The Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other.
BLACK ELKThe Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other.
More Black Elk Quotes
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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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When I got back to my father and mother and was sitting up there in our tepee, my face was still all puffed and my legs and arms were badly swollen; but I felt good all over and wanted to get right up and run around.
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And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
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Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
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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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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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Grown men may learn from very little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.
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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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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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The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
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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.
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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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We 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.
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Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
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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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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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Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
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Perhaps you have noticed that even in the very lightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in differing ways.
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Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions
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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.
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I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
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The center of the universe is everywhere.
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Know the Power that is Peace.
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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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And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.
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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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