It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.
BLACK ELKThe Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other.
More Black Elk Quotes
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Hear me, four quarters of the world-a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.
BLACK ELK -
The Holy Land is everywhere.
BLACK ELK -
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.
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 -
The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
BLACK ELK -
And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.
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He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
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And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
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Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
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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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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.
BLACK ELK -
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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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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When 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.
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Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
BLACK ELK







