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.
BLACK ELKI cured with the power that came through me. Of course, it was not I who cured,it was the power from the Outer World.
More Black Elk Quotes
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And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
BLACK ELK -
The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
BLACK ELK -
There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.
BLACK ELK -
All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
BLACK ELK -
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 -
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 -
I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
BLACK ELK -
The center of the universe is everywhere.
BLACK ELK -
The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
BLACK ELK -
You remember that my great vision came to me when I was only nine years old, and you have seen that I was not much good for anything until after I had performed the horse dance near the mouth of the Tongue River during my eighteenth summer.
BLACK ELK -
They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear’s uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life.
BLACK ELK -
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
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 -
Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
BLACK ELK -
Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
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 -
Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that world….
BLACK ELK -
I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
The Holy Land is everywhere.
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 -
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 -
The visions and ceremonies only made me like a whole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds.
BLACK ELK