Black Elk Speaks Quotes

Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one.

It is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost

I did not see anything [New York 1886] to help my people. I could see that the Wasichus [white man] did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. This could not be better than the old ways of my people.

You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see.

It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.

Every little thing is sent for something, and in that thing there should be happiness and the power to make happy. Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus we should do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.

And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.

Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.

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.

When a vision comes from the thunder beings of the west, it comes with terror like a thunder storm; but when the storm of vision has passed, the world is greenier and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain. The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm.

I knew that the real was yonder and that the darkened dream of it was here.

How could men get fat by being bad and starve by being good? I thought and thought about my vision, and it made me very sad.

Perhaps you have noticed that even in the slightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in different ways.

I could see that the Wasichus did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation’s hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother.10 This

When the ceremony was over, everybody felt a great deal better, for it had been a day of fun. They were better able now to see the greenness of the world, the wideness of the sacred day, the colors of the earth, and to set these in their minds.

I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered.

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 manner the shapes of all things as they must live together like one being

Wherever we went, the soldiers came to kill us, And it was all our own country. It was ours already when the Wasichus made the treaty with Red Cloud, that said it would be ours is long as grass should grow and water flow. That was only eight winter’s before, and they were chasing us now because we remembered and they forgot.

Crazy Horse was dead. He was brave and good and wise. He never wanted anything but to save his people, and he fought the Wasichus only when they came to kill us in our own country. He was only thirty years old. They could not kill him in battle. They had to lie to him and kill him that way. I cried all night, and so did my father.

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 . . . The sky is round and I have heard the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind in its greatest power whirls, birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.

But now that I can see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given to a man too weak to use it; of a holy tree that should have flourished in a people’s heart with flowers and singing birds, and now is withered; and of a people’s dream that died in bloody snow.

I was mad, because I was thinking of the women and the little children running down there, all scared and out of breath. These Wasichus wanted it, and they came to get it, and we gave it to them.

growing power is rooted in mystery like the night, and reaches lightward. Seeds sprout in the darkness of the ground before they know the summer and the day. In the night of the womb the spirit quickens into flesh.

These things I shall remember by the way, and often they may seem to be the very tale itself, as when I was living them in happiness and sorrow. But now that I can see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given to a man too weak to use it; of a holy tree that should have flourished in a people’s heart with flowers and singing birds, and now is withered; and of a people’s dream that died in bloody snow.

Untold numbers of readers of Black Elk Speaks and When the Tree Flowered have wished to understand more fully the relationship between Neihardt and Black Elk and the role that Neihardt played as Black Elk's amanuensis. They have also been curious to learn about Black Elk's life after the Wounded Knee massacre. How was it that a nineteenth-century Lakota mystic could live a full half of the twentieth century on the Pine Ridge Reservation in harmony with the encroaching white man's world? The Sixth Grandfather is presented in order to help readers answer these questions. The title of the book is doubly appropriate. Black Elk, in his great vision, saw himself as the "sixth grandfather," the spirit of the earth, the power to nurture and make grow. Symbolically, Black Elk's teachings, transmitted through Neihardt, have had a marvelous generative power: they have grown and blossomed and become an inspiration for millions, Indians and non-Indians alike. Through Neihardt's writings, the sacred tree of Black Elk's vision has truly conic to bloom.

Poem for My Father You closed the door. I was on the other side, screaming. It was black in your mind. Blacker than burned-out fire. Blacker than poison. Outside everything looked the same. You looked the same. You walked in your body like a living man. But you were not. would you not speak to me for weeks would you hang your coat in the closet without saying hello would you find a shoe out of place and beat me would you come home late would i lose the key would you find my glasses in the garbage would you put me on your knee would you read the bible to me in your smoking jacket after your mother died would you come home drunk and snore would you beat me on the legs would you carry me up the stairs by my hair so that my feet never touch the bottom would you make everything worse to make everything better i believe in god, the father almighty, the maker of heaven, the maker of my heaven and my hell. would you beat my mother would you beat her till she cries like a rabbit would you beat her in a corner of the kitchen while i am in the bathroom trying to bury my head underwater would you carry her to the bed would you put cotton and alcohol on her swollen head would you make love to her hair would you caress her hair would you rub her breasts with ben gay until she stinks would you sleep in the other room in the bed next to me while she sleeps on the pull-out cot would you come on the sheet while i am sleeping. later i look for the spot would you go to embalming school with the last of my mother's money would i see your picture in the book with all the other black boys you were the handsomest would you make the dead look beautiful would the men at the elks club would the rich ladies at funerals would the ugly drunk winos on the street know ben pretty ben regular ben would your father leave you when you were three with a mother who threw butcher knives at you would he leave you with her screaming red hair would he leave you to be smothered by a pillow she put over your head would he send for you during the summer like a rich uncle would you come in pretty corduroys until you were nine and never heard from him again would you hate him would you hate him every time you dragged hundred pound cartons of soap down the stairs into white ladies' basements would you hate him for fucking the woman who gave birth to you hate him flying by her house in the red truck so that other father threw down his hat in the street and stomped on it angry like we never saw him (bye bye to the will of grandpa bye bye to the family fortune bye bye when he stompled that hat, to the gold watch, embalmer's palace, grandbaby's college) mother crying silently, making floating island sending it up to the old man's ulcer would grandmother's diamonds close their heartsparks in the corner of the closet yellow like the eyes of cockroaches? Old man whose sperm swims in my veins, come back in love, come back in pain.

