The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
Black ElkRead
I cured with the power that came through me. Of course, it was not I who cured,it was the power from the Outer World; the visions and ceremonies only made me like a whole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds. 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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that true power and healing come from a higher source rather than from oneself alone.
Black Elk's quote highlights the importance of humility and the recognition that one's abilities are linked to a greater force. It conveys the idea that effective healing and guidance require an openness and receptivity to a spiritual or universal power, rather than reliance on individual ego. By understanding oneself as a channel for this power, one can facilitate healing in others, but losing this perspective can diminish one's effectiveness.
Themes
HealingPowerSpiritualityHumilityChanneling
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about healing practices at a wellness retreat.
More from Black Elk
All quotes →The Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other. Each family is a circle, and those family circles connect together and make a community, and the community makes its circle where it lives on the Earth. It (the community) cares for that part (of the Earth) but cares for it as a circle - which is to say in a cooperative and egalitarian way, where everybody is cared for, and everybody is respected.
Black ElkRead
And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.
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They told me I had been sick twelve days, lying like dead all the while, and that Whirlwind Chaser, who was Standing Bear's uncle and a medicine man, had brought me back to life.
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Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.
Black ElkRead
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.
Black ElkRead
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