When a child is learning to walk, he falls and gets up to try again. If he were to stop getting up, he would never learn to walk. His effort not only teaches him to walk but to run and skip and do many other things as well. All of us are learning to walk in some area. We fall down and wonder if it's worth getting up again. But we never really fail until we give up. One of the lessons we learn is that only those who are trying ever make it. We can't let go, for someone is watching us and learning courage to do the impossible.

~ When the sun goes down, he opens his heart before his God. ~

CORNPLANT - SENECA CHIEF

"A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II" by Joyce Sequichie Hifler

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Elder's Meditation of the Day - March 15

"We were taught generosity to the poor and reverence for the Great Mystery. Religion was the basis of all Indian training."

--Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa), SANTEE SIOUX

Every Indian knows and has a feeling inside that, bottom line, our real purpose on earth is to be of service to our fellow man and to be of maximum service to the Great Spirit. The Creator designed the earth to be self supporting -- everything is interconnected and all things were created to be of service to each other. The Indian way is to pray about all things. Religion is not separate from any part of our lives. Everything is spiritual and we are to view all matters in this way. Family is spiritual, work is spiritual, helping others is spiritual, our bodies are spiritual, our talk is spiritual, our thoughts are spiritual. We need to practice seeing all things as spiritual.

Great Spirit, today let me help the needy and allow me the wisdom to have respect and reverence for Your teachings.

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'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Two qualities so well liked in people are brightness and warmth, both parts of the sun. Sir David Brewster was a Scottish physicist of the eighteenth century. His study of the material world and its phenomena called the sun glorious, "the center and soul of our system, the lamp that lights it, the fire that heats it, the magnet that guides and controls it, the fountain of color which gives its azure to the sky, its verdure to the fields, its rainbow hues to the gay world of flowers, and the purple light of love to the marble cheek of youth and beauty.

What more beautiful qualities for any human being to possess than to have a soul at the center of its system, to light the appearance, to warm the feelings, to guide and control it through its colorful moods, and to let it rise as high as the azure skies and as wide as the gay world of flowers. But better yet, to be most beautiful with the purple light of love. What more to be given than the same qualities of the sun
- by one Creator.

To live we need more than light, we need warmth. We need more than strength, we need grace. And more than all these we need love. There can be no greater joy than to see our respect for each other - the warmth and grace and love that binds together people in mutual concern.

Only when we can lay aside our personal feelings, our self-concern and worry of our own gain, can we join in true communion and fellowship with others. And to feel a sense of belonging is necessary to humankind.

It is the nature, not only to be liked and wanted, but to like and want others. And in this relationship find not just warmth but light, not only grace but strength, and in all of these find love.

"Walk in the light and thou shalt see thy path, though thorny, bright; for God, by grace, shall dwell in thee, and God himself is light." - Barton.