Two symbols represent the people of the nation and those born here and born to be here. Symbolism is important, and two symbols personally mean a lot to me. These symbols are the brown pelican and salt. These two symbols tie into who we are as a people.
The first symbol, which is the pelican, symbolizes resourcefulness, courage, and humility. It also represents, generosity, loyalty, and sacrifice. In times of hardship, this noble and courageous bird will tear open its breast with its beak and feed its young with its own blood. This means that the pelican will sacrifice its life by any means necessary so that its young, the future, will be provided with an opportunity to live.
The second symbol representing St. Maarten is salt. Salt symbolizes permanence, loyalty, durability, fidelity, usefulness, purification, and preservation. Matthew 5:13 includes the phrase “You are the salt of the earth.” However, if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? Saltless salt is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under one’s feet.
Have you ever found yourself making sacrifices for a bigger cause? Are you building a foundation for your next of kin or for others in your community to benefit from? Anybody living on St. Maarten who instils the courage and humility to help or even fight for one another, and anybody who instils the willingness to shape something that will be valuable and would have an everlasting positive effect for future of others is a Soualigan and belongs here.
I wish one and all a blessed and wonderful St. Martin Day, and may God continue to bless this island and its people!
MP Grisha Heyliger-Marten
