And When I Breathed, My Breath Was

It Is Hard To Follow One Great Vision In This World Of Darkness And Of Many Changing Shadows. Among Those Men Get Lost.

My Friend, I Am Going To Tell You The Story Of My Life, As You Wish; 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?

It Is Good To Have A Reminder Of Death Before Us, For It Helps Us To Understand The Impermanence Of Life On This Earth, And This Understanding May Aid Us In Preparing For Our Own Death. He Who Is Well Prepared Is He Who Knows That He Is Nothing Compared With Wakan-tanka, Who Is Everything; Then He Knows That World Which Is Real.

The Boys Of My People Began Very Young To Learn The Ways Of Men, And No One Taught Us; We Just Learned By Doing What We Saw, And We Were Warriors At A Time When Boys Now Are Like Girls.

And I Say The Sacred Hoop Of My People Was One Of The Many Hoops That Made One Circle, Wide As Daylight And As Starlight, And In The Center Grew One Mighty Flowering Tree To Shelter All The Children Of One Mother And One Father.