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So I took the bright red stick and at the center of the nation's hoop I thrust it in the earth.

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
Red
Took
Hoop
Nation
Thrust
Nations
Stick
Earth
Bright
Center
Sticks

More quotes by Black Elk

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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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.
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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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Every place is the center of the world.
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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 center of the universe is everywhere.
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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It's in the darkness of men's eyes that they get lost.
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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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 when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
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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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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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
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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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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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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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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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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