The center of the universe is everywhere.
BLACK ELKWhen I got back to my father and mother and was sitting up there in our tepee, my face was still all puffed and my legs and arms were badly swollen; but I felt good all over and wanted to get right up and run around.
More Black Elk Quotes
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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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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.
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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.
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I cured with the power that came through me.
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Behold this day. It is yours to make.
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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.
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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.
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All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
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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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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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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 is not enough to have a vision. In order to have its power, you must enact your vision on earth for all to see. Only then do you have the power.
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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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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.
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Grown men may learn from very little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.
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Once we were happy in our own country and we were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us.
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We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
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Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
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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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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 life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
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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 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 -
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 -
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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For instance, the coyote is sly, so is the Indian. The eagle is the same. That is why the Indian is always feathered up, he is a relative to the wings of the air.
BLACK ELK