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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.

Black Elk

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
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

Children Daylight Flowering Hoops Shelter
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

Dead Lying Men Standing Uncle
A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.
BLACK ELK

Given Make Nations Over Said
Everything tries to be round.
BLACK ELK

Education Statistics Trying
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
BLACK ELK

Ignorance Men Passion
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
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

Country Dirty Legend Lying Seldom
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.
BLACK ELK

Circle Community Earth Live Together
There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.
BLACK ELK

Inspirational Life Peace
And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
BLACK ELK

Breath Country Lightning Native
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
BLACK ELK

Country Meaning Native Power Understanding
Perhaps you have noticed that even in the very lightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in differing ways.
BLACK ELK

Different Garden Men Prayer Spirit Way
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
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 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

Good Memory People Some Vision
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
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

Country Death Native Real Understanding
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
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
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

Circles Country Native Strong
The visions and ceremonies only made me like a whole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds.
BLACK ELK

Ceremonies Everything Foolish Legend Power
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
Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
BLACK ELK

Dream Wake Up Waking
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
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

Bird Bloom Depression Roots Singing
Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
BLACK ELK

Earth Feeble Grandfather Voice

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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