“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.”—Black Elk Speaks, as told by John G. Neihardt
How did I put it last post? “Wherever you are be there and nowhere else?” That’s Zen. Being where you are wholeheartedly, whole-mindedly while simultaneously non-mindedly. How’s that for a tongue twisting mind-bender?
Being in the moment, very Zen as I said.
But there’s another sort of moment. Not the individual moment—your’s and mine, but the collective moment. The NOW of all of us who share our culture or civilization. Few, very few, truly have grasped that moment, that NOW.
And that, to me, is why the great early twentieth-century spiritual document Black Elk Speaks matters today.
For, growing up in the eighteen sixties, Black Elk experienced the final cataclysmic decades of a plains culture that had thrived for thousands of years in balance and harmony with its surroundings. And what’s more, as a young man his visions foretold the impending change and how his people need adapt and shift their entire spiritual nexus away from the rapidly disappearing buffalo towards a new way, a new connection with the inner and outer world.
Sadly, and it makes of Black Elk Speaks a great cry of lament and regret, he realized too late the meaning of his visions and the shamanic role he had to play if his people were to regain balance and discover a new center around which to orient their collective lives.
Listen to his sorrow:
“This, then, is not the tale of a great hunter or of a great warrior, or of a great traveller, although I have made much meat and fought for my people both as boy and man, and have gone far and seen strange lands and men. So also have many others done, and better than I. These things I shall remember by the way, and often they may seem to be the very tale itself, as when I was living them in happiness and sorrow. But now that I can see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given 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 bloody snow.“— Black Elk Speaks, as told by John G. Neihardt, italics mine
The Holy Tree, the crux—the hub, around which the Life of a community revolves, and the shaman as its keeper.
Communities evolve, they change inwardly and they alter their surroundings as well, building towns and eventually cities. Change and growth is slow but constant. And they can lose their balance along the way, lean away from a precarious and ever shifting centre.
Forces arise which resist change. Imagine how the buffalo hunting specialists would have fought Black Elk to retain their privileged status even in the face of the buffalo’s disappearance, and imagine how the warriors would have called out for war against the encroachment of the numerically and what’s more technologically superior Europeans. It was a war they had no hope of winning.
Black Elk fought, and only realized later that was not the war he was called to fight. His people are still paying the price today.
Old ways die hard.
But the alternatives are always worse.
This is a very moving and wonderful post. Thank you.
Thanks for that, Valorie.
Magnificent and thought-provoking. Thank you.
A big thanks for that Kellie, but magnificent? Anyway, thought-provoking is ok, but what I really aim at with these things is more on the order of AUM-provoking.
Great post. I read “Black Elk Speaks” in college, and it has made a lasting impact on me. I really admire his honesty and courage, especially when discussing things that he believed he failed at. I also think it is relevant today, because our society is becoming increasingly distanced from the inner spiritual world, so we are once again at a spiritual and cultural tipping point. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Jason. As for the bit about ‘our society becoming increasingly distanced from the inner spiritual world’, from the perspective of the Omphalos Cafe here I’m not sure I’d exactly agree.
What I was driving at with the post was Black Elk’s realization that his people’s connection with the ‘inner spiritual world’ that had served them effectively for generation upon generation no longer applied after the arrival of Europeans. As Shaman he was something of a custodian for their inner lives, however, in participating wholly in outer events he neglected his real calling, the recalibration so to speak of their inner lives.
As for us Westerners, the situation is different, and not from merely a cultural level. What has not been grasped, except by a very few, is that we have never truly had a centre for our ‘inner spiritual world.’ That was deflected from the very outset, and everything we know as Western European thought stems from a yearning and craving for a return to said ‘inner spiritual world.’ All art and literature, unless viewed from that perspective, doesn’t make sense, doesn’t have an over and under-riding coherence.
If grasped, that notion will be one of the great contributions Western Civilization has bestowed on the species. It’s our form of Buddhism, Zen. The great lesson to be learned towards the end of a civilization’s fifteen hundred year arc.
But wow, I’m again trying to put too much in too few words. Too many big notions on Life and destiny. Oh well, shoot for the moon and you might clear the treetops.
I am a humble fan of John Neidhardt. I hope others who are also moved by his observations and writings will read of his life. Interestingly, for a period of time, he lived in the Missouri Ozarks. I have a photo of his at the gravesite of one of my (distant) long ago relatives. It is not a posed photo – just a vintage snapshot that portrays a man whose expression shows a saturation-of-sorrow. He was observing the unveiling of a large tombstone. I had been told Neidhardt and my kith were close friends but this is such a revealing instant-caught-on-film…
There is no wonder J.G.N. felt things very deeply himself — and it poured out of him onto the page and into the hearts of millions and millions of readers.
I too, pondered the message of Black Elk — when he considered his shortcomings or failures. Because he DID acknowledge these mistakes – does this not make him a more valued man as he admitted his losses? Doesn’t the combination of insight, based on yesterdays learnings, offer us great hope for tomorrow…
Thanks for that, Audrey,
I cannot say I know much about John Neidhardt and what he has written besides Black Elk Speaks, and I gather there is some question as to the literalness and accuracy of the document. To me that is neither here nor there, what has been passed down is powerful and human and belongs on the shelves of the Cafe.