“[Fire] is lightfooted and shamanic, dancing between the visible and invisible, undoing matter one collapsed molecule at a time, wreaking utter destruction with a touch softer than breath. Its poor cousins, wind and water, are one-dimensional rubes by comparison. Wind is all push, push, push. Water is suffocating, but passively so. And even when water gets it together to be a torrent or a tsunami, it is but wet wind. Fire is at once elemental and otherworldly. Fire dances on the grave of all it destroys. Fire is serious voodoo.”

“Fire can warm or consume,water can quench or drown,wind can caress or cut.And so it is with human relationshps;we can both create and destroy,nurture and terrorize,traumatize and heal each other”

“(voice)...it was honey, smoke, crystal, fire, wind, water, earth.”

“The amateur study of philosophy is like taking a few laps with a NASCAR driver. You’re not qualified to do it on your own, you have no business behind the wheel, but for a few laps or paragraphs, you’re right in there with ‘em, and when it’s all over, you’ve learned something. Or, as my local fire chief once said, you’ve simply exasperated the situation.”

“All of the statues of all the great men will, with time and wind and water, be consumed.”

“The true rain came in a monster wind, and the storm broke in blackness over the hills and the bloody valley; the sky opened along the ridge, and the vast water thundered down, drowning the fires, flooding the red creeks, washing the rocks and the grass and the white bones of the dead, cleansing the earth and soaking it thick and rich with water and wet again with clean cold rainwater, driving the blood deep into the Earth, to grow it again with the roots toward heaven.”

“She looked at him defiantly, "I know I am not beautiful.I laughed at myself for thinking such impossible things."Rides the Wind was quiet for so long that she wondered if her rush of words had overreached his abilities in English. But just when she started to question him,he turned his own face to the horizon so that she could view only his profile."When Rides the Wind was young, he danced about the fire like no other brave.It was then that Dancing Waters came to be his woman.She would watch, and her eyes danced with the flames. But one day Rides the Wind went to hunt.His pony fell and crushed his leg. Marcus Whitman fixed the leg, but it would not grow straight.Rides the Wind could dance no more. The fire died in the eyes of Dancing Waters." He encircled her with his arms before continuing. "Walks the Fire sees Rides the Wind when he walks like the wounded buffalo.She sees, but the fire does not die in her eyes.Beautiful is in here," he placed his hand over her heart. "So do not laugh when you think you are beautiful.Rides the Wind sees the fire in your eyes.And to him,you are beautiful."Jesse reached for his hand,and, holding it palm up,she kissed it.He growled, "...and so you give me more of the white man's ways."In a moment of uncharacteristic abandon, Jesse stood on tip-toe and placed a less-than-chaste kiss upon the mouth of her husband.She smiled in spite of the resulting blush on her cheek, reaching up to tug childishly on his flowing hair.Then,to his delight and amazement she spoke the Lakota words: "Mihigna-my husband-Walks the Fire is an obedient wife.If he wishes her to stop this strange touch,he must tell her.Walks the Fire will obey."Rides the Wind took her hand, and they started back to the tepee.As they climbed the hill together he replied, "Many of the white man's ways must be forgotten to live among my people...but not all.”