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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

We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
BLACK ELK

Great People Spirit Things Understand
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
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 as one of many hoops that made one circle.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native People
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
The center of the universe is everywhere.
BLACK ELK

Center Everywhere Universe
Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
BLACK ELK

Earth Prayer Steps
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

Close Doing Everything Foolish
I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native Shapes
The Holy Land is everywhere.
BLACK ELK

Inspirational Land Life
The boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of men, and no one taught us; we just learned by doing what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys now are like girls.
BLACK ELK

Boys Girl Girls Learned Warrior
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
Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
BLACK ELK

Dream Wake Up Waking
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
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
The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
BLACK ELK

Country Meaning Native Power Understanding

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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