The Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other.
BLACK ELKI 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.
More Black Elk Quotes
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The life of an Indian is like the wings of the air. That is why you notice the hawk knows how to get his prey. The Indian is like that.
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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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All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
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Everything tries to be round.
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It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
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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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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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The visions and ceremonies only made me like a whole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds.
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But if the Vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet;for such things are of Spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.
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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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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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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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Now suddenly there was nothing but a world of cloud, and we three were there alone in the middle of a great white plain with snowy hills and mountains staring at us; and it was very still; but there were whispers.
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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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I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
BLACK ELK