InTheTemazcal

Bison, drawing from the cave la Grèze in Dordogne. Source: Wikimedia Commons Casually reading the first chapter of Black Elk Speaks , as I surely did for the first time many years ago, it seems a simple recollection by an old Lakota Indian. However, looking back, I have read the chapter more times than I can remember, and I find something new with each reading. Black Elk’s own narration, in the chapter basically begins with the story about how the pipe came to the Lakota people. He described, without mentioning the name we so commonly hear, Pte Ska Win, Pteskawin, Ptesanwi, or White Buffalo Calf Woman. He told how two Lakota scouts chanced upon her and how, eventually, she took the pipe and to the Lakota Nation. Symbolism in the Story of the Pipe Once again, we see Black Elk, in this short chapter, introducing us, as the listeners of his tale, more symbolic tradition than a mere reading or two allows us to comprehend. I have heard the story, much as Black Elk told it, i...

Black Elk and John G. Neihardt (1932) introduced the audience of the book,  Black Elk Speaks , to important symbols in the Lakota culture within John G. Neihardt's six-paragraph introduction (Chapter One: "The Offering of the Pipe." There, the holy man, Black Elk, moved to "... make an offering and send a voice to the Spirit of the World, that it may help me to be true. ... But before we smoke it you must see how it is made and what it means." As an author, organizing transcribed texts, memories, and impressions, Neihardt, through this six-paragraph introduction of Black Elk, set a mood and intimate focus for the reader. The visionary Lakota, sharing and describing the sacred pipe, developed a tangible image of the entire universe, represented by the shared offering of the pipe. Without such a physical or otherwise perceivable model, we might never manage to begin to contemplate the Lakota universe. As a reader of  Black Elk Speaks,  taking the time to...

Image Source: Pixabay "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? So many other men have lived and shall live that story, to be grass upon the hills." from  Black Elk Speaks John G. Neihardt opened his most successful book, Black Elk Speaks  with his own words, expressing them in the sense of Black Elk's "mood and manner" for telling his life story (Neihardt 2008). The book reaches us, the readers, as a collaborative effort of many participants, with Black Elk speaking as the Lakota holy man and Neihardt as the poetic writer. The former told the saga, while the latter orchestrated its transcription, translation, and publication, sending a united voice to the universe. The book's first six paragraphs, in Chapter One, "The Offering of the Pipe,...

The book, Black Elk Speaks, as seen on Amazon.com This year, as the winter solstice graces us, we're initiating the celebration of the new solar year by reviewing Black Elk and John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks (1932).Winter solstice marks the longest evening of the solar year and occurs during the final quarter of  Wanícokan Wi * ,  or   the Moon When the Deer Shed their Antlers. On the Gregorian calendar, that's on or near the 22 nd of December. Remembering with Nebraska Black Elk, a holy man of the Oglala Lakota, saw his vision in the Black Hills region west of Nebraska. During the  Waníyetu Wi , or the Moon of the Rutting deer, the Nebraskan reading program, One Book One Nebraska (OBON), announced its 2017 selection: John G. Neihardt's  Black Elk Speaks . OBON aims to demonstrate ... "... how books and reading connect people across time and place. Each year, Nebraska communities come together through literature in community-wide reading...

John G. Neihardt - Source: UNL Newsroom The words of  Heȟáka Sápa  (Nicholas Black Elk) first came to me through  Dr. Paul D. S ø rensen , of the Department of Biological Sciences, of Northern Illinois University, in DeKalb, Illinois. In his Biological Conservation course, we discussed the causes of loss of biodiversity from  Paul Ehrlich's book, Extinction , and we came to know several Native American philosophers. Later, those of us who participated in S ø rensen's American Ecosystems course in the Great Plains, which took us west through the Dakotas to Wyoming, traveled through some of Oglala Lakota lands and learned more of the Oglala medicine man. The collaborative work by Neihardt; Ben, his son; others of Neihardt's family: Black Elk, himself; Standing Bear; Flying Hawk; and others spoke to the world. According to Wikipedia (2016), the "...prominent psychologist Carl Jung read the book in the 1930s and urged its translation into German; in 1955, it was...

The medicine wheel in my back yard. Having missed yesterday, due to illness, writing a post dedicated to Jordan's mission in Manaus Brazil, I decided that it was time to visit a medicine wheel that I had made and frequented near my home. The Oso Mario, in Durango, Mexico, had introduced me to the medicine wheel, and I read about it in John G. Neihardt's book, Black Elk Speaks .  During the waxing moon of mid-June, when I returned to Durango, the Oso Hector asked me, in the temazcal, to share with the fellow caminantes how I dealt with the four years away from the temazcal while in the U.S. Hector knew that I had moved from Durango to a small village just below the Mescalero Apache Reservation in the foothills of the Sacramento Mountains, in southeastern New Mexico. There, the Apaches, my brother, Kelton told me, do not traditionally practice temazcal , or sweat lodges, as they're known in most of the United States. Because I had no nearby caminantes with who...