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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

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Black Elk
Age: 86 †
Born: 1863
Born: December 1
Died: 1950
Died: August 19
Heyoka
Medicine Man
Tribal Chief
Must
Performed
Men
Understood
Think
Told
Thinking
Vision
People
Use
Power
Earth
Able

More quotes by Black Elk

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Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions
Black Elk
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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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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 first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
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
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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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I was four years old then, and I think it must have been the next summer that I first heard the voices.
Black Elk
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I had a vision with which I might have saved my people, but I had not the strength to do it.
Black Elk
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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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One should pay attention to even the smallest crawling creature for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us.
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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To use the power of the bison, I had to perform that part of my vision for the people to see.
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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The center of the universe is everywhere.
Black Elk
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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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The Holy Land is everywhere.
Black Elk
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And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
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.
Black Elk
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As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
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