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.
BLACK ELKIt is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.
More Black Elk Quotes
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The Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other.
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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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It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.
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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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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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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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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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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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Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
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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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We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
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I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.
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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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I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
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I cured with the power that came through me.
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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.
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Behold this day. It is yours to make.
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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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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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The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
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It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death.
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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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Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
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Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.
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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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