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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.

Black Elk

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Black Elk
Age: 86 †
Born: 1863
Born: December 1
Died: 1950
Died: August 19
Heyoka
Medicine Man
Tribal Chief
Spirit
Shape
Together
Sacred
Live
Shapes
Starlight
Must
Saws
Stood
Things
Understood
Native
Like
Seeing
Manner
Inspirational
Circles
Tell
Indian

More quotes by Black Elk

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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. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished.
Black Elk
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Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. 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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It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.
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All things are our relatives what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.
Black Elk
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May you always walk in Beauty.
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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.
Black Elk
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Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
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The Holy Land is everywhere.
Black Elk
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The center of the universe is everywhere.
Black Elk
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A good nation I will make live.This the nation above has said.They have given me the power to make over.
Black Elk
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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.
Black Elk
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The boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of men, and no one taught us we just learned by doing what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys now are like girls.
Black Elk
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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.
Black Elk
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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.
Black Elk
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When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.
Black Elk
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After the horse dance was over, it seemed that I was above the ground and did not touch it when I walked.
Black Elk
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You see, I had been riding with the storm clouds, and had come to earth as rain, and it was drought that I had killed with the power that the Six Grandfathers gave me.
Black Elk
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Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus should we do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.
Black Elk
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It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
Black Elk
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And if the great fear had not come upon me, as it did, and forced me to do my duty, 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.
Black Elk