Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
BLACK ELKThey 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.
More Black Elk Quotes
-
-
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 -
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 -
I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.
BLACK ELK -
The Holy Land is everywhere.
BLACK ELK -
If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
The 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 ELK -
It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
BLACK ELK -
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 -
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 -
Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
BLACK ELK -
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.
BLACK ELK -
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 -
The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
BLACK ELK -
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….
BLACK ELK