53 Quotes About Native American Wisdom

Unfortunately, modern man has become so focused on harnessing nature's resources that he has forgotten how to learn from them. If you let them, however, the elements of nature will teach you as they have taught me. Anasazi Foundation

In my opinion, it was chiefly owing to their deep contemplation in their silent retreats in the days of youth that the old Indian orators acquired the habit of carefully arranging their thoughts. They listened to the warbling of birds and noted the grandeur and the beauties of the forest. The majestic clouds–which appear like mountains of granite floating in the air–the golden tints of a summer evening sky, and the changes of nature, possessed a mysterious significance. All of this combined to furnish ample matter for reflection to the contemplating youth. . Francis Assikinack

Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Woniya wakan–the holy air–which renews all by its breath. Woniya, woniya wakan–spirit, life, breath, renewal–it means all that. Woniya–we sit together, don’t touch, but something is there; we feel it between us, as a presence. A good way to start thinking about nature, talk about it. Rather talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds as to our relatives. . Unknown

As for me, I have a choice between honoring that dark life I've seen so many years moving in the junipers, or of walking away and going on with my own human busyness. There is always that choice for humans. Linda Hogan

There is no real aloneness. There is solitude and the nurturing silence that is relationship with ourselves, but even then we are part of something larger. Linda Hogan

We are looking for a tongue that speaks with reverence for life, searching for an ecology of mind. Without it, we have no home, no place of our own within the creation. It is not only the vocabulary of science we desire. We want a language of that different yield. A yield rich as the harvests of the earth, a yield that returns us to our own sacredness, to a self-love and resort that will carry out to others. Linda Hogan

Caretaking is the utmost spiritual and physical responsibility of our time, and perhaps that stewardship is finally our place in the web of life, our work, the solution to the mystery that we are. There are already so many holes in the universe that will never again be filled, and each of them forces us to question why we permitted such loss, such tearing away at the fabric of life, and how we will live with our planet in the future. Linda Hogan

The Native Americans, whose wisdom Thoreau admired, regarded the Earth itself as a sacred source of energy. To stretch out on it brought repose, to sit on the ground ensured greater wisdom in councils, to walk in contact with its gravity gave strength and endurance. The Earth was an inexhaustible well of strength: because it was the original Mother, the feeder, but also because it enclosed in its bosom all the dead ancestors. It was the element in which transmission took place. Thus, instead of stretching their hands skyward to implore the mercy of celestial divinities, American Indians preferred to walk barefoot on the Earth: The Lakota was a true Naturist — a lover of Nature. He loved the earth and all things of the earth, the attachment growing with age. The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was good for the skin to touch the earth and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth. Their tipis were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The birds that flew in the air came to rest on the earth and it was the final abiding place of all things that lived and grew. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing. That is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life-giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly; he can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him. Walking, by virtue of having the earth’s support, feeling its gravity, resting on it with every step, is very like a continuous breathing in of energy. But the earth’s force is not transmitted only in the manner of a radiation climbing through the legs. It is also through the coincidence of circulations: walking is movement, the heart beats more strongly, with a more ample beat, the blood circulates faster and more powerfully than when the body is at rest. And the earth’s rhythms draw that along, they echo and respond to each other. A last source of energy, after the heart and the Earth, is landscapes. They summon the walker and make him at home: the hills, the colours, the trees all confirm it. The charm of a twisting path among hills, the beauty of vine fields in autumn, like purple and gold scarves, the silvery glitter of olive leaves against a defining summer sky, the immensity of perfectly sliced glaciers … all these things support, transport and nourish us. Unknown

Nature is not dumb. Humanity is dumb when we can't hear or when we forget how to communicate with nature. Nature is very much alive. Intelligent living beings and vibrant energies are all over the planet. Sun Bear

We travel only as far and as high as our hearts will take us. Anasazi Foundation

The success of my journey depended on whether my heart walked forward–toward my people–instead of backward, away from them. Anasazi Foundation

Mother Earth reintroduced me to my people. Anasazi Foundation

I have learned that the point of life's walk is not where or how far I move my feet but how I am moved in my heart. If I walk far but am angry toward others as I journey, I walk nowhere. If I conquer mountains but hold grudges against others as I climb, I conquer nothing. If I see much but regard others as enemies, I see no one. Anasazi Foundation

The most beautiful thing in the world is a heart that is changing. Anasazi Foundation

No man is as wise as Mother Earth. She has witnessed every human day, every human struggle, every human pain, and every human joy. For maladies of both body and spirit, the wise ones of old pointed man to the hills. For man too is of the dust and Mother Earth stands ready to nurture and heal her children. Anasazi Foundation

