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Of sweat lodges and joy
Aug. 22nd, 2011 11:16 amThis past Saturday, I had the opportunity to experience a sweat lodge. I admit to being nervous - not because of the very real possibility of having something go very wrong (which I didn't know about until, well, right now), but because of my shyness and my spirituality being a pretty private thing. Crawling into a structure with a bunch of strangers to pray is intimidating to me...somehow scarier than the idea of voluntarily experiencing temperatures of 102 degrees or more for hours at a time.
After an introductory 'here's what to expect' talk the night before - and a panicked 'oh gosh I'm not sure about this' text to my lover - I expressed an interest to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adelheid_p (who was the reason this opportunity had been presented to me) in helping to set up the sweat the next morning.
Not surprisingly, I pretty much slept through the chance to do so.
The initial structure looked something like this, though ours was - is - on a small island. The indentation in the middle of the ground in that photo is where the rocks will be placed once the sweat starts. The fire that warms the rocks will be in front of the sweat. And the structure itself will be covered with blankets sorta like this. Lodges can of course vary in size..I think ours could fit maaaaybe a dozen people?
At any rate. I helped get blankets over to the island, but didn't manage to get my act together enough to help with the set-up. Alas.
I did however walk over to take a peek at what was going on over there. I didn't step onto the island, instead lingering on the tiny bridge connecting the island to the campgrounds. And while standing there, a hummingbird buzzed up to me, took a good long look - 'ohhaiwhatareyoudoinghereoopsgottagoBYE!' - and then skittered off. Hummingbirds represent happiness, joy, and peace. One of my reasons for wanting to be back at Brushwood was to focus on my much neglected Runes. The Rune that always comes up as representing me is Wynn..the Rune of Joy.
Interesting..
Around 11AM or so, we started over to the island to prepare for the sweat. ( this is wicked long..clickity to read more. )
After an introductory 'here's what to expect' talk the night before - and a panicked 'oh gosh I'm not sure about this' text to my lover - I expressed an interest to
adelheid_p (who was the reason this opportunity had been presented to me) in helping to set up the sweat the next morning.Not surprisingly, I pretty much slept through the chance to do so.
The initial structure looked something like this, though ours was - is - on a small island. The indentation in the middle of the ground in that photo is where the rocks will be placed once the sweat starts. The fire that warms the rocks will be in front of the sweat. And the structure itself will be covered with blankets sorta like this. Lodges can of course vary in size..I think ours could fit maaaaybe a dozen people?
At any rate. I helped get blankets over to the island, but didn't manage to get my act together enough to help with the set-up. Alas.
I did however walk over to take a peek at what was going on over there. I didn't step onto the island, instead lingering on the tiny bridge connecting the island to the campgrounds. And while standing there, a hummingbird buzzed up to me, took a good long look - 'ohhaiwhatareyoudoinghereoopsgottagoBYE!' - and then skittered off. Hummingbirds represent happiness, joy, and peace. One of my reasons for wanting to be back at Brushwood was to focus on my much neglected Runes. The Rune that always comes up as representing me is Wynn..the Rune of Joy.
Interesting..
Around 11AM or so, we started over to the island to prepare for the sweat. ( this is wicked long..clickity to read more. )