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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

Now suddenly there was nothing but a world of cloud, and we three were there alone in the middle of a great white plain with snowy hills and mountains staring at us; and it was very still; but there were whispers.
BLACK ELK

Clouds Mountain Whisper White
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
It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELK

Darkness Eye Men
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 is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.
BLACK ELK

Darkness Lost Men Vision
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
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
BLACK ELK

Country Meaning Native Power Understanding
It is not enough to have a vision. In order to have its power, you must enact your vision on earth for all to see. Only then do you have the power.
BLACK ELK

Earth Order Power Vision
The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
BLACK ELK

Childhood Everything Life Moves Person
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
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
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

Fog Glowing Meaning Talk Thinking Words
Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
BLACK ELK

Dream Wake Up Waking
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
The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
BLACK ELK

Country Native Sky Song
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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