**2.5** *Black Elk Speaks* **Costheanthropic**

The above three realms, Theos, Anthropos and Cosmos, are not separate in *BES.* There is interdependence. Nature is not disconnected from the sacred, so the 'yellow metal' and other gifts in the Cosmic realm are not merely for economic exploitation. Once when Black Elk was about to shoot a bird, he "remembered that I was to be like a relative with the birds. So I did not shoot" ([2], 64).

The human relationship with the sacred also appears inseparable with the relationship to the entire earth. As a Shaman, Black Elk is a special medium within the realm of the Anthropos connecting the Cosmos with the Theos. The interconnectedness is well captured in a most beautiful prayer, a praying through the earth, that sets the tone for the *BES* narrative. Brevity must now be sacrificed, for it is difficult to abridge any further this most *Costheanthropic* of prayers:

*Grandfather, Great Spirit, you have been always, and before you no one has been.*

*There is no other one to pray to but you… And you, Mother Earth, the only Mother,*

*you who have shown mercy to your children! Hear me, four quarters of the world —*

*a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is…*

*Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather, all over the earth the faces of living things*

*are all alike. With tenderness have these come up out of the ground. Look upon these*

*faces of children without number and with children in their arms, that they may face*

*the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet. This is my prayer; hear me!*

*The voice I have sent is weak, yet with earnestness I have sent it. Hear me! It is finished.*

*Hetchetu aloh! Now, my friend, let us smoke together so that there may be only good between us ([2], pp. 18–19).*
