What is it we are really chasing anyway? The Elders say that what everyone really wants is to be happy and have a peaceful mind. Material things by themselves do not bring happiness and peace of mind. Only spiritual things bring happiness. When we live a spiritual life we will not have darkness. Instead, we will be happy.
Great Spirit, today, let me walk the Red Road.
Apr 28, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
April 28 - Daily Feast
How frightening to be out of touch - but how normal! There are times and places we go through that are strange - both in feeling and understanding. We experience an uneasy feeling and want to rush back to the familiar - even though it isn't the place to be either. In growing, we go through strange places and think unusual thoughts. Fear of the unknown has made us wary, questioning, reaching for something to steady us, to give us direction and purpose. But we must expand our spirits, enlarge our thought to accept or reject what we have yet to learn. The American Indian has known the strangeness of new lands, new customs, has fought and lost - only to fight and win. Some are caught in between, but their staying power is in the Great Spirit who ever holds our hand and intercedes on our behalf.
~ I would that I could make the red people as great as the conceptions of my own mind, when I think of the Great Spirit that rules over us all. ~
TECUMSEH
Apr 28, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Leisure - what is it? It is that beautiful something that escapes us most of the time. Leisure, like most everything else, can be found if we truly want it. We seem to have the ability to do most of what we set our minds to do, and the less important things can be set aside for this particular thing.
We get pretty stale when we never take time to relax. A few hours of getting away from even a beloved madhouse will make a new human being out of a bundle of nerves.
Pursuit of leisure is to lose it. We can't suddenly say that the next five minutes will be for complete relaxation. It takes that long to begin to unwind. Gaiety and rhythm and frivolity are shunned by most minds. But if there are none of these, even in the smallest amounts, then leisure is more of a restless shuffling - like a night out with no place to go.
We need to exercise our minds a little to achieve any goal, and leisure is definitely a goal!
Apr 29, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day April 29
"The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power...The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing..."
Luther Standing Bear, OGLALA SIOUX
Have you ever noticed the relationship between children and the soil? Watch how happily they are touching the dirt. The children play in it and eat it. If you are stressed, go to a spot on the Earth, sit down, put your fingers in the dirt, dig in it. Wash your hands in the soil. When you touch it, notice what it does to your hands. Our bodies love to touch the Earth. Sometimes we get too busy and forget these simple things. Maybe you'll even want to plant a garden or flowers. These things are mentally healthy.
Great Spirit, today, let me touch the Earth so the Earth can touch me.
Apr 29, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
April 29 - Daily Feast
Life stirs up our priorities - makes us think beyond our usual knowledge. There are enormously important things basic to all of us such as the family. The family as a whole is important, and so is each individual. Family makes us consider health and spirit and the capacity to take care of ourselves. The invisible circle gathers all we love close to us. But the final arc involves the making of who we are personally. Each person must know contentment, must be in awe, reverent toward the spiritual, recognize truth, and not go strictly by the depths and height of feelings. Searching for happiness leads us far afield when the search is for self, for a divine connection, a knowing that we are indeed divinely centered. We are a part of the earth, part heaven, one with every living thing. For this reason we love. The ga lv quo di, the precious, the dear truth is that we love.
~ It is the command of the Great Spirit, and all nations and people must obey. ~
BIG ELK
Apr 29, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Did you know that when we poke fun at someone else we're covering up our own embarrassment?
We all have shortcomings, peculiarities about ourselves that we take no pride in nor want others to know about. So, frequently we call attention to the "different" traits of others. Sometimes we believe they are not aware of their own problems, but they are. They are superconscious of them, and because of it they must escape through finding something about someone else they believe is worse than their own.
Truly wise persons are those who take their own unique qualities and build around them. Some of the most fascinating people are those who surround their unusual features with such exquisite mannerisms and beautifully developed personalities so handsomely as to make others ordinary.
It has been written by Augustine, "This is the very perfection of man, to find out his own imperfection."
Apr 30, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day April 30
"Modern civilization has no understanding of sacred matters. Everything is backwards."
Thomas Yellowtail, CROW
Modern civilization says, don't pray in school; don't pray at work; only go to church on Sunday. If you don't believe what I believe, you'll go to hell. Deviancy is normal. Our role models cheat, drink and run around; these are the people in the news. The news sells bad news; no one wants to hear good news. Kids are killing kids. Victims have little protection. Violence is normal. Leaders cheat and lie. Everything is backwards. We need to pray for spiritual intervention. We need to have guidance from the Creator to help us rebuild our families, our communities and ourselves. Today, I will pray for spiritual intervention from the Great Spirit.
