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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

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
As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
BLACK ELK

Earth Prayer Sacred
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
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
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 in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELK

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

Earth Red Sticks
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
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

Behind Crazy Dreamed Horse Hurt Nothing Real
The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls.
BLACK ELK

Country Native Stars Wind
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.
BLACK ELK

Beautiful Save Sooner Thinking Wise
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
Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
BLACK ELK

Dream Wake Up Waking
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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