December 26 - Daily Feast
Early winter mornings have a special quality, a clarity where long thin shadows and ice crystals in emerald and topaz lie on the grasses. With the exception of a chortling blue jay there is little noise - as though everything bedded down last night and it reluctant to come out. A red tail hawk in search of breakfast rides the air currents far overhead where it can spot anything moving. It is strange that nature pays so little attention to what we think is beautiful in their domain - but it is equally strange that we are so oblivious to the supernatural that waits on us to recognize it.
~ The Great Spirit is our fathers, but the earth is our mother. She nourishes us, and what we put into the ground, she returns to us. ~
BEDAGI - WABANKI, 1900
'A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II' by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
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Elder's Meditation of the Day - December 26
"The way of knowledge is like our old way of hunting. You begin with a mere trail -- a footprint. If you follow that faithfully, it may lead you to a clearer train - a track - a road. Later on there will be many tracks, crossing and diverging one from the other. Then you must be careful, for success lies in the choice of the right road."
--Many Lightenings Eastman, SANTEE SIOUX
An entire apple tree is initially contained in the seed. Visions are initially contained in the idea. If you trace the path of a blooming flower backwards, it goes from the blooming flower back to a bud, back to a stem, back to a seed. So it is in the way of knowledge. Often we will experience a hunch or a feeling that we are supposed to do something. At first it may not make any sense. This is the seed stage. Once we start to investigate, more gets revealed. As more is revealed, the more knowledge we get. This is the way the Great Spirit guides us.
Great Spirit, help me to choose the right choices.
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'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 the 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 combination 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, question 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 love of God and to man have there been in all my actions?"
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A Cherokee Feast of Day
by Joyce Sequichie Hifler
Early winter mornings have a special quality, a clarity where long thin shadows and ice crystals in emerald and topaz lie on the grasses. With the exception of a chortling blue jay there is little noise - as though everything bedded down last night and it reluctant to come out. A red tail hawk in search of breakfast rides the air currents far overhead where it can spot anything moving. It is strange that nature pays so little attention to what we think is beautiful in their domain - but it is equally strange that we are so oblivious to the supernatural that waits on us to recognize it.
~ The Great Spirit is our fathers, but the earth is our mother.
She nourishes us, and what we put into the ground, she returns to us. ~
BEDAGI - WABANKI, 1900
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Elder's Meditation of the Day - December 26
"The way of knowledge is like our old way of hunting. You begin with a mere trail -- a footprint. If you follow that faithfully, it may lead you to a clearer train-a track- a road. Later on there will be many tracks, crossing and diverging one from the other. Then you must be careful, for success lies in the choice of the right road."
--Many Lightenings Eastman, SANTEE SIOUX
An entire apple tree is initially contained in the seed. Visions are initially contained in the idea. If you trace the path of a blooming flower backwards, it goes from the blooming flower back to a bud, back to a stem, back to a seed. So it is in the way of knowledge. Often we will experience a hunch or a feeling that we are supposed to do something. At first it may not make any sense. This is the seed stage. Once we start to investigate, more gets revealed. As more is revealed, the more knowledge we get. This is the way the Great Spirit guides us.
Great Spirit,
help me to choose the right choices.
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Morning Prayer:
Grandfather Great Spirit
Fill Us With The Light.
Give Us The Strength To Understand And The Eyes To See.
Teach Us To Walk The Soft Earth As Relatives
To All That Live.
Aho , Amen , e-men .
God's Minute
GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD, FOR HE IS GOOD. HIS LOVE
ENDURES FOREVER.
( PSALM 136:1 *NIV )
Dear Member's,
When we count all of our blessings we start to realize
how wonderful our Heavenly Father has been to us. For He not
only helps us in time of need, He blesses us abundantly as well.
Therefore we should; GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD, CALL
ON HIS NAME; MAKE KNOWN AMONG THE NATIONS WHAT
HE HAS DONE. SING TO HIM, SING PRAISE TO HIM; TELL
OF HIS WONDERFUL ACTS. ( CHRONICLES 16:8-9 )
Further, why not start each day by counting your many
blessings, and sharing with others what God has done for you.
For King David did, for he wrote; I WILL GIVE YOU THANKS IN
THE GREAT ASSEMBLY; AMONG THRONGS OF PEOPLE I
WILL PRAISE YOU. ( PSALM 35:18 )
So Member's, be thankful for all that God has done for you, and
thank Him in your prayers! For then He will smile down on you,
like a proud Father would on an obedient child! Amen.
Now please know that; I THANK MY GOD EVERY TIME I
REMEMBER YOU. IN ALL MY PRAYERS FOR ALL OF YOU,
I ALWAYS PRAY WITH JOY. ( PHILIPPIANS 1:3-4 )
For when I end each message with "My Love & Prayers,"
I truly mean that, for I pray for each of you every evening!
