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But I think I have done right to save the vision in this way, even though I may die sooner because I did it for I know the meaning of the vision is wise and beautiful and good and you can see that I am only a pitiful old man after all.

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
Good
Dies
Men
Though
Think
Beautiful
Pitiful
Thinking
May
Sooner
Done
Save
Right
Meaning
Even
Wise
Way
Vision

More quotes by 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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The center of the universe is everywhere.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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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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May you always walk in Beauty.
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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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 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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The Holy Land is everywhere.
Black Elk
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When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.
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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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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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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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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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
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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