Grandfather, we pray for your help in a pitiful way.
Apr 30, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
April 30 - Daily Feast
Those of us who have seen a grass fire know that when one flame is smothered, another can break out in a different place. It takes trained minds to perceive where the next will happen - not so different from our daily lives. Sometimes it is hard to do anything new because of the emergency work. This is all a part of the business of living. We never quite reach perfection - not all at once. Even if we do, we are off to something else that needs more help, more work. If it were not for the moving and stretching of time, perfection might become a dead nothing. The Cherokee would tell you not to build your campfire near loose tinder. What earthly purpose is there in starting a fire with a match or a tongue, in places and in ways where we have no business?
~ No one ever saw an Indian destroy something the Great Creator gave to man for his needs. ~
RED FOX
Apr 30, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
There's a song that says "....it ain't necessarily so," and it certainly isn't! How often we accept someone's casual remarks as fact. Even appearances can be misleading. But, knowing this, we still have a tendency to take a thread and build a yard cloth.
It makes all the difference in the world when we believe. To simply accept an opinion, even our own when hastily formed indicates a lack of sound thought.
We sometimes have the failing of believing everything we hear. But it is far wiser to know with certainty, the facts about a teaching by looking at its followers.
The eyes and ears of our hearts and spirits are often more accurate in determining right from wrong than we can expect from normal hearing and seeing. However blessed we are to have our faculties, we are still in dire need of that sixth sense known as common sense.
Only the very foolish can close their eyes to truth and accept without question the many issues of life that face us daily. Surely we must form opinions and carry on, but we need those who have the ability to think clearly and truthfully. All else is merely opinion.
May 1, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 1
"All living creatures and all plants derive their life from the sun. If it were not for the sun, there would be darkness and nothing could growâ??the earth would be without life."
Okute, TETON SIOUX
This is why we call the sun, Father Sun. Father Sun shines life on Mother Earth and from this Father and Mother all life forms exist and continue to reproduce. The Sun shines on all; it is not selective. We should not allow anything to block the Sun from shining on the Earth. We must not pollute the air because the pollutants block the light of life to the Earth. If the Earth cannot receive this light, then life will start to be affected. We must live in harmony with the Sun and Earth. Otherwise, we are harming ourselves.
My Creator, give me the wisdom to live in harmony with all things.
May 1, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
A-na s-gv-ti
MAY
Ana-Sku'tee
Planting Month
We, the old settlers here in council with the late emigrants, they are perfectly friendly toward us.....we have full confidence they will receive you with all friendship.
SEQUOYAH
May 1 - Daily Feast
A country road in May hums with activity. Bees comb the clover fields for nectar. Buttercups and dayflowers open to the sun and a mockingbird sets out to mimic every sound it has ever heard - even the baby chick. Wild onions and pink verbena share the space and the buttery blooms of buffalo peas nod in spring breezes. Only now the air has warmed to the sun and the plants and leaves of oaks grow so much overnight that the sky closes in like a cocoon. Now is the time to slow down and enjoy the minute changes as they come hourly, the scents, the roadsides filled with new plants, and the green hills and valleys. They come quickly, the di ga ne tli yv sdi, changes, that sometimes mature before we see the difference. If we are not careful, our clouded thought and vision shut it out until we have missed the best part.
~ This brings rest to me heart. I feel like a leaf after a storm, when the wind is still. ~
PETALASHARO
May 1, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
All things in sequence, first the bud and then the flower. We can no more hold back the blossom than we can the daylight. It is inevitably there, beautifully delicate and subject to crushing. Only through very careful tending will it withstand the winds and rain and pressures of the outside.
Sequence is the order of human life. God intended us to unfold as the flower: first the seed in fertile soil, the birth, the growth, the learning, the discoveries, the knowledge, the desires, the fulfillment as each phase of life follows its own sequence. We hold back the flowering of life only if we want it to be nonexistent, for it must progress. And in some of the most tender spots progression must be slow, easy, and reverently handled, for it can be as fragile as the flower.
There is within us a delicacy of thought which entwines itself throughout our beings, crossing from phase to phase, creating within us conflicts not easily understood. Something out of sequence in one phase may postpone the flowering of another phase. The very roots of our souls must be watered with reverence to successfully follow the sequence of life. If no other human understands or cares to understand, if we do, then continue - first the bud and then the flower.
