Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
BLACK ELKIf 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.
More Black Elk Quotes
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I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
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Everything tries to be round.
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Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
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The Holy Land is everywhere.
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The life of an Indian is like the wings of the air. That is why you notice the hawk knows how to get his prey. The Indian is like that.
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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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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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The visions and ceremonies only made me like a whole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds.
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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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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.
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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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Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
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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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I cured with the power that came through me.
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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.
BLACK ELK