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Perhaps 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.

Black Elk

I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native Shapes
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.
BLACK ELK

Country Death Native Real Understanding
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
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
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.
BLACK ELK

Cured Outer Power Two Vision World
Everything tries to be round.
BLACK ELK

Education Statistics Trying
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.
BLACK ELK

Fog Glowing Meaning Talk Thinking Words
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

Dead Except Lying People Saws
Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
BLACK ELK

Birds Nests Religion Same
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

Good Memory People Some Vision
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
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

Country Native Stars Wind
So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation’s hoop I thrust it in the earth.
BLACK ELK

Earth Red Sticks
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

Country Honesty Inspirational Native True
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.
BLACK ELK

Around Islands Legegd Little Smaler
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

Circles Country Native Strong

Perhaps 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Perhaps 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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