Of all the intricate and complicated creations in the world, humanity occupies the first place. Our lives are made up of such flexuous combinations of body, soul, and spirit that we do not even understand ourselves.
We all desire to know what makes us tick and how to go about making ourselves tick better. Whether we realize it or not, we are in search of the truth of our own being. Why are we here? What step should we take next? One problem after another, questions after question brings us to this place again and again.
They are our personal problems and the wisest of persons cannot give us the answers. We will always need help to encourage us in our search, but we must go within ourselves to cure, to live, to feel, to believe.
We must win our own hearts before we can find happiness with others. We must know what we want and be willing to share it with others, for it is written that life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses win and preserve the heart.
English divine John Mason wrote these words, "By these things examine thyself: By whose rules am I acting: in whose name; in whose strength. In whose glory? What faith, humility, self-denial and live of God and to man have there been in all my actions?"
May 2, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 2
"Think only about what is holy. Empty your mind."
Archie Fire Lame Deer, LAKOTA
If we let our minds wander, we will come up with a lot of junk: maybe bad thoughts about a brother or sister, maybe angry thoughts, maybe self-pity thoughts. Our minds are not the boss. We can instruct our mind to think about whatever we want to think about. We cannot stop thinking, be we can choose what to think about. The Elders say we move towards what we think about. That's why they say, "Think about what is holy, think about the Grandfathers, think about culture, think about values, think about ceremonies, and think about good."
Great Spirit, today, empty my mind and let me experience what it would be like to think about what is holy.
May 2, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 2 - Daily Feast
It is true that if we get past this one hard place, all our problems will be solved? But each day has its share of such places - if not in our lives, then in the lives of those we care so much about. We are so interchangeably connected that whatever touches one of us touches us all. A ne lv to di, one strong effort, one day at a time, one step, one question, Are we reliable? Or do we get other people to cover our tracks so that we can go on doing what we want to do? When a hard spot, a habit, an addiction dogs our tracks, it is because we have not made up our minds to turn around and face it. Trying to make it acceptable only robs us of what we need most of all - to love ourselves and to respect ourselves. But we cannot do it alone. Only the Great Holy Spirit, and He alone, can give us the power.
~ The Great Spirit does right. He knows what is best for His children. ~
SENECA
May 2, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Are you one of those people who degrades yourself in idle conversation until it becomes a fact within your mind? Has it become your belief that this is true humility, talking down your abilities, hiding your light, refusing to accept your rights as a child of God as being meek and humble?
This thing called life is given to us for a purpose, never to downgrade; no more than we should blow it out of proportion by thinking too highly of ourselves.
Each life is important, each breath for a purpose, each moment a time for learning. Walt Whitman has written in Leaves of Grass: "Whoever you are! Motion and reflection are especially for you; the divine ship sails the divine sea for you. Whoever you are! You are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, you are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, for none more than you are the present and the past. For none more than you is immortality."
By our words we reveal our minds. It is so easy to refuse to be a channel through which the best can reveal itself. And it is so easy to forget that our song of life, as Whitman has written, "The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him. I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete!"
Human beings worry a great deal about what others think. It is a nagging worry that somehow the curtain that protects our privacy from the eyes of the world will suddenly drop and allow us to see all the things our pride has hidden.
Why is it that we seemingly need to be clever in order to handle the world? Why can't we just live honestly and openly, without scheming and trying to appear that we are something we are not? The world is so heavy laden with priggish pride that the clean simple truth is lost in playing it cool. Why can't we quit being something pent up inside and be something like sunshine or showers right out here where we can enjoy it or get over it?
Socrates said that the shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be. And we may just as well, because if there isn't a good cake under all that frosting, someone is going to know it anyway. To drop all pretense and say with genuine honesty, "This is the way I am" would be to find a whole new way of enjoying the simplicity of being ourselves.
May 3, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 3
"But I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit."
Walking Buffalo, STONEY
Nature is the greatest teacher on the Earth. Nature produces many different plants, animals, trees, rocks, birds, insects and weather patterns. Nature designed all these various things to grow and multiply while at the same time live in harmony with each other. We can learn a lot of we observe and study Nature's system of harmony and balance. Today, go sit on a rock and quietly observe and ask to be shown the lessons.
Great Spirit, Nature is my teacher. Today, let me be the student.
