Everything tries to be round.
BLACK ELKEverything tries to be round.
BLACK ELKThe Great Spirit is everywhere; He hears whatever is in our minds and our hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice.
BLACK ELKA good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.
BLACK ELKEven the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
BLACK ELKI was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
BLACK ELKAnd 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 ELKWe 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 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.
BLACK ELKThe hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
BLACK ELKIt is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELKAnd when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
BLACK ELKBirds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
BLACK ELKHear 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 ELKCrazy 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 ELKKnow the Power that is Peace.
BLACK ELKI 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