Native Wisdom
May they speak to your heart, and help to guide you on your journey, also...
It does not require many words to speak the truth.
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
It is no longer good enough to cry peace, we must act peace, live peace and live in peace.
Shenandoah
It is easy to be brave from a distance
Omaha
With all things and in all things, we are relative.
Sioux
We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.
Dakota
We are friends; we must assist each other to bear our burdens
Osage
I have been to the end of the earth
I have been to the end of the water
I have been to the end of the sky
I have been to the end of the mountains
I have found none that are not my friends.
Navajo
Don't walk behind me;
I may not lead.
Don't walk in front of me;
I may not follow.
Walk beside me that we may be as one.
Ute
Peace comes within the souls of men,
when they realize their oneness with the Universe,
when they realize it is really everywhere...
it is within each one of us.
Black Elk, Lakota Medicine Man
Do not let yesterday use up too much of today
Cherokee
The greatest strength is gentleness
Iroquois
There can never be peace between nations until it is first known that
true peace is within the souls of men
Oglala Sioux
Everything is laid out for you. Your path is straight ahead of you. Sometimes
it's invisible but it's there. You may not know where it's going, but you have to
follow that path. It's the path to the Creator. It's the only path there is.
Chief Leon Shenandoah (Onondaga)
. . everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it,
and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence.
Mourning Dove (Christine Quintasket), Salish
We do not want schools.... they will teach us to have churches. We do not want churches.... they will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that.
Chief Joseph -Nez Perce
We're like the water. If we're the lake- as I see you in me-I'm in you. We're the great mirror. We're nothing but the reflection of each other.
Ruby Plenty Chiefs
Sometimes I go about with pity for myself, and all the while
Great Winds are carrying me across the sky.
~Ojibway saying
COMMANDMENTS
Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect.
Remain close to the Great Spirit.
Show great respect for your fellow beings.
Work together for the benefit of all Mankind.
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed.
Do what you know to be right.
Look after the well being of mind and body.
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good.
Be truthful and honest at all times.
Take full responsibility for your actions.
Never the spirit is born
The spirit will cease to be never
Never the time when it was not.
End and beginning are dreams.
Birthless and deathless and changeless,
remains the spirit forever.
Death has not touched it at all
Dead though the house of it seems.
~Sioux Prayer of Passing
Oh Great Spirit, who made all races,
look kindly upon the whole human
family and take away the arrogance
and hatred which separates us
from our brothers....
Cherokee Prayer
Grandfather,
Look at our brokenness.
We know that in all creation
Only the human family
Has strayed from the Sacred Way.
We know that we are the ones
Who are divided
And we are the ones
Who must come back together
To walk the Sacred Way.
Grandfater, Sacred One,
Teach us love, compassion and honor
That we may heal the earth
And heal each other.
Ojibway Prayer
O Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds, and whose breath gives life to
all the world, hear me! I am small and weak, I need your strength and
wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple
sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear
your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest
enemy----myself.
Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without
shame.
Native American Prayer
Beauty is before me, and beauty behind me,
Above me and below me hovers the beautiful.
I am surrounded by it, I am immersed in it.
In my youth, I am aware of it,
And, in old age I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail.
In beauty it is begun. In beauty it is ended.
Navajo Prayer