May 3, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 3 - Daily Feast
Living catches up with us quickly when we let everything become drudgery. We stop learning. We quit looking with interest, and we stop being aware of our own needs and feelings. Everything becomes routine and nothing new is on the horizon. We blame far too much on age. Age has little to do with the blue fog we let settle over us and the things we usually care about. It is our lack of energy brought about by our lack of vision. A ga yv li, the elderly, are held in high regard in all Indian tribes. They have to remember so they can tell the young - and they would tell us to watch our mouths so not to speak negatively. They would tell us to renew our vision. They say our potential is unlimited and we will know when something or someone lights our candle.
~ What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night....it is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset. ~
CROWFOOT
May 3, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Is there ever a perfect time? A wise mother says there isn't. She advises us to take life by the hand and march right into the middle, and then start digging out the corners. She says not to wait for a perfect time to do anything, because a perfect time never quite makes it. We simply have to go ahead and make it as near perfect as possible.
A perfectionist is usually someone who can never find the perfect way, and gives up in futility. But the one who aims at perfection and does not wait for it, is at least moving and there's nothing useless about that. Unless we are moving, we resemble Tennyson's description: "Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, dead perfection; no more."
We have to face life, not under the pressures of perfection, but by pure faith. We have to go on accepting and rejecting as we come to each phase.
"For perfection does not exist," said eighteenth century writer Alfred de Musset. "To understand it is the triumph of human intelligence; to expect to possess it is the most dangerous kind of madness."
In the rush of too much to do, we stack up for ourselves things we are going to do, things we ought to do, and things we intend to do. We do first the things of necessity, we take time to think a little about what we ought to do, and the rest is left to good intentions.
Frequently the good intentions hold the key to our happiness. While we bog down in the necessities of living, the things that mean so much slip away unnoticed. We always expect other people to know that we intended to do this or that, but we must realize that they cannot read our good intentions. Good intentions have the same look as nothing at all. And we have to draw our own conclusions as to what our thoughts and feelings are. Only if we express them can we ever hope for others to know what we would like to do, even though circumstances may hinder us.
It has been written that intelligent beings have what it takes to surpass themselves. By sensible thought we can actively express our good intentions and this opens the way for fulfillment.
May 4, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 4
"Dead -- I Say? There is not death. Only a change of worlds."
Chief Seattle, DWAMISH
There are two Worlds that exist. The Seen World and the Unseen World. Sometimes these worlds are called the Physical World and the Spiritual World. The Elders say, when it is time to go to the other side, our relatives will appear a few days before to help us enter the Spirit World. This is a happy place; the hunting is good; the place of the Grandfathers, the Creator, the Great Spirit, God, is a joyful place.
Grandfathers, today, let me look forward to the Spirit World. Bless all my Relations.
May 4, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 4 - Daily Feast
Little things speak to our hurts. Sounds, fragrances, music that would mean nothing to others, reach into our souls to do a work that the obvious could not touch. Simple remedies can heal the deepest ills - a smile, a contented whistle of a passerby, the sounds of birds twittering at dusk - these things warm us and give us hope. But we have to listen for voices, inner and outer, to give us rest - and turn away the negative talk, the negative circumstance. We don't always believe we have a choice - but we have more space there to work than we know. We can no longer scoff at the power to help ourselves. We have a bigger hand in it than imagined, and it is our decision to get down to business and be open to help and healing from unlikely sources.
~ Day and night cannot dwell together. Your religion was written on tables of stone, ours was written on our hearts. ~
SEATTLE
May 4, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Realizing that there is a multitude of wonderful things to appreciate, we must shake them all together in our minds and wait for the chosen ones to rise up the top like bubbles. Life is such a challenge, such a joy to live when it is appreciated. If we could only realize who gave is life, we would understand even more why the Creator intended us to appreciate and love all that is about us.
The things we can appreciate are never in any particular order, but mingled together as they are in our lives. We can so beautifully and joyfully appreciate the sound of our children's laughter when sudden happiness overtakes them; the tremendous and moving power of silent prayer; a strong voice singing a song of inspiration, or of sentiment; early morning sunrises, misty pink and fresh; a mockingbird singing out its heart in the depth of night; the touch of souls in understanding; violin music; and our children in prayer, in spells of delight, or in any other movement.
To name them all would be an impossibility, to live them all is a blessing. We must not pass these things by without appreciating them. We must not lose them by failing to give thanks. These are the things we always have near us, and we can appreciate them merely by attuning our senses to them.
May 5, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 5
"There are many things to be shared with the four colors of man in our common destiny as one family upon our Mother the Earth."
