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 ELKAnd I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
More Black Elk Quotes
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Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
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A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.
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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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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.
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All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
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The boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of men, and no one taught us; we just learned by doing what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys now are like girls.
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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.
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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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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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Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions
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Each family is a circle, and those family circles connect together and make a community, and the community makes its circle where it lives on the Earth.
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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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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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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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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