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.
BLACK ELKAlso, 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.
More Black Elk Quotes
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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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And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
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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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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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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.
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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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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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So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation’s hoop I thrust it in the earth.
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Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
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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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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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The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.
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We should understand that the Great Spirit is also above all these things and peoples.
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As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
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Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
BLACK ELK