Traditional Circle of Elders, NORTHERN CHEYENNE
The Elders tell us the time will come when the four colors of Man will unite into one family. According to prophecies, we were told this would happen when the Sun was blocked in the Seventh Moon. There was an eclipse of the Sun in July, 1991. We are now in a new Springtime called the Coming Together Time. Each of the four colors of man has knowledge that the other colors need to heal their families. Let us all be willing to sit in a circle and respect our differences.
Creator, let me be willing to have an open mind.
May 5, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 5 - Daily Feast
Remembering can be painful and sometimes without any real benefit. But much of the time it helps us move ahead like a spur that tells us not to tarry but to go on and do what we have to do. It is far too easy to carry around a u s ga nv tsv, a false guilt, a wrong idea, to override our good memories. We lose sight of the positive things we have done and the happiness we have shared by recalling a thousand impossible wishes we wanted to come true. But it does no good to dwarf the present time because the past was not what we hoped it would be. We cannot help but recall things and times and people dear to us - but to remember them with pleasure does them more honor than to focus on what we did or couldn't do in the past.
~ Our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch of our ancestors as we walk over this earth. ~
SEATTLE
May 5, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Henry David Thoreau, whose cry was "Simplify! Simplify!" went to great measures to prove to himself, and perhaps to society, that life could be lived in the most simple manner and at the least expense. With only a few dollars he managed to provide for himself the things of absolute necessity for quite a long period of time.
Not many of us would care to exist on the absolute necessities. We have become too much accustomed to easier living. Things that were once thought of as luxuries are now considered necessities. And yet, with all of this, life is anything but simple. We seem to have the ability to complicate the best laid plans and find ourselves shadow boxing.
Like many of the trite old adages, "Life is what we make it," is so true. By our own minds we accept of reject, by ignoring or by searching out the causes of shadows and removing the cause. It is whatever we elect to do about our individual lives that makes the difference. But we shall make great strides when we recognize the supreme excellence in all things of simplicity.
We don't need to worry about doing without the necessary things in life - if we have a grateful heart. A grateful heart is not just remembering to write a few words to someone who has done a kindness, or saying thank you graciously and at the right moment. A grateful heart is the feeling of great blessing which precedes that thank you note and that verbal expression.
A grateful heart is one that always known the fullness of that rich feeling of first being grateful without cause. And then, all other gratitude and its expression comes naturally.
Perhaps true gratitude is a grateful thoughts toward heaven that I should be chosen to fill this spot, do this work, and have been given the strength to do it.
It was Romaine, the English theologian, who said, "Gratitude to God makes even a tempered blessing a taste of heaven." We can have so much more heaven with a grateful heart.
May 6, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 6
"We must remember that the heart of our religion is alive and that each person has the ability within to awaken and walk in a sacred manner."
Thomas Yellowtail, CROW
The Native Spirituality is full of life. When we seek it we become alive. Even if we have gone astray and have conducted ourselves in a bad way, we can look within and have a new awakening to life. Maybe we have drunk too much alcohol; maybe we have cheated on our spouse; maybe we have done things that make us feel guilty and ashamed. If we look outside ourselves, we will not find life; if we look inside, we will find life. Anytime we choose to change our lives, we only need to look inside. How do we do this? Take some sage and light it, close your eyes and say to the Great Spirit, I'm tired, I need your help. Please help me change.
Great Spirit, I know you exist inside of myself. Let me awaken to your teachings.
May 6, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 6 - Daily Feast
When we let down our guard, habit is waiting to reclaim its territory. It seems innocent and it is so familiar that we seldom suspect what teeth it has! Once we decide to change something, we can't expect to do it in one great sweep. What has taken us over by such tiny degrees must be edged out the same way. The fact that we are taking small steps does not minimize a very great commitment. Little by little, we reform our habits, making sure we leave no void for any other bad habit to fill. If we have a ne lo at nv, made an effort or tried to change and failed, it is probably because we tried to do it along or denied the need to change. The Cherokees believes he needs a u na li go sv, a help or a partnership, to give him support. It may be another v da di lv quo at nv, a special or blessed person that is grounded in the Galun lati.
~ I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. ~
CHIEF JOSEPH
May 6, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Today I heard the laughter of children at play. Their voices filled the air almost like chimes. And I felt their arms about my neck and their sticky kisses on my face. How blessed I am! Today I heard a mockingbird trilling out every single song it ever heard from its winged friends. I closed my eyes and in the trees I heard all the voices I've heard since childhood, and it took me through all the happy, breathless, precious times I loved so much.
