"Can we talk of integration until there is integration of hearts and minds? Unless you have this, you only have a physical presence and the walls between us are as high as the mountain range."

- Chief Dan George

"Great Spirit Prayer

Give us hearts to understand;
Never to take from creation�s beauty more than we give;
never to destroy wantonly for the furtherance of greed;
never to deny to give our hands for the building of earth�s beauty;
never to take from her what we cannot use.

Give us hearts to understand that to destroy earth�s music is to create confusion;
that to wreck her appearance is to blind us to beauty;
that as we care for her, she will care for us.

We have forgotten who we are. We have sought only our own security.We have exploited simply for our own ends. We have distorted our knowledge. We have abused our power.

Great Spirit, whose dry lands thirst, help us to find the way to refresh your lands.
Great Spirit whose waters are chocked with debris and pollution, help us to find the way to cleanse your waters.
Great Spirit, whose beautiful earth grows ugly with misuse, help us to find the way to restore beauty to your handiwork.
Great Spirit, whose creatures are being destroyed, help us to find the way to replenish them.
Great Spirit, whose gifts to us are being lost in selfishness and corruption, help us to find the way to restore our humanity.
Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind, whose breath gives life to the world, hear me; I need your strength and wisdom.

May I walk in beauty.

- Big Thunder, late 19th century, Algonquin

"Earth, Teach Me

Earth, teach me stillness, as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth, teach me suffering as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth, teach me humility as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth, teach me caring as the mother who secures her young.
Earth, teach me courage as the tree which stands alone.
Earth, teach me limitation as the ant which crowles on the ground.
Earth, teach me freedom as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Earth, teach me resignation as the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth, teach me regeneration as the seed which rises in the spring.
Earth, teach me to forget myself as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth, teach me to remember kindness as dry fields weep with rain."

- Ute prayer

A bit of repetition:

..."The powers and ways.... are given to us to be passed on to others. To think or do anything else, is pure selfishness. We only keep them and get more, by giving them away.. and if we do not give them away.., we lose them.."...

---- Fools Crow

I would add that everything we got in life, love, friendship, every good deed somebody did for us, is given to be passed on to others, not to be kept just for ourselves. Even the bad things in life teach us not only what we shouldn�t do, but to act in opposite way, fight against the darkness. In that way everything, good or bad, becomes the blessing not only for us but also for others.
In my opinion at least

And today a quote that is not Native�s but...

"Everyone wants to be happy; happiness is a right. And while on the secondary level differences exist of nationality, faith, family background, social status and so on, more important is that on a human level we are the same. None of us wants to face problems, and yet we create them by stressing our differences. If we see each other just as fellow human beings, there�ll be no basis for fighting or conflict between us."

- Dalai Lama


Yes, we are all related...

"We all come from the same root, but the leaves are all different."

- John Fire Lame Deer, Lakota

"In the absence of the sacred, nothing is sacred - everything is for sale."

- Oren Lyons, Onondaga

"As a child I understood how to give, I have forgotten this grace since I have become civilized."

- Luther Standing Bear - Oglala

"Knowledge is a beautiful thing, but the using of knowledge in a good way is what makes for wisdom. Learning how to use knowledge in a sacred manner, that's wisdom to me. And to me, that's what a true Elder is."

- Sun Bear, Chippewa

"We do not want riches, but we want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches, we want peace and love."

- Red Cloud, Oglala Lakota

"We must continue throughout our lives to do what we conceive to be good. If we have corn and meat, and know of a family that has none, we divide with them. If we have more blankets than are sufficient, and others have not enough, we must give to them that want."

- Black Hawk, Sauk (1767-1838)

"My Creator, let me live today with an open heart. Let me realize to be vulnerable is a strength, not a weakness. Let me realize the power of an open heart. Let me be available to truth. If I get into trouble, let me hear the whisper of your guidance. Let me make heart decisions and let my head catch up to that decision."

