A Note From the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation

"When people cease waiting for great leaders or prophets to solve entrenched problems and look, instead, within themselves, trusting their own thinking, believing in their own power, and to their families and communities for solutions, change will follow. In traditional indigenous communities, there is an understanding that our lives play themselves out within a set of reciprocal relationships. If each human being in the world could fully understand that we all are interdependent and responsible for one another, it would save the world." 
—Wilma Mankiller


From: all-employees-bounces@lists.cherokee.org [mailto:all-employees-bounces@lists.cherokee.org] On Behalf Of Chad Smith
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 11:13 AM
To: All Employees (mailing list)
Subject: Wilma Mankiller

Dear Friends,
Our personal and national hearts are heavy with sorrow and sadness with the passing this morning of Wilma Mankiller, our former Principal Chief. We feel overwhelmed and lost when we realize she has left us but we should reflect on what legacy she leaves us. We are better people and a stronger tribal nation because her example of Cherokee leadership, statesmanship, humility, grace, determination and decisiveness. When we become disheartened, we will be inspired by remembering how Wilma proceeded undaunted through so many trials and tribulations. Years ago, she and her husband Charlie Soap showed the world what Cherokee people can do when given the chance, when they organized the self-help water line in the Bell community She said Cherokees in that community learned that it was their choice, their lives, their community and their future. Her gift to us is the lesson that our lives and future are for us to decide. We can carry on that Cherokee legacy by teaching our children that lesson.

Wilma asked that any gifts in her honor be made as donations to One Fire Development Corporation, a non-profit dedicated to advancing Native American communities though economic development, and to valuing the wisdom that exists within each of the diverse tribal communities around the world. Tax deductible donations can be made at www.wilmamankiller.com as well as www.onefiredevelopment.org.

Washing the Blankets

By Kimberly L. Becker

After your fever breaks

and you’re headed back to school,

I strip your bed

to wash the residue of flu.

Pillowcases, sheets, blankets

all heaped into the wash.

I think of other blankets,

other outcomes.

Add bleach to the load.

Aim to get the blankets white, white, white.


First published in Crab Creek Review, Summer 2009
© Kimberly L. Becker

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kimberly L. Becker is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers & Storytellers. Her poetry appears in many journals and anthologies, such as Diverse Voices Quarterly, Future Earth Magazine, I Was Indian (FootHills), Pemmican, Platte Valley Review, and Poets and Artists. Finalist for the DeNovo Award (C&R Press), she received a FY10 grant from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (MD) to study Cherokee language, history, and culture in Cherokee, NC. Current projects include adapting Cherokee myths into plays for Cherokee Youth in Radio Project at the Cherokee Youth Center in Cherokee, NC.

Words Facing East (WordTech Editions, 2011) is her first book of poetry.

Visit her website at www.kimberlylbecker.com

The Spirits Need Us As Much As We Need Them

By MariJo Moore

And when the last secret of the world is known
life will begin again.

When time has crawled inside itself
and discovered it never existed,

when the river spirits blacken into
the bluing mouth of the sky
then we shall know there is,
there always has been

a sacred place where the spirits gather
to pray for us all.

© 2009 MariJo Moore. All rights reserved.

MariJo Moore (Cherokee/Irish/Dutch) is the author of a dozen books including Spirit Voices of Bones, Confessions of a Madwoman, Red Woman With Backward Eyes and Other Stories, The Diamond Doorknob, The Boy With A Tree Growing From His Ear and Other Stories, and the editor of four anthologies including Genocide of The Mind: New Native Writings and Eating Fire, Tasting Blood: Breaking the Great Silence of the American Indian Holocaust. The recipient of numerous literary and publishing awards, she resides in the mountains of western North Carolina where she presides over rENEGADE pLANETS pUBLISHING.

Dream Big

If there was ever a time to dare, to make a difference, 
to embark on something worth doing, it is now. 
Not for any grand cause necessarily, 

but for something that tugs at your heart, 
something that's your aspiration,

something that's your dream.

You owe it to yourself to make your days here count.

Have fun. Dig deep. Stretch. Dream big.

Know though, that things worth doing seldom come easy.

There will be good days and there will be days when you

will want to turn around, pack it up, call it quits. 

Those times will tell you that you are pushing yourself, that you

are not afraid to learn by trying. Persist.

Because with an idea, determination, and the right tools,

you can do great things. Let your instincts, your intellect,

and your heart guide you. Trust.

Believe in the incredible power of the human mind. Of doing

something that makes a difference. Of working hard.

Of laughing and hoping. Of lazy afternoons, of lasting friends.

Of all the things that will cross your path this year.

The start of something new brings the hope of something great.

Anything is possible. There is only one of you. And you will

pass this way only once."

—Author unknown