Life is a walking, a journey. So, if life upon Mother Earth is a journey, there are two ways to walk. We can choose to walk forward or we can choose to walk backward. Forward Walking choices are rewarded with consequences that light the way to peace, happiness, joy, comfort, knowledge, and wisdom. Backward Walking choices bring to the Two-Legged beings consequences of misery despair, and darkness. Anasazi Foundation

Man's obsession with his own wants is taking him further from those without whom happiness cannot be found. It is taking him from his people. Anasazi Foundation

Mother Earth has never been more crowded, yet her inhabitants have never been more lonely. Anasazi Foundation

Don't believe the dark whisperings that invite you to walk backward. At any time in your life, you have the power to turn forward. Anasazi Foundation

There is much to be learned from the world around us–far more than we normally comprehend. The Ancient Ones knew this well–most particularly the wise teachers among them–those who, in the Navajo tongue, were called "Anasazi. Anasazi Foundation

Would it surprise you to hear that man's unhappiness is due in large measure to the way he is seeking after happiness? You know this already from your own life. For when you have been unhappy, you have been unhappy with others–with your father or mother, your sister or brother, your spouse, your son, your daughter. If unhappiness is with others, wouldn't it stand to reason that happiness must be with others as well? . Anasazi Foundation

We have found that no modern prescriptions heal the human heart so fully or so well as the prescription of the Ancient Ones. "To the hills, " they would say. To which we would add, "To the trees, the valleys, and the streams, as well." For there is a power in nature that man has ignored. And the result has been heartache and pain. Anasazi Foundation

Would it surprise you to hear that man's unhappiness is due in large measure to the way he is seeking after happiness? Anasazi Foundation

At the end of our lives, when our bodies are about to be laid in Mother Earth, we will know for ourselves whether we are a Two-Legged being full of light or a Two-Legged being full of darkness. Anasazi Foundation

Darkness within clouds the world without. Anasazi Foundation

Attending to your own words and ideas as well as those of others is an admirable trait in any person, but a necessity in a leader. Jennifer FrickRuppert

The outward light is but a reflection of the inner. Anasazi Foundation

I speak of the Creator. He has walked with me often in my journeys, and it has been by learning to walk with Him that I have learned to walk forward. Anasazi Foundation

As great as is the light above us, greater by far is the light within. Anasazi Foundation

Each morning offers lessons in light. For the morning light teaches the most basic of truths: Light chases away darkness. Anasazi Foundation

Do you and I allow light to chase darkness from our souls as well? Anasazi Foundation

Light chases away darkness. Anasazi Foundation

Treat all men alike.. give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who is born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. Let me be a free man..free to travel.. free to stop..free to work..free to choose my own teachers..free to follow the religion of my Fathers..free to think and talk and act for myself. Dee Brown

We're three women from two different centuries, trying to save the world from oblivion. I don't know about you, but that's way above my pay grade. G.G. Collins

Another Chief remembered that since the Great Father promised them that they would never be moved they had been moved five times. "I think you had better put the Indians on wheels, " he said sardonically, "and you can run them about whenever you wish. Dee Brown

It was our belief that the love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome. Children must early learn the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving. . The Indians in their simplicity literally give away all that they have–to relatives, to guests of other tribes or clans, but above all to the poor and the aged, from whom they can hope for no return. Charles Alexander Eastman

Whatever you do to the animals, you do to yourself. Ben Mikaelsen

Any story worth telling has been embellished a little bit, Skyco, but the best stories are born from an honest seed that simply grows a little in the retelling of it. Jennifer FrickRuppert

We need help from above if we are to make progress in our journeys. Anasazi Foundation

Once, when a government agent arrived at her home with a ream of paper that documented the case against her, she asked if that law was more powerful than natural law. He told her that, yes, it was a powerful law, the law of the federal government. Then, she said, it should be more powerful that this, and she threw it into her woodstove. Alan S. Kesselheim

We who lose our footing have lost our way. Anasazi Foundation

Before the war, a white man named Jonathan Edwards came to Stockbridge to teach my people about sin, but I doubt very much he could see sin in this. You defended yourself against a man who would otherwise have killed you and your friends. Perhaps you feel no regret because your spirit knows you did what was right. Pamela Clare

As chief, I will represent my people in many different ways and might never know which particular action is destined to matter more than another, thus, all my actions should be considered potentially important and worthy of my best effort. Jennifer FrickRuppert

I wish I had been more interested or learned sooner, but I didn’t , and now I must face the consequences. Jennifer FrickRuppert

Life moved, as inconstant and fickle as Wind Baby, frolicking, sleeping, weeping, but never truly still. Never solid or finished. Always like water flowing from one place to the next. Seed and fruit. Rain and drought, everything traveled in a gigantic circle, an eternal process of becoming something new. But we rarely saw it. Humans tended to see only frozen moments, not the flow of things. Kathleen ONeal Gear