Tao Te Ching
Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
Dialogs with Richard Erdoes
According to some historians, the Native Americans in this country have been treated worse by the conquering invaders than any other native peoples in any other country at any other time. The recorded interviews in this book, the stories and dialogs depict this inhumane devastation; but also, the deep and power wisdom, the strong connection to sacredness that has managed to survive. Because of being here first and so personally watching the beginnings and development of American culture, perhaps there is no better perspective, no more clear and insightful understanding. When everyone around us has the same historical view, it’s difficult to see the confusion, the false narratives and cunning deceptions. Having this clear-sighted Native American perspective so close, presents the possibility of freeing ourselves from our cultural chains, our infatuation with materialism, our bogus beliefs in “me first,” “America First,” the illusion of our separation from both the natural world and the reality of our world citizenship. In this regard, there are few mirrors as clear and undistorted as these conversations with Lame Deer.
Themes
Quotes from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
“a clown is somebody sacred, funny, powerful, ridiculous holy, shameful, visionary. He is all this and then some more... He has a power, more power than the atom bomb”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“A medicine man has to be of the earth, somebody who reads nature like white men read a book.”
Chapters:
27. No Trace
Comments: Click to comment
“A medicine man shouldn’t be a saint… He should be able to sink as low as a bug, or soar as high as an eagle…You can’t be so stuck up, so inhuman that you want to be pure, your sould wraped up in a plastic bag all the time.”
Chapters:
22. Heaven's Door
Comments: Click to comment
“Americans are bred like stuffed geese – to be consumers, not human beings. The moment they stop consuming and buying, the frog-skin world has no more use for them. They have become frogs themselves… this is the real world, not the Green Frog Skin World. That’s only a bad dream, a streamlined, smog-filled nightmare.”
Chapters:
44. Fame and Fortune
Comments: Click to comment
“Artists are the Indians of the white world. They are called dreamers who live in the clouds… I tell you this is the real world, not the Green Frog Skin World. That’s only a bad dream, a streamlined, smog-filled nightmare.”
Chapters:
28. Turning Back
Comments: Click to comment
“From all living beings something flows into him all the time, and something flows from him.”
Chapters:
36. The Small, Dark Light
Comments: Click to comment
“He talks to the plants and they answer him. He listens to the voices of all those who move upon the earth, the animals. He is as one with them. From all living beings, something flows into him all the time, and something flows from him.”
Chapters:
51. Mysterious Goodness
Comments: Click to comment
“his parents kept him out of school… Going to a white school and walking a medicine man’s road, you can’t do both.”
Chapters:
20. Unconventional Mind
Comments: Click to comment
“I didn’t want a steady job in an office or factory. I thought myself too good for that not because I was stuck up but simply because any human being is too good for that kind of no-life, even white people.”
Chapters:
72. Helpful Fear
Comments: Click to comment
“If all was told, supposing there lived a person who could tell all, there would be no mysteries left, and that would be very bad. Man cannot live without mystery.”
Chapters:
70. Inscrutable
Comments: Click to comment
“Indians chase the vision, white men chase the dollar.”
Chapters:
37. Nameless Simplicity
Comments: Click to comment
“land, water, air, the earth and what lies beneath its surface cannot be owned as someone’s private property. That belongs to everybody, and if man wants to survive, he had better come around to this Indian point of view, the sooner the better, because there isn’t much time left to think it over.”
Chapters:
53. Shameless Thieves
Comments: Click to comment
“Laughter—that is something very sacred—especially for us Indians. For people who are as poor as us, who have lost everything, who had to endure so much death and sadness, laughter is a precious gift.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Love is something that you can leave behind when you die. It's that powerful... it will roam and travel.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The Sioux have a name for white men. They call the wasicun – fat takers…Americans are bred like stuffed geese – to be consumers, not human beings… Some cruel child has stuffed a cigar into their mouths and they have to keep puffing and puffing until they explode.”
Chapters:
24. Unnecessary Baggage
Comments: Click to comment
“The white man's symbol is the square. Square is his house, his office buildings with walls that separate people from one another. Square is the door that keeps strangers out... gadgets, boxes—TV sets, washing machines, computers, cars... You become a prisoner inside all these boxes. More and more young white people want to stop being 'straight' and 'square' and try to become round, join our circle. That is good.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“We must learn to be different…If Wakan Tanka likes the plants, the animals, even little mice and bugs to do this, how much more will he abhor people being alike, doing the same thing, getting up at the same time, putting on the same kind of store-bought clothes, working in the same office at the same job with their eyes on the same clock and, worst of all, thinking alike all the time.”
Chapters:
18. The Sick Society
Comments: Click to comment
“We Sioux spend a lot of time thinking about everyday things… We see in the world around us many symbols that teach us the meaning of life.”
Chapters:
45. Complete Perfection
Comments: Click to comment
“What you see with your eyes closed is what counts.”
Chapters:
47. Effortless Success
Comments: Click to comment
“What you see with your eyes shut is what counts. The wicasa wakan loves the silence, wrapping it around himself like a blanket… he talks to the plants and they answer him.”
Chapters:
17. True Leaders
Comments: Click to comment
“You can’t be so stuck up, so inhuman, that you want to be pure, your soul wrapped in a plastic bag.”
Chapters:
41. Distilled Life
Comments: Click to comment
“You’ve made a blondie out of Jesus… You’ve tried to make him into an Anglo-Saxon Fuller Brush salesman, a long haired Billy Graham… it is dishonest.”
Chapters:
41. Distilled Life
Comments: Click to comment
Related Lineages (0 lineages)
Quotes about Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (2 quotes)
“Love is something that you can leave behind when you die. It's that powerful... it will roam and travel.”
Comments: Click to comment
“Desire killed that man, as desire has killed many before and after him If this earth should ever be destroyed, it will be by desire, by the lust of pleasure and self-gratification, by greed.”
Comments: Click to comment
Comments (0)