Whole Living Today

Native American Code of Ethics

• Each morning upon rising, and each evening before sleeping, give thanks for the life within you and for all life, for the good things the Creator has given you and for the opportunity to grow a little more each day. Consider your thoughts and actions of the past day and seek for the courage and strength to be a better person. Seek for the things that will benefit others (everyone).
• Respect. Respect means “To feel or show honor or esteem for someone or something; to consider the well being of, or to treat someone or something with deference or courtesy.” Showing respect is a basic law of life.   

1. Treat every person from the tiniest child to the oldest elder with respect at all times.
2. Special respect should be given to Elders, Parents, Teachers, and Community Leaders.
3. No person should be made to feel “put down” by you; avoid hurting other hearts as you would avoid a deadly poison.
4. Touch nothing that belongs to someone else (especially Sacred Objects) without permission, or an understanding between you.
5. Respect the privacy of every person, never intrude on a person’s quiet moment or personal space.
6. Never walk between people that are conversing.
7. Never interrupt people who are conversing.
8. Speak in a soft voice, especially when you are in the presence of Elders, strangers or others to whom special respect is due.
9. Do not speak unless invited to do so at gatherings where Elders are present (except to ask what is expected of you, should you be in doubt).
10. Never speak about others in a negative way, whether they are present or not.
11. Treat the earth and all of her aspects as your mother. Show deep respect for the mineral world, the plant world, and the animal world. Do nothing to pollute our Mother, rise up with wisdom to defend her.
12. Show deep respect for the beliefs and religion of others.
13. Listen with courtesy to what others say, even if you feel that what they are saying is worthless. Listen with your heart.

• Respect the wisdom of the people in council. Once you give an idea to a council meeting it no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the people. Respect demands that you listen intently to the ideas of others in council and that you do not insist that your idea prevail. Indeed you should freely support the ideas of others if they are true and good, even if those ideas ideas are quite different from the ones you have contributed. The clash of ideas brings forth the Spark of Truth.
• Once a council has decided something in unity, respect demands that no one speak secretly against what has been decided. If the council has made an error, that error will become apparent to everyone in its own time.
• Be truthful at all times, and under all conditions.
• Always treat your guests with honor and consideration. Give of your best food, your best blankets, the best part of your house, and your best service to your guests.
• The hurt of one is the hurt of all, the honor of one is the honor of all.
• Receive strangers and outsiders with a loving heart and as members of the human family.
• All the races and tribes in the world are like the different colored flowers of one meadow. All are beautiful. As children of the Creator they must all be respected.
• To serve others, to be of some use to family, community, nation, and the world is one of the main purposes for which human beings have been created. Do not fill yourself with your own affairs and forget your most important talks. True happiness comes only to those who dedicate their lives to the service of others.
• Observe moderation and balance in all things.
• Know those things that lead to your well-being, and those things that lead to your destruction.
• Listen to and follow the guidance given to your heart. Expect guidance to come in many forms; in prayer, in dreams, in times of quiet solitude, and in the words and deeds of wise Elders and friends.

Authorship:
Original version printed in 1982 in the book,”The Sacred Tree” by the Four Worlds Development Project .
Adapted and reprinted in the “Inter-Tribal Times” October 1994. The adapted version is presented here.

Related Posts:

• Five Principles to Live By
• Desiderata

I started a new blog today, A Journey into Herbal & Natural Healing.

After some thought, I decided it would be better to post my herbal, nutritional and natural healing posts on a separate blog. It still needs some fine-tuning but it’s online.

 Please stop by, visit and let me know what you think.

Blessings,
~Tania 

This is what I believe to be a hummingbird nest that I found in my yard. It’s only about 2″ across. It doesn’t show real well in the photo but the nest is made with some real fine grasses but mostly hair from my German Shepherd.

But, that’s not what this post is about. Traveling around the blogosphere, I notice many blogs are changing over to or are considering self-hosting. Being in the process of setting up a new blog myself, I figured I’d provide a few helpful resources for anyone considering hosting their own blog.

With just a little computer know-how, it’s really quite easy to setup your self-hosted blog. This is a brief overview of the main steps required.

If you don’t have one already, you will need to acquire a URL (this is your own dot com) and have it hosted. A hosting company that I have been using for years, both for myself and clients, is ICDSoft. I haven’t encountered any downtime and their support, features and pricing is great. Their hosting is only $6.00 per month without a setup fee, unlimited email accounts, subdomains, etc… You are able to register your url (or have it transferred) and hosted with one easy step.

After you have your domain and host, if you wish to use WordPress as your blog software, you can download it here for free: Download WordPress.

The installation instructions for WordPress are straightforward and easy to understand. One thing you will need to know is how to initialize a new database on your host server. The installation routine takes care of all the details, you just need to create the database.

I use FileZilla, a free program, to upload the WordPress program files to the host server. I also use this program to upload my photos. Download the “client version.”

Wordpress gives the option of hundreds of free themes that can be applied to your blog. Again, this is easy. Find the theme you want, download, unzip & upload to your server. There is a menu option in WordPress that allows you to change your themes. With some html experience, you will be able to make modifications the your theme to suit your individual needs, or you don’t have to.

Happy blogging!

Moonlight Sonata - Beethoven

A little classical music for a Sunday afternoon…

“As we engage in the process of self-discovery, it is helpful to take a closer look not only where we are but who we’ve been.

When you were a child, you knew what it was like to be silent and alone. We all did. In our innocence, we made up games and stories, played with dolls, became lost in books and daydreams, listened to music or made some of our own, talked to ourselves or invented imaginary companions. We stretched out on the lawn and watched bugs or spun daydreams. Summer days lasted forever and we felt immortal. Death, despair, and injury were alien, abstract concepts. The world was full to overflowing with possibilities.

Being still and fully open, in silence and solitude, helps us return to the sense of childlike oneness and wonder we once knew. We encounter ourselves again. In silence and solitude we begin to recapture our sense of being most fully alive. Being alone allows us to listen to our hearts, feel our spirits, and observe our minds. Aloneness encourages us to notice the smallest details of our behavior. By taking the time to watch ourselves with deliberateness, as an uninvolved bystander might, we may learn what we really love and what we dislike, what’s truly important to us and what is trivial, what contributes to our pleasure and what drives us nuts, which people we want to be with and those whom we are ready to let go from our lives. In short, we come face to face with who we really are, as adults — possibly for the very first time.

Give yourself the gift of a child’s delight in the marvels of our everyday world. For at least ten minutes, sit on the floor of a space you use often, such as a living room or bedroom. Look around with the eyes of a three-year-old, the eyes of wonder. Pretend you really are three. Then notice what’s different about what is most real, most joyous, and most loved by you. Maybe you’ll make up a story, have a chat with an imaginary friend, or invent a new game. Maybe you’ll find yourself mesmerized by something you’ve never noticed before.”

“Stillness: Daily Gifts of Solitude” by Richard Mahler

Related Posts:

• And my heart soars 
• What If?
• The Eyes of Truth
• Moment of Freedom
• That which before was a mystery
• The Return to Innocence
• The Voice of Solitude