Visions of the soul of America

Oct. 7, 2004

Dear Julie,

William Least Heat Moon packed only two books in his van before beginning the quest chronicled in his book "Blue Highways." One was Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," filled with exuberant poems about the American spirit. The other was "Black Elk Speaks," a different but no less eloquent perspective on the original American soul then and now struggling for survival.

Black Elk speaks of the soul in visions. "Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being."

Black Elk was a warrior and holy man, a cousin of Crazy Horse. He was at Little Big Horn and at Wounded Knee. As a teenager, he performed in Europe with the Buffalo Bill Show.

His great vision occurred when he was 9 and very sick. In the vision, warriors emerged from clouds with flaming spears, the Six Grandfathers spoke to him and he walked through a rainbow door. Black Elk knew it meant he must take care of the spiritual welfare of his people.

Black Elk's words were transcribed by John G. Neihardt, a poet who met him in 1930, when Black Elk was nearly 70 years old. Neihardt was surprised that Black Elk seemed to be expecting him.

Neihardt's poem "The Song of the Messiah," was inspired by another sage, Crazy Horse:

"... But while I stood and wondered what he spoke,

There came a meaning like a spirit flame;

And then I saw the man was not the same.

He burned until his body was all light;

And if he were a brown man or a white,

I did not think at all. I only knew

How all that we had heard was coming true;

But all I knew no tongue can ever say."

Holy men and women seeking visions are nothing new. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert as a test before beginning his ministry, Siddhartha and abandoned his family and sought enlightenment in the forest through the life of an ascetic. St. Bernadette said she was visited 18 times by the Virgin Mary, who instructed her to find the underground spring that became the healing waters of Lourdes.

Do you know "Song of Bernadette," the exquisite tune by Leonard Cohen and Jennifer Warnes? "No one believed what she had seen/No one believed what she heard/That there were sorrows to be healed/And mercy, mercy in this world."

I don't think you have to be a holy man or holy woman to have a vision. Poems are visions. So are songs. So are paintings and dances and dreams. Even a letter.

In my vision of America, our sorrows are healed and we begin spreading mercy around the world.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor for the Southeast Missourian.