The seasons turn. Spring blossoms. Summer nourishes. Autumn leaves must fall. Winter , like death, silences . . . I am reminded that within the seasons of a man's life falls the endless cycle of birth, growth and deterioration.
So, too, it is with nature.

It is in spring that our Mother Earth celebrates. Having come full circle, She glories in abundance once again. By native custom and belief, it is through the Mother Earth and all Her things that we are made both whole and holy.

Since the beginning of time, Mother Earth has tilted back and forth into summer and winter seasons, and on the way, given Herself to spring in the transition.

And what a beautiful time is the spring season! We all must recognize that our Earth Mother has given birth, a re-birth to spring. What a wonderful, glorious message that She brings to us once a year in the rebirth of spring. That's very important to native people because it symbolizes life, born again, renewed. It gives to each of us the lesson that we, also, have the opportunity to renew ourselves.

So spring, just beginning to appear from its frosted winter covering, in infancy, allows us the opportunity to clear away the old limbs that we have hanging on us and grow new ones. And that's when my people recognize the closeness to Mother Earth and to Her lessons that She gives to us.

We learn these lessons of life from Nature, from our Earth Mother: the tree drops the old limbs off in order to grow new ones. It rids itself of the old things that are useless and never carries into spring the old, but blossoms forth with new life, new living -- a chance to be a new person. That's why we're here on the 'good' planet. That's what Nature teaches us.

We've strayed so far away from Nature and, thus, from ourselves in the process. We have severed ourselves, severed our spirits from our roots.

The season of spring is truly a season for celebration. In fact, the rite of spring is Mother Earth's celebration of new growth and birth into the world. In Nature, this process takes many forms but is never totally silent . . . among the colors, there is sound and movement.

The sounds stem from the awakening of song in the birds, thawing of water in the creeks and rivers, wind-created harmonies in the new leaves and flowers that blossom forth; it is the sound of the honeybee gathering sweet nectar and the animals alive with new energies pinned-inside from the stark, bleakness of the winter.

What more appropriate than to join with Mother Earth in all Her glory, than to participate in Her celebration with an expression of song and dance . . . orchestrate to the natural flow and rhythms with the human statement of praise and appreciation joy and thanksgiving!

Go to summer . . .

When the elm leaves were becoming brittle under the shades of early fall and autumn, I was struck by the fact that as people, we too, are "toned" by different colors. We are made of the same Earth, fathered by the same silence that paints the leafs the colors of the rainbow and causes them to fall.

A flock of geese heading southerly foretold the making ready of colder times approaching and the greeting of the hand of winter. As the seasons are witnessed to come and go, are we not reminded that the life cycle of creation, too, is endless? The child becomes the adult, who then becomes a respected elder.

Autumn leaves must fall. The fall season is Mother Earth's way to participate in the annual, seasonal ritual of Mother Earth to rid and discard those things that do not serve purpose any longer. So, too, is the same lesson for human beings . . . internally. Aho! I have spoken.

Let us recognize that there is a winter time in all our lives. Our lives cycle as the seasons. Winter—A time for rest from exertion and activity . . . a time for contemplation . . . a time for rebuilding one’s energies to grow to new heights . . .a time for solitude and introspection.