Snowy Earth Comes Gliding

Birds of fire

January 2021 (Vol. XXXIV, No. 1)
We are the stars which sing,
We sing with your light;
We are the birds of fire,
We fly across the heavens,
Our light is a star which sings.
~ North American Algonquian Song, quoted in SNOWY EARTH COMES GLIDING by Evelyn Eaton

No flies come into a closed mouth

Evelyn Eaton | October 1989 (Vol. II, No. 9)

Native American Indians value silence and recommend it in stories and pointed sayings ... "Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf" ... "No flies come into a closed mouth" ... and a clause in an Indian prayer, "Oh my Grandfather, may I lose no good opportunity to hold my tongue." They feel comfortable in silence, and are often irritated, or at best amused, by our "windmill machine" of constant chatter. Silence, "going behind the blanket," removing oneself from useless or annoying contact are highly developed techniques, second nature to the Indian way.

~ from SNOWY EARTH COMES GLIDING by Evelyn Eaton
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