Black Elk Circles Quotations

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.

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.

Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles.

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.

Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.

Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a person is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.

The power of the world always works in circles.

I saw more than I can tell / And I understood more than I saw.