Today I heard my mother's voice calling to me happily. It was a good, strong, healthy voice that has called to me courage, and hope and peace, and shall continue to call down many lanes to me.
Today I heard my child's voice. I heard her singing, I heard her praying, I heard her laughing and talking. I heard her teasing and moving from place to place in all the activities I love to see her in.
Now, even more than ever I realize how grateful I am that God has given me the excellent faculty of hearing. I shall with all diligence try to hear nothing evil, but only love and peace which is my heritage.
May 7, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 7
"We must all become caretakers of the Earth."
Haida Gwaii Traditional Circle of Elders
Mother Earth is the source of all life. We should not only be concerned about the part of the Earth we live on, but we should be concerned about the parts of the Earth that other people live on. The Earth is one great whole. The trees in Brazil generate the air in the Untied States. If the trees are cut in Brazil, it affects the air that all people breathe. Every person needs to conscientiously think about how they respect the Earth. Do we dump our garbage out of the car? Do we poison the water? Do we poison the air? Am I taking on the responsibility of being a caretaker of the Earth?
Great Spirit, today, I will be aware of the Earth. I will be responsible.
May 7, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 7 - Daily Feast
If we ignore everything beautiful and look down the road to some future time, chances are it will be the same. This is the time, the e to a, the now, the present, to see the dearness of other people, the chance to be grateful - to enjoy. Why wait? Perfect times are elusive. They create an atmosphere that life should be lived on some high emotional level instead of experiencing love. Time goes by. The peaks were not what made life worthwhile - but the in-between times that gave us a chance to stand in the quiet of a wooded glen, even if it is just in our hearts, and know that love made it all worthwhile. Love will continue to make each a giant of peace in our souls.
~ I want to tell you if the Great Spirit had chosen anyone to be chief of this country, it is myself. ~
SITTING BULL
May 7, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Most successful ventures have behind them some hardships. We as human beings, demand such experiences before we can truly appreciate the meaning of victory. No one promised that life would be son long gala event, but if we're made of durable stuff, we neither let it hinder us nor make us run roughshod to get ahead.
We must always recognize past hardships for what they are. We cannot ignore them, for they are a part of our makeup. But neither can we let them become crutches to lean upon when there's a need for an excuse.
Bitterness over past experiences wastes valuable time. Perhaps it was those hardships that gave us the strength to rise above the mediocre things. However crude, ugly or unhappy, even when combined with all our other knowledge they form the perfect circle and play no more important part than all the rest.
May 11, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Cleone Thunder, NORTHERN ARAPAHOE
Whenever we walk on the Earth, we should pay attention to what is going on. Too often our minds are somewhere else, thinking about the past or thinking about the future. When we do this, we are missing important lessons. The Earth is a constant flow of lessons and learning, which also include a constant flow of positive feelings. If we are aware as we walk, we will gather words for our lives, the lessons to help our children; we will gather feelings of interconnectedness and calmness. When we experience this, we should say or think thoughts of gratitude. When we do this, the next person to walk on the sacred path will benefit even more.
My Creator, today, let me be aware of the sacred path.
May 11, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 11 - Daily Feast
Honeybees that relied on early flowers in the garden can now feast all across the meadows. Red clover, honey locust trees, and rose-colored Indian paintbrush abound in clusters to feed the bees and give peace to the eye. An evening chorus of field sparrows trills in the wheat field and a nesting killdeer demands privacy by doing her broken-wing act to sidetrack walkers. The whole meadow teems with activity until dusk - and then a silence pervades, only to be broken by the throaty voice of the tree toad. It is common knowledge among the Cherokee that every animal, except man, knows the main business of life is to enjoy it, and he, the Cherokee, sides with nature.
~ Seed time is here but your grounds have not been prepared for planting. Go back and plant the summer's crop. ~
KEOKUK, 1832
May 11, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'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.
May 12, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 12
"All the stones that are around here, each one has a language of its own. Even the earth has a song."
Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA
To believe that every tree, plant and insect can talk takes an open mind. Go by yourself into nature and sit quietly. Then pick up a rock and listen to your thoughts. After a while, put that rock down and pick up another rock. Your thoughts will change. These are the voices and wisdom of the Stone People. Each one has different wisdom and they are willing to share their wisdom with you. Many of the Stone People are very old and very wise.
Great Spirit, let every rock and leaf be my teacher.
