June 30, 2026

It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those shadows men get lost." — Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks

Black Elk spoke these words reflecting on his sacred vision, received when he was nine years old during a serious illness. He spent decades watching his people's way of life collapse under broken treaties and forced displacement, and he struggled with whether he had done enough to live out what he had been shown. The tension he names — between a clear sense of what is right and the daily pressure to drift from it — is exactly what integrity asks of us. Knowing what you stand for is the easy part; the hard part is staying oriented to it when circumstances make compromise feel reasonable.