face the winds
Three simple words that convey so much.
It took awhile to find the name for this land. We tried lots of names, nothing worked.
What worked was we stopped trying. We let it go.
Others had given suggestions of what it should be,
When it was time it happened. These three words stood out in a native prayer.
We knew ~ they fit.
Once they arrived there was no question that this was the name.
It is a message and a lesson
It is a name you can sit with.... ponder..
The prayer ~
and before you nothing has been.
There is nothing to pray to but you.
The star nations all over the heavens are yours,
and yours are the grasses of the earth.
You are older than all need, older than all pain and prayer.
Day in, day out, you are the life of things.
Grandfather, all over the world
the faces of living ones are alike.
In tenderness have they come up out of the ground.
Look upon your children, with children in their arms,
that they may face the winds
and walk the good road to the day of quiet.
Teach me to walk the soft earth,
a relative to all that live.
Give me the strength to understand and the eyes to see.
Help me, for without you I am nothing.
BLACK ELK
