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Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.

Black Elk

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

Close Doing Everything Foolish
Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
BLACK ELK

Birds Nests Religion Same
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

Country Everything Foolish Native
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Moving Native
The Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other.
BLACK ELK

Circles Community Together
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.
BLACK ELK

Anything Country Horse Native Summer Years
Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
BLACK ELK

Earth Prayer Steps
I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.
BLACK ELK

Circles Country Native Shapes
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.
BLACK ELK

Country Men Native People Thinking
I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
BLACK ELK

Summer Thinking Years
The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
BLACK ELK

Childhood Everything Life Moves Person
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.
BLACK ELK

Country Death Native Real Understanding
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

Around Islands Legegd Little Smaler
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 ELK

Children Daylight Flowering Hoops Shelter
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

Country Heart Mind Native Voice
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

Dead Lying Men Standing Uncle

Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.

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Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.

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Popular Authors

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