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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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Black Elk
Age: 86 †
Born: 1863
Born: December 1
Died: 1950
Died: August 19
Heyoka
Medicine Man
Tribal Chief
Stills
Arms
Still
Face
Back
Faces
Wanted
Father
Puffed
Right
Felt
Swollen
Good
Running
Badly
Mother
Legs
Around
Sitting

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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.
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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.
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It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything then he knows that world which is real.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
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All things are our relatives what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.
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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.
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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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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.
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When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.
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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.
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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.
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Every place is the center of the world.
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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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