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.
Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
Crime is a product of social excess.
We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.
What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
Sincerity may be humble but she cannot be servile.
The full meaning of life, the collective meaning of all human desires, is fundamentally a mystery beyond our grasp. As a young man, I chafed at this state of affairs. But by now I have made peace with it. I even feel a certain honor to be associated with such a mystery.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.