The relation to the center is the guide for the self; the center is the reflector for the self.

The center is how i came to understand how to relate to the world around me. That center was my grandmother. Through grandma, I had many cousins who had been adopted into our family. Through my mother, father and siblings, I came to have myriads of other brothers and sisters. In the mdw ntr they had at least two expressions of saying how someone was related. In one case, I might say she is as my sister, and in another instance, I would say. she is my sister. Because both expressions were used almost interchangeably, a reader might not know who was related by blood as oppposed to who was adopted. But more importantly was that if I referred to a sister as my sister, then she received all the respects that my sister would merit. What made me think of this tribal quote today is a matter of two cases of which I will speak.