All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
BLACK ELKI was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
More Black Elk Quotes
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And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.
BLACK ELK -
Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
BLACK ELK -
And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
BLACK ELK -
If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish.
BLACK ELK -
I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.
BLACK ELK -
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
BLACK ELK -
Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
BLACK ELK -
Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
BLACK ELK -
Once we were happy in our own country and we were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us.
BLACK ELK -
And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.
BLACK ELK -
When we do understand all this deeply in our hearts, then we will fear, and love, and know the Great Spirit, and then we will be and act and live as the Spirit intends.
BLACK ELK -
Hear me, four quarters of the world-a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.
BLACK ELK -
But I think I have done right to save the vision in this way, even though I may die sooner because I did it; for I know the meaning of the vision is wise and beautiful and good; and you can see that I am only a pitiful old man after all.
BLACK ELK -
Each family is a circle, and those family circles connect together and make a community, and the community makes its circle where it lives on the Earth.
BLACK ELK -
Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
BLACK ELK