The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
BLACK ELKEverything 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.
More Black Elk Quotes
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And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
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It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death.
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I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
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But the Wasichus came, and they have made little islands for us and other little islands for the four-leggeds, and always these islands are becoming smaller, for around them surges the gnawing flood of the Wasichu; and it is dirty with lies and greed.
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When we do understand all this deeply in our hearts, then we will fear, and love, and know the Great Spirit, and then we will be and act and live as the Spirit intends.
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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 -
And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.
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Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
BLACK ELK -
It’s in the darkness of men’s eyes that they get lost.
BLACK ELK -
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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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….
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Know the Power that is Peace.
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I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
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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 -
A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.
BLACK ELK