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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

It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELK

Darkness Eye Men
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

Close Doing Everything Foolish
I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
BLACK ELK

might People Vision
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

Eye Giving Hear Quarter Wind
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.
BLACK ELK

Animal Great Heart Important Rivers Spirit
The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
BLACK ELK

Animal Country Down Hawk Lament Swoops
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.
BLACK ELK

Dead Except Lying People Saws
The Great Spirit is everywhere; He hears whatever is in our minds and our hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice.
BLACK ELK

Country Heart Mind Native Voice
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

Anything Country Horse Native Summer Years
I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native Shapes
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

Darkness Lost Men Vision
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.
BLACK ELK

Clouds Mountain Whisper White
As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
BLACK ELK

Earth Prayer Sacred
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

Deeply Great Intends Love Spirit
I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
BLACK ELK

Summer Thinking Years
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.
BLACK ELK

Country Honesty Inspirational Native True

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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