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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the Indian perspective on life as one that values freedom, respect for life, and moral principles.
In this quote, Black Elk highlights the Indian approach to life, which is characterized by a profound sense of freedom and a deep respect for existence itself. He points out that this worldview fosters a rich faith in a higher power, alongside guiding principles such as truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood that influence everyday interactions and relationships.
In practice
In a speech about cultural values, one might quote this to highlight the importance of respect and moral principles in community building.
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.
The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
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.
And as he spoke of understanding, I looked up and saw the rainbow leap with flames of many colors over me.
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.
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.
O Solitude! If I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap of murky buildings
Tests and trials are given to all of us. These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His Son. He already knows, and we have the opportunity to learn, that no matter how difficult our circumstances, all these things shall be for our experience, and our good.
With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day.
The religions that fascinate me and, you know, could possibly tempt me are not the ones that involve faith or belief. They're the ones that offer you the opportunity to know the spirit or deity.
The personal vocabulary, the individual melody whose metre is one's biography, joins in that sound, with any luck, and the body moves like a walking, a waking island.
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