The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
BLACK ELKI saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
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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The center of the universe is everywhere.
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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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Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
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The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
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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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The boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of men, and no one taught us; we just learned by doing what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys now are like girls.
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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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We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
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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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I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
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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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Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
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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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A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.
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Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
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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.
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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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Behold this day. It is yours to make.
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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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As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
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The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
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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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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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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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All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
BLACK ELK