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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
Took
Nation
Hoop
Nations
Thrust
Earth
Stick
Bright
Center
Sticks
Red

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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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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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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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As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
Black Elk
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Behold this day. It is yours to make.
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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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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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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Every place is the center of the world.
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 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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The Holy Land is everywhere.
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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And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.
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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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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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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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