Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
BLACK ELKI was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
More Black Elk Quotes
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It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELK -
And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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 -
The visions and ceremonies only made me like a whole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds.
BLACK ELK -
Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
BLACK ELK -
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
BLACK ELK -
I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that world….
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.
BLACK ELK -
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 ELK -
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 -
There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.
BLACK ELK -
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 -
And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
BLACK ELK -
He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
BLACK ELK -
We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK