Advent with Black Elk: Making Room for Others in the Mansion of Our Hearts

Chapters 19 and 20: Across the Big Water and the Spirit Journey In these two chapters, Black Elk talks about his experience travelling to Chicago, New York and London with Buffalo’s Wild West show. My reflections on this confluence of a Lakota medicine man with major cities of Western culture will take the form of […]

Advent with Black Elk: Baptism as Ritual for Activating the Power of the Wanekia

Chapter 18: The Powers of the Bison and the Elk “I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see […]

Advent with Black Elk: Tapping (in)to the Healing Power of the Earth’s Heartbeat

Chapter 17 and 18: The First Cure and the Powers of the Bison and the Elk “You have noticed,” Black Elk says, “everything an 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 […]

Advent with Black Elk: Drowning in Puddles

Chapter 16: Heyoka Ceremony In this chapter, Black Elk describes the role of the heyoka (the sacred fool) in more detail. He says, “Only those who have had visions of the thunder beings of the west can act as heyokas” (117). In the Heyoka ceremony, they would have thirty heyokas (one for each day of […]

Advent with Black Elk: Sacred Voice and Sacred Fools

Chapter 15: The Dog Vision In this chapter, Black Elk mentions the town of Fort Yates. Upon my first reading of this chapter, I wrote in the margins: “was just there yesterday – 11/4/16.” While at Fort Yates, I visited the burial site of Sitting Bull, whom Black Elk also mentions in this chapter: “Sitting […]

Advent with Black Elk: The Powers Endowed to Us in Dreams

Chapter 14: The Horse Dance In the Gospel of John, the author recounts a “voice from heaven” which is interpreted by some listeners as thunder and by others as an angel (12:28-29). Previously, I have discussed this heavenly voice as the divine voice that defends and protects society’s victims. For those who enjoy political and […]

Advent with Black Elk: The Animals Talk at Midnight

Chapters 12 and 13: “Grandmother’s Land” and “The Compelling Fear” “While I was lying there in a bison robe, a coyote began to howl not far off, and suddenly I knew it was saying something. It was not making words, but it said something plainer than words…” (94) “…Father, I have heard a coyote say […]

Advent with Black Elk: “A Youth Minister in North Dakota”

Chapter 11: The Killing of Crazy Horse “[Crazy Horse] was brave and good and wise. He never wanted anything but to save his people, and he fought the Wasichus only when they came to kill us in our own country. He was only thirty years old. They could not kill him in battle. They had […]

Advent with Black Elk: Theodicy in the Rain

Chapter 10: Walking the Black Road In this chapter, Black Elk laments the signing of the 1876 Black Hills Agreement, in which Lakota chiefs and headmen were intimidated into signing an agreement that not only ceded the Black Hills but also all claims to lands outside the Great Sioux Reservation. “News came to us here […]

Advent with Black Elk: The Bear Society

Chapters 8 and 9: The Fight with Three Stars and The Rubbing Out of Long Hair In these two chapters, Black Elk recounts the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. As I mentioned in a previous post, this Battle is also known as the Battle of the Greasy Grass to the Lakota and as Custer’s […]