✥ May 8 - Daily Feast ✥ (FRIDAY) ✥ May 9 - Daily Feast ✥ (SATURDAY)

May 8 - Daily Feast (FRIDAY) Always look behind the stick that stirs. You will find the promoter, the wild card, the puff of wind, but you will find the mother who was the guiding light. This mother is not a figurehead and not someone who exploits her children to be years older than their emotional makeup. She does not threaten nor does she have to consider it. Her children respect her standards and make them their own. She is not always a beautiful woman - but a lovely one whose life is not a fad or a trendy excursion, but a journey that is memorable to many. ~ The ground on which we stand is sacred ground. It is the dust and blood of our ancestors. ~ PLENTY-COUPS - CROW CHIEF, 1909 "A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II" by Joyce Sequichie Hifler *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>* Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 8 "Anyways, with medicine there's a time and a place for everything. It only comes around once. You have to get it at the right time." ---- Cecilia Mitchell, MOHAWK The old ones say two things must be present for a miracle to take place. One, the right time. Two, the right place. This is why we need to honor our ceremonies. Ceremonies are done in an order. This order is applied to open a "door" to the right time and place of the medicine. This door opens to the Spiritual World. The Spiritual World is available to us at the right time and the right place. My Creator, let me be patient today so the timing is right. *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>* THINK on THESE THINGS By Joyce Sequichie Hifler Irritation, they say, is something gentle folk should never know. Always passive, they go along the way smiling, no matter what the cost to feelings. But have you ever tried to smile when all the street lights are red and someone honked loudly when you failed to move quickly enough. Have you heard a politician slur the name of your candidate.... And had a promise broken without so much as a faint explanation. Or perhaps the long explanations on how to do something you've done for years....and suddenly you want to make two lists of people you like and people you don't like! And maybe you've answered the telephone and heard them hang up simply because your voice was not the right voice.... Or had them stand back empty handed while you with your packages opened the door for them? Well, it's no easy matter to be gentle folk and the mildest can get angry all over again by just thinking of an injustice. Perhaps it is trifling to let such little things irritate. But the best of us feel the small things that we never quite get over. We forgive and forget except to think about it occasionally, and then we must consider the words of Seneca, "Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provoked it." We live in a continual round of adjustments. It is usually an admirable thing to be able to make adjustments easily. Not many can. And, yet, it makes us wonder at times if those who can so freely change and move without emotions have ever felt very deeply. We tend to cling to familiar things and familiar customs. There is a great security in traveling a way we know by heart. The roughest road can usually be traveled without incident when we know ever turn and bump. It has been said by those who do scientific research that it takes at least three weeks to adjust to changes. But three months would do it more justice. And it must be done by abandonment, by setting aside for a period of time all things like the old way. Many times it is done not for ourselves alone, for it is foolish to believe a change involves only ourselves. In our very complex way of life there is no situation to afflict only one person. And often the most wonderful thing we can do for someone else is to find our own balance by making adjustments quickly, even in the middle of chaos. May 9 - Daily Feast (SATURDAY) Daydreaming is the part of childhood we should never let go. Children have great dreams, and the strange part of it is they often turn out to be blueprints for the future. The imaginary playmates spur them to be more creative and to have more potential. There is no reason we can't reactivate some of our dreams. Something about growing up tells us those dreams were not practical. Maybe they are now. What is to keep us from going back to that happy dream? If we say we cannot, we are being far too sophisticated. ~ Great Spirit.....made the world to change.....so birds and animals can move and always have green grass and ripe berries. ~ CHIEF FLYING HAWK - SIOUX "A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II" by Joyce Sequichie Hifler *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>* Elder's Meditation of the Day - May 9 "Without a sacred center, no one knows right from wrong." ---- Thomas Yellowtail, CROW In the center of the circle is where the powers reside. These powers are called love, principle, justice, spiritual knowledge, life, forgiveness and truth. All these powers reside in the very center of the human being. We access these powers by being still, quieting the mind. If we get confused, emotionally upset, feel resentment, anger, or fear, the best thing we can do is pray to the Great Spirit and ask Him to remove the anger and resentment. By asking Him to remove these obstacles, we are automatically positioned in the sacred center. Only in this way do we know right from wrong. Great Spirit, allow me this day to live in the sacred center. *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>* 'THINK on THESE THINGS' By Joyce Sequichie Hifler Everyone is a collector of something. And everyone's collection looks peculiar to someone else. And yet, who knows why an item may have a certain appeal to one particular person. The shape, the color, the whole idea may have a hidden background, but it is most definitely there! It may be old books, or magazines. Perhaps it is pill bottles, fishing hooks, or something "I may need someday when...." Who knows the reason old calendars continue to hang, and scraps of this and that may someday be just what I need. But more dear than any of these are the happy thoughts we collect to use along the way. We can use them to cheer someone, to pass along a word of courage, a simple prayer, a smile. And when someone has time to share with us an experience that we may profit by the pain the felt - yes, life's fabric, woven by someone's cares and offered to us in the hopes that it will help. Whatever it is that we collect, we must never forget the dearest collections are the kindnesses, the thoughtful acts, the smiling faces that can be ours by giving the same. What could be so priceless as true friendship? Friends for which time and space do not exist! It is written, "What a great blessing is a friend with breast so trusty that thou mayest safely bury all they secrets in it, whose conscience thou mayest fear less than thy own; who can relieve thy cares by his conversation, thy doubts by his counsels, thy sadness by his good humor, and whose very looks give thee comfort." All of us have had many friends, but the special ones remain forever in our memories. The dearest are those who believe in us and are willing to trust us with their friendship. We cannot force friendship. It is something mutually felt, mutually understood, and silently accepted. It is our opportunity to demonstrate our very best selves - to ask no questions and to pass no criticisms. "Before us is a future all unknown, a path untrod; Before us a friend well loved and known - That friend is God." *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>* Available online! 'Cherokee Feast of Days' By Joyce Sequichie Hifler. Visit her web site to purchase the wonderful books by Joyce as gifts for yourself or for loved ones......and also for those who don't have access to the Internet: http://www.hifler.com Click Here to Buy her books at Amazon.com Elder's Meditation of the Day By White Bison, Inc., an American Indian-owned nonprofit organization. Order their many products from their web site: http://www.whitebison.org   *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>* If you would like to Subscribe\Unsubscribe, or change your subscribed email address for The Daily Feast email list, email: Daily.Feast@gmail.com and give your new or updated info!   If you are receiving The Daily Feast From FeedBlitz, you must login there to unsubscribe from their service.   *<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*<<<=-=>>>*