Everywhere is the center of the world. Everything is sacred.
BLACK ELKPerhaps 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.
More Black Elk Quotes
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The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
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All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
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And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
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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.
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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.
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Everything tries to be round.
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They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear’s uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life.
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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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I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
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It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
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I cured with the power that came through me. Of course, it was not I who cured,it was the power from the Outer World.
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Also, as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.
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It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.
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The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
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And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
BLACK ELK