May 12, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 12 - Daily Feast
Country people do not find it strange to hear the pond is turning over. They know it is not doing a flip but everything that has fallen in it suddenly comes to the top. It is nature's way of cleaning house. It isn't pretty but it does work. The whole pond of human affairs needs to turn over at times. When everything seems to happen at once, friends disagree, and coworkers are suddenly mired in stuff from the bottom of the pond, it is time to clean house. It isn't always u wo du hi, beautiful or pretty, but it does work. The best part is that it doesn't last long. Everything rights itself with time - for a while. It helps to know that when something unclean falls in the water, eventually the pond will turn over to get rid of it. It just takes time.
~ We took an oath not to do any wrong to each other or to scheme against each other. ~
GERONIMO
May 12, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Until you've walked in the rain you cannot truly appreciate the protection of shelter.
Until you've felt the heat from a sweltering sun you cannot fully enjoy the coolness of shade.
Only after the clatter and bang of crowded places can you find quietness and solitude so soothing to the nerves.
Before you can stop worrying and start living, there must be an elimination of fear which is the cause of all worry.
Sometimes, unfortunately, we must collide with the bad before we can totally appreciate the good.
It is said that we too often must be reminded of our obligations before we take charge of them.
Frequently it seems we must have our freedom threatened before we muster enough patriotism to defend it.
Too many shoulders are bowed by our thoughtlessness before we finally learn the key to real success is kindness.
We never know how truly wonderful it is to be loved until we are loved when we've failed to deserve it.
M.R. Smith's words, "God's plans, like lilies pure and white untold - We must not tear the close shut leaves apart - Time will reveal the calyxes of gold," reveal, after all, that patience does its perfect work.
May 13, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 13
"But the great spirit has provided you and me with an opportunity for study in nature's university, the forests, the rivers, the mountains, and the animals which include us."
Walking Buffalo, STONEY
What we really need to learn is how to live life. Nature is the greatest university when we want to learn about balance, harmony, the Natural Laws and how to live life. But we will never learn unless we spend time in the "living university." Nature is full of examples, lessons, and exercises about life. Nature will help humans learn. Nature will help humans heal. Nature will help with Medicine, knowledge and healing. The reason our Elders are so wise is because they have attended the right educational system - nature's university.
Great Spirit, help me to become wise.
May 13, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 13 - Daily Feast
Sometimes it takes another person standing on the outside of our emotional problem to do for us what we can't seem to do for ourselves. We need those who can see beyond appearances and will let us lean on them until we are in control again. It isn't the Cherokee's natural bent to discuss a problem openly with anyone. Silence is not only golden, it is safer and does nothing to make a problem grow as he believes talking will. But he knows the time, the place and the right person will avail themselves to him, and then he can talk. It isn't that we fear showing a weakness, but that we know the power of the word to make matters worse if we talk in a negative way about our needs. Even prayer should not be to reiterate our wants. Yoweh knows what we need. He waits for our adoration and thanksgiving that the needs are already provided for.
~ There is a dignity about the social intercourse of old Indians which reminds me of a stroll through a winter forest. ~
COCHISE
May 13, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
It takes such a little whiff of memory to carry us all the way back. Small things tucked here and there remind us of some place, something, some person who has played a special part in our lives.
We want to go forward, try new things, know new people, visit new places, yet how nice to slip on those comfortable old slippers of the familiar bygones and remember loving faces and happy times.
It is said that we should never return to places that have a sacred spot in our memories. Everything changes with time, so little remains recognizable to us. We begin to think that perhaps those hallowed places were not so wonderful as we remember.
But they were, for in their time and that place it was as it should have been, happy and meaningful. They may have changed, but so have we.
A little of every place and every person goes with us in the building of even happier times. We have not lost anyone or anything but it is the combination of all that we have lived and learned that builds our character and teaches us the way of life.
May 14, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 14
"Prayer is the best answer to all of the trials that face us, because without prayer, even if we succeed in accomplishing some great goal in the eyes of men, we have failed in our sacred responsibilities, and thus we have failed in what is truly important."
Thomas Yellowtail, CROW
What are our sacred responsibilities? One is to be of maximum service to the Creator, and two is to serve the people. In a way, it's like the Great Spirit is the employer and we are the employees. We live each day, do what we do, accomplish our goals, face our difficulties, overcome them all to the Glory of the Creator. We do these things to make Him proud! Even if we work for a company, agency or tribe, they are nor really our employer; the Creator is our employer. Working for the Creator is better than working for a human being, because each night we can talk to the Creator and ask Him, "Well, how did I do today?" He answers back each night, "I'm proud of you, my child; sleep well, and in the morning I'll give you a new set of growing experiences."
