As 2017 approaches, let us keep what is good, changing only what is not good!

Dear Fellow Earthlings,

nyawEh skaenO'! ("I am thankful you are well!")

The snows are deep in Seneca country in this season. From the northwest they come! It is time to stay with those we love, to stay warm. The foods we have stored when the weather was warm will sustain us. We continue to learn more of the world, But as we do so, we keep our faith,

we keep our language, we keep our identity as the "people of the big hill". Our kindred Iroquois Five Nations people (the Onondaga, the Oneida, the Mohawk,the Cayuga,)

are also keeping their faiths, keeping their languages, keeping their Iroquoi identity. And across waters, across lands, various peoples are trying to meet the challenges they

face as our mother Earth sends her message to balance all things, to let all live, to waste not,

to destroy not, to accept the new only if it does not destroy the traditional, but rather makes it

stronger. Change not the river that flows, change not the grass that grows, change not the love people share.

Clean up vile thoughts, selfish thoughts, unnecessary taking of life. And let the arrival of new life be

welcomed with thankfulness as a new year approaches. As the years bring our bodies closer to the transitions to new forms, let us be thankful -- and keep

love for Earth and for our Faiths, as they form in our souls, as they then form our souls, and finally

preserve our souls. Tolerance, goodness, peace, curiosity, fellowship, mercy, and happiness to all living creatures,

both those who triumph over and those who succumb to forces against which they had struggled

to resist. But always with healing, with love, with humility. And as we partake of our squash, corn soup, and smashed beans -- in the presence of our

elders -- let us rejoice that good minds, good spirits continue the struggle to maintain security

and hope for all, and that our language can engage the needs of our own -- as well as the

curiosity, respect, and interest of those not of our blood -- even as we respect and deal, using

introspection, with ideas that come from other places and other times. Great thanks be given for our health and our happiness and our hopes! May the New Year bring hope to all peoples, to all living things, to Earth! Hadënöhšyö:nis (English name: Steve Walker) Earthsaver and Gaënö’’composer

© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.