I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
BLACK ELKWe should understand well that all things are the work of the Great Spirit. We should know the Great Spirit is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains, and the four-legged and winged peoples; and even more important.
More Black Elk Quotes
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Now suddenly there was nothing but a world of cloud, and we three were there alone in the middle of a great white plain with snowy hills and mountains staring at us; and it was very still; but there were whispers.
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Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
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But the Wasichus came, and they have made little islands for us and other little islands for the four-leggeds, and always these islands are becoming smaller, for around them surges the gnawing flood of the Wasichu; and it is dirty with lies and greed.
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It is not enough to have a vision. In order to have its power, you must enact your vision on earth for all to see. Only then do you have the power.
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All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
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And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
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Behold this day. It is yours to make.
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I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.
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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.
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But if the Vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet;for such things are of Spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.
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Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
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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.
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For instance, the coyote is sly, so is the Indian. The eagle is the same. That is why the Indian is always feathered up, he is a relative to the wings of the air.
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So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation’s hoop I thrust it in the earth.
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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.
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And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.
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The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
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And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
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I looked below and saw my people there, and all were well and happy except one, and he was lying like the dead – and that one was myself.
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It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.
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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.
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The center of the universe is everywhere.
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The Holy Land is everywhere.
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Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.
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He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
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It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.
BLACK ELK