Black Elk's View of American Over-Individualism

"I did not see anything [New York 1886] to help my people. I could see that the Wasichus [white people] did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. This could not be better than the old ways of my people."

Nicholas Black Elk 
Oglala Lakota

I am currently [on Saturday] camping in the Badlands in Lakota country, recuperating from a bad flu and finding that the fresh air and breezes are doing me good :)

I just came across these insightful words in my morning reading. Black Elk made this statement after joining Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show at age 25, shortly after being confined to the reservation by the government and hungering for some adventure. He returned home to Pine Ridge (SD) shortly thereafter and became a renowned spiritual leader.

I pray that his words are not still true today to such an intense degree (this was before FDR and the New Deal), but realize we all are aware of the ways in which they still ARE true. This is election year here in America, and I ask that we might take these words to heart and make our choices accordingly. In addition I ask that we might increase in the sense of oneness and generosity in our own personal lives.

Photo: Fremont Culture petroglyphs (ca. A.D. 1 - 1300), near Moab, UT