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.
BLACK ELKEach 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.
More Black Elk Quotes
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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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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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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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All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.
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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.
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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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Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
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The Holy Land is everywhere.
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I might have been less good to the people than some man who had never dreamed at all, even with the memory of so great a vision in me.
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I cured with the power that came through me.
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It’s in the darkness of men’s eyes that they get lost.
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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.
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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.
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Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
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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.
BLACK ELK