“It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.”

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.

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

But I think I have done right to save the vision in this way, even though I may die sooner because I did it; for I know the meaning of the vision is wise and beautiful and good; and you can see that I am only a pitiful old man after all.

And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.

A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.

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.

So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation’s hoop I thrust it in the earth.

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.

The Holy Land is everywhere.

We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.

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.

Everything tries to be round.

Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.

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.

Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.

I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.