Quotes from Chief Seattle (1786-1866)
1. Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are one thread in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to our selves, all things are bound together. All things connect.
2. Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.
3. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only change of worlds.
4. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, the smell of the wind itself cleansed by a midday rain, or scented with pinon pine. The air is precious to the red man, for all things are the same breath - the animals, the trees, the man.
5. Tribe follows tribe, nations follow nations like the tides of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless.
6. The whites, too, shall pass - perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you might suffocate in your own waste.
7. Your religion was written on tablets of stone, ours on our hearts. 8. We are part of the earth and the earth is part of us.
Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior
"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."
Black Elk Oglala Sioux Holy Man (1863-1950)
“You have noticed that everything as Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round..... The Sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.... Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.”“With this sacred pipe you will walk upon the Earth, for the Earth is your Grandmother and Mother, and She is sacred. Every step that is taken upon her should be as a prayer . . . All these peoples, and all the things of the universe, are joined to you who smoke the pipe - all send their voices to the Great Spirit. When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything . . . Every dawn as it comes is a holy event, and every day is holy….”
Cherokee Prayer Blessing
May the warm winds of Heaven blow softly upon your house.
May the Great Spirit bless all who enter there.
May your moccasins make happy tracks in many snows,
and may the rainbow
Always touch your shoulder
Seeking American Indian Spirituality
“American Indian spirituality is not evangelistic. It is private and entirely cultural. You cannot convert to 'Native American' any more than you can convert to being black. The only way to 'join' a Native American spiritual tradition is to become a member of the cultural group, and it's impossible to do that over the Internet. No one who truly believed in American Indian spirituality would ever offer to tutor total strangers in religious matters online, much less charge anyone money for such a thing. So, by definition, the people who make these offers are those who either don't really believe in Native American spirituality, or don't know very much about it. Is that really who you want to be listening to?Many followers of Native American spirituality do not regard their spiritual beliefs and practices as a "religion" in the way in which many Christians do. Their beliefs and practices form an integral and seamless part of their very being.” --From the homepage of Orrin Lewis (Osiyo), a member of the Cherokee people
http://www.bigorrin.org/orrin.htm
