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Wednesday, July 27, 2016

"The Great Circle"


You have noticed
 that everything an Indian
 does is in a Circle,
 and that is because
the Power of the World
always works
in Circles,
and everything
 tries to be Round.

In the old days
 when we were  a strong
and happy people,
all our Power came to us,
from the Sacred Hoop of the Nation,
and so long as the Hoop
was Unbroken
the people flourished.

The Flowering Tree 
was the Living Center
of the Hoop,
and the Circle of the Four Quarters
nourished it.
The East gave Peace and Light,
the South gave Warmth,
the West gave Rain,
and the North
with its cold and mighty Wind
gave Strength and
 Endurance.

The Knowledge
comes to us from
the Outer World with our Religion.
Everything the Power 
of the World does
in a Circle.
The Sky is Round,
and I heard that the Earth is Round
like a Ball,
and so are the Stars.

The Wind
in its greatest Power, 
Whirls.
Birds make their nests
in Circles,
for theirs is the same Religion
as ours.
The Sun comes forth
and goes down in a Circle.
The Moon does the same,
and both are Round.

Even the Seasons
form a good Circle
and always come back again
  to where they were.
The life of people 
is in a Circle,
from Childhood to Childhood,
and so it is
in Everything
where Power Moves.

Our teepees
were Round like the nests
of birds,
and they were always
set in a Circle,
the Nation's Hoop,
and a Nest of many Nests,
where the Great Spirit Meant for us
to raise our Children.

~Black Elk;
 (Hehaka Sapa)
December 1863-August 1950
Holy Man,
Oglala Lakota (Sioux)

~Beannaichte'
 27 July, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com



Tuesday, July 19, 2016

"The Birthright"

We were born
In country places,
Far from cities
And shifting faces.

We have a Birthright
No man can sell,
And a secret Joy
No man can tell.

For We are Kindred
To Lordly things,
The wild duck's flight
And the white owl wings.
To pike and salmon,
To bull and horse,
The curlew's cry
And the smell of gorse.

Pride of trees
Swiftness of streams,
Magic of frost
Have shaped our Dreams:
No baser Vision
Their Spirit fills,
Who Walk by Right
On the naked Hills.

~Eiluned Lewis
(1900-1979) 
Wales

~Beanniachte'
 19 July, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com 

Friday, July 15, 2016

"Time Out"

In the name God, stop a moment,
cease your work,
look around you...

~Leo Tolstoy


     I live high in the hills and my body is getting olde. One day I was out in my garden fussing with weeds and grew tired. I decided to lie back on the grass and rest like I did when I was a small boy.
     I woke up several minutes later, with a neighbour I had never met leaning over me, asking if I was okay. He had looked out his window, two blocks up the hill, and saw me lying on my back on the grass.  I am sure I looked like the victim of a stroke or heart attack. He ran all the way down the hill to check on me.
     It was embarrassing, but it was also so wonderfully touching. After we had sorted it all out, he let out a deep breath and lay down on the grass beside me. We both stayed there very quietly for a while and then he said,"Thank you, for deciding to take your nap out on the lawn where I could see you. The sky is such a beautiful thing, and I cannot remember the last time I really looked at it.

~Unknown

Beannaichte'
 15 July, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com 

Friday, July 8, 2016

"Life Lines"


What the heart gives away is not lost.
It is kept in the hearts of others.

~ Robin St. John


How can I smile so soon after,
 you ask?
What reason have I to cry?
He filled my days with laughter.
Would a saddened face and swollen eyes,
be proper tribute to such a man?
His reply to death was living.
I won't put him to shame by giving up on life.
To withdraw into a world of grief,
what kind of wife would I be?
Like a man about to be born, he died,
with a sigh of relief on his last breath.
He has gone on to a better life,
how do I mourn his death?
Having known such a man,
I should weep?


~ Randy Jaroch
U.S.A.

~ Beannaichte'
 8 July, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com

         

Friday, July 1, 2016

"Gettysburg Address"

      
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated , can long endure.  We are met on a great battle-field of that war.  We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who gave their lives that this nation might live.  It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate- we can not consecrate- we can not hallow- this ground.  The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.  The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.  It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

~Abraham Lincoln
U.S.A.
19 November, 1863 


~Beannaichte'
1 July, 2016


~Happy Independence Day!

Semper  Fidelis

~55,000 of our Women Veterans
remain homeless.
PLEASE visit www.finalsalute.org
for additional information.
~Thank You!

@beannaichte.twitter.com