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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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Black Elk
Age: 86 †
Born: 1863
Born: December 1
Died: 1950
Died: August 19
Heyoka
Medicine Man
Tribal Chief
Wish
Grasses
Like
Tender
World
Grandfather
Showing
Native
Grass
Thus
Faces
Grandfathers

More quotes by Black Elk

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As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
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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.
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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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Any man who is attached to things of this world is one who lives in ignorance and is being consumed by the snakes of his own passions
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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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Let every step you take upon the earth be as a prayer.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything.
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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.
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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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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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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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Know the Power that is Peace.
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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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It is in the darkness of their eyes that men lose their way.
Black Elk
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Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe, It is every where.
Black Elk
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The power of the world always works in circles.
Black Elk