March 19 - Daily Feast (TUESDAY)
We need something to stoke our fire, to stir us into action. If we sit all day and wonder why life is passing us by, it is probably because we gave so little enthusiasm. Lack of enthusiasm can be the result of fear - fear of disappointment, fear of what others will think or say. But on the other hand, who cares what someone might say? That is their problem, not ours. It may seem easier not to count on anything, but if we take the time to study a situation to see what we can do, it could be worth a few disappointments to just see our own grit and enthusiasm to tackle it.
~ We have borne everything patiently for this long time. ~
JOSEPH BRANT - MOHAWK
"A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II" by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
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Elder's Meditation of the Day - March 19
"There's a deep wound in people-that they have been so cut off from the source of their being, their mother, their Earth Mother."
--Francis Story Talbott II (Medicine Story), WAMPANOAG
When we are connected to the Earth Mother, or when we are clear on our purpose, we will feel connected and safe. We will feel love. When we are disconnected from the Earth Mother, or we don't know who we are or why we are, we will feel pain. It will be similar to a little child who has lost its Mother. We will hurt inside - we will be wounded within. If this happens to the whole community, the people will be very sad and lost. It will seem like there is death in the air. When this happens, it is time for ceremony and reconnection to God and Mother Earth. This is the time of prayer.
Great Mystery, today, help me to stay connected to the Earth and to You, my Creator.
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THINK on THESE THINGS
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Cooperation is said to be the essence of success. Without it confusion and chaos are the ruling factors and inharmony the main thought. Cooperation is a result of excellent leadership, the ability to build a team of loyal players who can follow instructions or think for themselves, whichever is for the best of all concerned.
A team is a group with specific parts to play. In all wisdom they know a little about every part, but they play their own positions with precision and efficiency.
Every player cannot be captain, and every person cannot play quarterback. The part may be small, but if it is played with fairness and dignity and to the utmost of ability, then it will be as important to the successful outcomes or results as the biggest job in the team.
The practical view of cooperation is vivid in John Dickinson's words, "By uniting we stand; by dividing we fall." We are only as strong as the weakest, only as cooperative as the spirit in which we work.
March 20 - Daily Feast (WEDNESDAY)
Few people go through life without some kind of trauma. But everyone doesn't react the same way. Certain experiences are magnified by pain and kept alive by distressed memory - so hostile conditioning is the result. Our own included. Nothing is ever fixed by glossing it over or covering it up. We cannot change what has already happened, but we can lessen the effect by putting it in perspective. It happened, it hurt, it still hurts. Talking about it makes it more vivid - but writing it in a personal journal takes it out of us and puts it somewhere else. Seeing it in black and white brings it into focus - and ultimately helps heal our wounds.
~ Our eyes are opened so that we see clearly. ~
RED JACKET - SENECA, 1700s
"A Cherokee Feast of Days, by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
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Elder's Meditation of the Day - March 20
"You have wandered away from your teachings. You must concentrate on your spiritual teachings...Don't be sidetracked."
--Henry Quick Bear, LAKOTA
Why are the Elders always telling us to know The culture and listen to the teachings? When We go off track, why do the Elders say, return to the teachings? The teachings tell us how to live in harmony with the Laws and principles of the Great Spirit. Living means Life – a good life, a happy life. Many of us have grown up without the teachings and the culture, that is why we don't know how to live. To improve on relationships, to treat our children with honor and to respect our Elders, we need to live by the old teachings again.
Great Spirit, today, show me how to live.
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THINK on THESE THINGS
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler
The greatest tragedy of life is not that we quarrel with our fellows, but that we do not take time to know them.
In his great understanding of man and nature, Thoreau wrote, "Let a man take time enough for the most trivial deed." Take time.
How often what seems to be an unfriendly atmosphere is only a lack of time. Some of our dearest friends are hidden behind the mask of hurry. And we need so desperately to know each other.
Understanding comes when people are allowed to talk to one another. They discover the ways and needs, the loves and hopes, and the despairs and fears when they take enough time to speak of them. All these things that make for understanding and compassion come from personal contact and the knowledge and practice of good will.
People become more civilized, more peaceful, more as God intended them to be when they take time to make friends out of acquaintances.
To be a good listener endears many a friendship. Everyone needs someone with whom to talk at length on all subjects without later regret. It has been written, "What a great blessing is a friend with breast so trusty that you may bury all your secrets in it."
And how often we need to be that friend and be the listener, and to make sure we are worthy of that trust.
Listening comes in many ways. We listen with all our senses, knowing many times without having to be told what someone's needs are. Charles Dickens said that no one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else. And it just may be by listening that we lighten another's load.
Sometimes we listen with our hearts and understand in silence. Sometimes we simply have to put ourselves into a situation to understand all sides of it. And we best do so by listening.
There are relationships in our lives better and closer that the ordinary. Closer yet than brothers or sisters are those with whom we can share all our secrets, we think.
What a sad state of affairs when life imparts that others cannot always be trusted. What a shock to realize we have given all our hearts and bared our souls to people whose curiosity was the only motive that compelled them to listen.
Phillip Massinger, sixteenth century poet, wrote, "I have played the fool, the gross fool to believe the bosom of a friend would hold a secret mine own could not contain."
Not one of us can testify that we have nothing within our lives and thoughts that we cannot reveal. And many of us have not expressed our innermost thoughts because we have found no one in whom we can confide.
As Shakespeare said, "Many a man's tongue shakes out its master's undoing." Sometimes the loquacious tell their secrets not our of a need to tell them, but out of a love of talking.
One of the greatest feelings in the world is to discover we haven't told something we cherish very much to someone we once thought we could trust.
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