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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.

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

Country Dirty Legend Lying Seldom
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
BLACK ELK

Country Meaning Native Power Understanding
And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
BLACK ELK

Breath Country Lightning Native
And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native People
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
If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish.
BLACK ELK

Country Everything Foolish Native
I cured with the power that came through me.
BLACK ELK

Advertising Agencies Country Dream Native Power
I cured with the power that came through me. Of course, it was not I who cured,it was the power from the Outer World.
BLACK ELK

Cured Outer Power Two Vision World
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 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
Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native Power
And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.
BLACK ELK

Color Flames Rainbow
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
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
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

Eye Giving Hear Quarter Wind
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.
BLACK ELK

Country Darkness Eye Men Native

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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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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Popular Authors

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