Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus should we do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.
Interpretation
We should show kindness and openness to one another, reflecting the interconnectedness of all beings.
In this quote, Black Elk highlights the importance of community and mutual respect among individuals. Just as grasses lean towards each other, suggesting a connection and nurturing spirit, we too must demonstrate love and understanding in our interactions, honoring the wisdom of our ancestors who valued these principles for harmonious living.
In practice
In a speech about fostering teamwork, one might say, 'Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, we should work together respectfully and kindly.'
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.
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.
There's guilt about our treatment of native peoples in modern intellectual life, and an unwillingness to acknowledge there could be anything good about Western culture.
Even the blind and meek and voiceless have gods.
Reason died in 1914, November 1914 ... after that everybody began to rave.
If you will not have death unto sin, you shall have sin unto death. There is no alternative. If you do not die to sin, you shall die for sin. If you do not slay sin, sin will slay you.
In every truth, the opposite is equally true. For example, a truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is onesided.
...'I thought the rule was that all monks were shaved.' 'Oh, Soto says he is bald under the hair,'said Lu Tze. 'He says the hair is a separate creature that just happens to live on him.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.