Читать книгу The Redemption of Black Elk: An Ancient Path to Inner Strength Following the Footprints of the Lakota Holy Man - Linda L. Stampoulos - Страница 7
ОглавлениеI am going to tell you the story of my life and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it, for what is one man that he should make much of his winters even when they bend him like a heavy snow?
But now that I see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given in my youth to a man too weak to use it; of a holy tree that should have flourished in a people’s heart with flowers and singing birds, and now is withered; and of a people’s dream that died in the bloody snow. It was a beautiful dream.
But if the vision was true and mighty, as I know it is true and mighty yet; for such things are of the spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.
You see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing; for the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.
O Great Spirit, I recall the great vision you sent me. It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Hear me not for myself, but for my people; I am old. Hear me that they may once more go back into the sacred hoop and find the good red road, and the shielding tree. O make my people live!
Excerpts from “Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt” with permission of the John G. Neihardt Trust and the Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO.