Great Spirit, today, let me work for you. You will be my new boss.
May 14, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 14 - Daily Feast
How many times she called me to her side to share something beautiful - the glowing embers in a sunset, the call of a whippoorwill, or one of those rare moments when Venus draws near the new moon. How many times she held my hand to comfort me through hope and fear, birth and death, happiness and unhappiness. How many times she taught me that no one is ever alone. We are always in the presence of Father-God who loves us - no matter what might appear to frighten us. How many times she said, "You can do it!" and how many times she refrained from saying, "You'll never make it." And how many blessings I wish upon her - my mother!
~ I will come with my family and pitch my lodge in your camp, that others may see....you are under my protection. ~
EAGLE WING
May 14, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Whenever we stop to consider where we are on the road of life, we might also think about why we are there. Whether it is success or failure, or wavering in the middle of the road, we are where we are because of someone or something.
Nearly every person can pinpoint the time in their life when there was a turning point, a change for worse or for the better. And usually there is someone to whom they give the credit for such a change.
Throughout our lives we contact many people and they each leave an impression. As living continues the combination of all those thoughts and feelings and actions forms our opinions, our likes and dislikes, our fears and our loves. But there is one basic factor in all of this that turns us one way or other - the individual, the personal self. It is how we take life, what we expect, how we do our daily tasks, where we place our values that make the difference.
We are born with the right to choose - and whatever we choose there will always be someone there to help us be good or bad. But first, we must give credit where credit is due.
May 15, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 15
"We must have respect and understanding for women and all female life on this Earth which bears the sacred gift of life."
Traditional Circle of Elders. ONONDAGA
At a gathering of Native Elders we were told that many men of today had lost their ability to look at the Woman in a sacred way. They said we were only looking at Her in a physical sense and had lost the ability to look at Her sacredness. They said the Woman has a powerful position in the Unseen World. She has the special ability to bring forth life. They told us to start showing Her respect and to look upon her in a sacred manner. We must start this today.
Grandfather, show me how to see in a sacred way.
May 15, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 15 - Daily Feast
Our willingness to work at whatever we can opens doors to new opportunities. Willingness breathes life into us and gives us vision. Hope is good but determination is even better. It sets the tone to move, to do the thing set out for us. And we can do anything when we do not stop to consider what if we were to fail, or what is we are not appreciated. Cherokee women were never considered inferior to the men. They were honored and respected and educated themselves so they could teach their children. It meant hard work and determination to perfect what they could so they could pass it on. Sometimes, the main objective of our work is not just to prosper us but to do a worthwhile thing well. We keep labor on a high level, never taking the easy way out. There is honor in work - even in the most menial job. Success is short-lived when the work is done for appearances.
~ If our children should visit this place.....they may see and recognize with pleasure the deposits of their fathers. ~
SHARITARISH
May 15, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
'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 desires 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 give 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."
May 16, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
Elder's Meditation of the Day May 16
"It's time. If you are to walk the path of heart, then it is time..."
Nippawanock, ARAPAHOE
If not now, when? If not me, who? To walk the path of the heart is a great honor. Every human has the choice to walk this path, but very few will decide to make it. Why? Well, because you can't act and behave like everyone else behaves. You must be the person who will learn to look within. You must be the person who will be fully accountable for yourself. You must be the person who prays and meditates. You must be the person who will sacrifice. You must decide to be a Peaceful Warrior. What will you decide today?
Oh, Great Mystery, lead me on the path of the heart.
May 16, 2012
David White Hawk Administrator
May 16 - Daily Feast
There is a chance that a decision we make will lead us into battle, an inward and an outward battle against our own will and against the negative flow of the world in general. A cherished goal challenges us that we cannot do it - we can't possibly do what smarter people have tried and failed to do. But chances are we have a source of wisdom that others may not have had, though everything points to their advantages over ours. Maybe we have a source that is more reliable, that no weapon formed against us can prosper. Chief John Ross taught the Cherokees to be persistent. Not a moment could be wasted in apathy, but we had to be there with muscles and mind toned and ready. The tribe's willingness to follow through with honor and integrity helped us to survive.
~ Our cause is with God and good men, and there we are willing to leave it. ~
CHEROKEES
May 16, 2012