Black Elk Speaks.

BOOKS THAT GREATLY INSPIRED ME AND THAT YOU SHOULD CONSIDER READING (in no particular order) Beyond the Culture of Contest by Michael Karlberg A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt The Family Virtues Guide by Linda Kavelin Popov, Dan Popov, and John Kavelin The Second Mountain by David Brooks High Conflict by Amanda Ripley The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh The Seven Mysteries of Life by Guy Murchie Viral Justice by Ruha Benjamin The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein The Story of Our Time by Robert Atkinson Global Unitive Healing by Dr. Elena Mustakova What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck How Should We Live? by Roman Krznaric The God Equation by Michio Kaku Einstein’s God by Krista Tippett What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff Help, Thanks, Wow by Anne Lamott See No Stranger by Valarie Kaur Plays Well with Others by Eric Barker Narrow Road to the Interior by Matsuo Bashō The Soul’s Code by James Hillman The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss by David Bentley Hart The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton The Awakened Brain by Lisa Miller, PhD The Hidden Words by Baha’u’llah

can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth,—you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.11

And, finally, some books that truly changed my life: The Gospel of the Redman, The Sacred Pipe, Black Elk Speaks, God Is Red, and many other mystical but accessible tomes about Native American spirituality. (Books, by the way, that dove even deeper into the meaning of the role of the shaman!)

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.” —from Black Elk Speaks

Despite such secular acclaim, the book put Black Elk in an awkward position in relation to the Catholic Church. His reputation on the reservation was built as a Catholic catechist, not as a native religious leader. The Jesuit priests at Holy Rosary Mission were shocked and horrified at the suggestion that one of their most valued catechists still harbored beliefs in the old Indian religion. For them to accept Black Elk Speaks at face value necessarily called into question the genuineness of their success in converting the Lakotas to Catholicism. Rather than accept the book as a true representation of Black Elk, they blamed Neihardt for telling only part of Black Elk's story. The priests objected most strongly to the epilogue portraying Black Elk as a believing, practicing "pagan," praying to the six grandfathers when he knew well that the Christian God was the only source of salvation. Ben Black Elk told the missionaries, no doubt truthfully, that he and his father had not realized that Neihardt

The author's postscript relating the ceremony on Harney Peak does little to buoy hope. There the old man prayed that the sacred tree might bloom again and the people find their way back to the sacred hoop and the good red road. He cried out, "O make my people live!"-and in reply a low rumble of thunder sounded, and a drizzle of rain fell from a sky that shortly before had been cloudless. Whether this sign was a hopeful one or, more likely, a tragic recognition of the power that Black Elk had been given but failed to use is one of the dynamic issues that makes the book a literary success. Black Elk Speaks can be best characterized as an elegy, the commemoration of a man who has failed in his life's work, as well as of a people whose way of life has passed.

In the beginning - not now, thank God - Patty was always sharing the important books of her life with him, like Black Elk Speaks, The Golden Bough, and Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Great spirit is everywhere. It is not necessary to speak to him in a loud voice. He hears whatever is in our minds and hearts.” —BLACK ELK, LAKOTA MEDICINE MAN Most

The Circle of Life You have noticed that 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. —Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks Shamans know that life—all of life: nature, humans as components of nature, helping spirits, energy, ordinary and nonordinary reality— moves in circles, spirals, and cycles. Within life, there are infinite circles, and circles within circles, since energy is neither created nor destroyed, but simply recycled.