All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
BLACK ELKYou 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.
More Black Elk Quotes
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He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
BLACK ELK -
Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
BLACK ELK -
Grown men may learn from very little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.
BLACK ELK -
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 -
I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
BLACK ELK -
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 -
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 -
The visions and ceremonies only made me like a whole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds.
BLACK ELK -
And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.
BLACK ELK -
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 -
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 -
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 -
It’s in the darkness of men’s eyes that they get lost.
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We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
BLACK ELK -
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