- Audrey Shenandoah, Onondaga

"Grandfather Great Spirit,
all over the world faces of living ones are alike.
With tenderness they have come up out of the ground.
Look upon your children that they may face the winds
and walk the good road to the Day of Quiet.
Grandfather Great Spirit fill us with the Light.
Give us the strength to understand and the eyes to see.
Teach us to walk the soft Earth as relatives to all that live."

- Sioux Prayer

"Great Spirit help me always to speak the truth quietly,
to listen with an open mind when others speak
and to remeber the peace that may be found in silence."

- Cherokee Prayer

"A man who looks first to a woman�s outer beauty will never know her beauty divine, for there is dust upon his eyes and he is blind. But a man who sees in a woman the spirit of the Great One and sees her beauty first in spirit and truth, that man will know "Divinity" in that woman."

- White Buffalo Calf Woman

And the same can be said about women.

"The time will soon be here when my grandchild will long for the cry of a loon, the flash of a salmon, the whisper of spruce needles, or the screech of an eagle.
But he will not make friends with any of these creatures and when his heart aches with longing, he will curse me.
Have I done all to keep the air fresh?
Have I cared enough about the water?
Have I left the eagle to soar in freedom?
Have I done everything I could to earn my grandchild’s fondness?"

- Chief Dan George

"The beauty of the trees,
the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass,
speaks to me.

The summit of the mountain,
the thunder of the sky,
the rhythm of the sea,
speaks to me.

The strength of the fire,
the taste of salmon,
the trail of the sun,
and the life that never goes away,
they speak to me.
And my heart soars."

- Chief Dan George

"Children were taught that true politeness was to be defined in actions rather than in words. They were never allowed to pass between the fire and the older person or a visitor, to speak while others were speaking, or to make fun of a crippled or disfigured person. If a child thoughtlessly tried to do so, a parent, in a quiet voice, immediately set him right.

Expressions such as "excuse me," "pardon me," and "so sorry" now so often lightly and unnecessarily used, are not in the Lakota language. If one chanced to injure or cause inconvenience to another wanunhecun, or "mistake," was spoken. This was sufficient to indicate that no discourtesy was intended and that what happened was accidental.

Our young people, raised under old rules of courtesy, never indulged in the present habit of talking incessantly and all at the same time. To do so would have been not only impolite, but foolish; for poise, so much admired as a social grace, could not be accompanied by restlessness. Pauses were acknowledged gracefully and did not cause lack of ease or embarrassment.

In talking to children, the old Lakota would place a hand on the ground and explain: "We sit in the lap of our Mother. From her we, and all other living things, come. We shall soon pass, but the place where we now rest will last forever." So we, too, learned to sit or lie on the ground and become conscious of life about us in its multitude of forms.

Sometimes we boys would sit motionless and watch the swallows, the tiny ants, or perhaps some small animal at its work and ponder its industry and ingenuity; or we lay on our backs and looked long at the sky, and when the stars came out made shapes from the various groups.
Everything was possessed of personality, only differing from us in form. Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library and its books were the stones, leaves, grass, brooks, and the birds and animals that shared, alike with us, the storms and blessings of earth. We learned to do what only the student of nature learns, and that was to feel beauty. We never railed at the storms, the furious winds, and the biting frosts and snows. To do so intensified human futility, so whatever came we adjusted ourselves, by more effort and energy if necessary, but without complaint.

Even the lightning did us no harm, for whenever it came too close, mothers and grandmothers in every tipi put cedar leaves on the coals and their magic kept danger away. Bright days and dark days were both expressions of the Great Mystery, and the Indian reveled in being close to the Great Holiness.

Observation was certain to have its rewards. Interest, wonder, admiration grew, and the fact was appreciated that life was more than mere human manifestation; it was expressed in a multitude of forms.
This appreciation enriched Lakota existence. Life was vivid and pulsing; nothing was casual and commonplace.

The Indian lived - lived in every sense of the word - from his first to his last breath."

- Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux

"Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue."

- Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux

"This concept of life and its relations was humanizing and gave to the Lakota an abiding love. It filled his being with the joy and mystery of living; it gave him reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all."

- Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux