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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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Black Elk
Age: 86 †
Born: 1863
Born: December 1
Died: 1950
Died: August 19
Heyoka
Medicine Man
Tribal Chief
Saved
Strength
Vision
Might
People

More quotes by Black Elk

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Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
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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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And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
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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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The center of the universe is everywhere.
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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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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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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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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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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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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
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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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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.
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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It's in the darkness of men's eyes that they get lost.
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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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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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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It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
Black Elk