Of sweat lodges and joy
Aug. 22nd, 2011 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elionwyrThis 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. Each of the 8 participants - all women, as (to my understanding) sweats are either all female or all male - were smudged with a feather fan made from a flamingo wing (a creature who creates the Wynn joy with its legs while standing still - interesting..) before stepping onto the island, where we were instructed to make prayer ties to bring into the sweat lodge with us. Besides being a way to focus ourselves during the sweat, it was also a way to make sure the things we wanted to pray about were not forgotten once the temperature started to rise.
(My prayers have a common theme, regardless of the colours chosen. Which wasn't my intent but made me laugh at myself once I realized what I was doing.)
We then took a break to use the ladies' room if need be and to change clothing if need be. Clothing that wicks away water is a good idea - obviously - though some people prefer to wear all cotton. (I wore a swimsuit with a sarong tied around my waist, and this worked well for me.) I should also say, it's not recommended to eat much before the sweat - yes, drink water, and lots of it; no, don't drink alcohol the night before. The fire -which looked something like - but really nothing like - this - had been burning since around 10, 10:30AM or so, and within the fire had been placed several large stones, referred to as "grandfathers," "grandmothers," or sometimes "the bones of the Earth." Generally, the stones are newly selected each time, and honestly, I don't quite grok yet the whole "grandfather" thing..which will become obvious further into the story. :) But! The stones, the "grandfathers" are sometimes taken as symbolic representations of our ancestors, and sometimes - I think - taken to be quite literally the spirits of our ancestors.
We are smudged again before returning to the island. All jewelry is removed because hot metal is - obviously - not so good against bare skin. No contacts, no glasses. One by one we crawled into the lodge, this symbolic womb, with our prayer ties in hand and with the warning that the lodge operates as a convection oven. Heat rises to the top and runs down the walls of the sweat. The hottest place to sit is directly across from the door. The coolest place, should you need a break from the heat, is closest to the ground.
The floor of our sweat was covered in pieces of cool, moist carpeting. As instructed, we tucked our prayer ties into the structures above our heads. I chose to sit not quite in the hot spot, but fairly close to it. (One of the other ladies decided to be braver and moved past me to claim that seat.)
The sweat consists of 4 stages, 4 additions of rocks. The fire tender passes a number of rocks via a metal tool of some sort to the person running the sweat, who transfers them to that small pit in the middle of the lodge. The door is closed and the lodge is made to be as dark as possible.
We settled in. One woman described her walk to the lodge earlier and said a groundhog had stopped and checked her out. "I've never been so close to one before," she commented. The woman in charge talked about what Groundhog represents and sounded pleased. I thought about my hummingbird. Interesting.
"Oh! Your ring!" The woman next to me points at the tiny claddagh I wear on my right hand. Oops. We hand it around the circle so the fire tender can put it on the altar where everyone else has left their jewelry and glasses. We're told that because it's right outside the door, our items will receive some blessings from the sweat lodge.
Prayers start, and water is poured onto the rocks.
The first blast of heat was stifling. I forgot how to breathe just for a moment, and thought oh hell, there is no way I'm gonna be able to do this...
I 'saw' a shadow move behind me, to my left, to the south. It felt male. My skeptic brain of course immediately jumped up and down and denied that impression. In some traditions, strength comes from the South, though, so..hey. I'll take that.
The first round of prayers focused on community. I was too shy to speak aloud, which was a bit of an issue. I hadn't realized the women around me would be waiting for their turn to speak; by my not speaking, I had confused the order. (Oops.)
I shifted my hand around the ground and found that under the rugs, the stones beneath us were very cold. That bit of cold helped me with the surrounding heat. I remembered how to breathe. And...I liked being that hot.
The rocks sizzled with the addition of water.
The door was uncovered, drinking water was handed around, and we talked a little. I am fascinated by how much the body can sweat...I've never seen such large water droplets created from my skin. Someone had seen a vision of a yellow tapestry. Another person had seen a white dove. I sat there and thought about how our eye wants to see things even when there is nothing to see. My skeptic brain wouldn't shut the hell up. I surely wasn't having a mystical experience..
More rocks were shuffled into the lodge, and the door was recovered.
The second round was to pray for the men in our lives. The third round was for the women. The fourth was for our Selves. People around me started talking more, sharing more...I didn't loosen up, really, until the last sweat is poured. There is so much water at this point on the grandfathers that it sounds to me like stone soup. It is warm enough, steamy enough, that all I can smell is the tobacco from the prayer ties over my head.
And my second ghost-sighting-of-sorts happens when the women around me start talking about a health condition. It looks to me like there are lots of shadows milling around the grandfathers, the rocks. Logically, I'm not seeing anything. Logically I can't even see the steam I will spot later when the doors open. But. I am seeing shadows churning around as if spirits are listening in with great attention.
I don't say anything. It frankly doesn't make any damn sense to me until I ask someone about it later and he says matter of factly, "Of course you did. That was the grandfathers."
But they're just rocks. They're red hot rocks.
But I saw something.
But but but.
When we leave the lodge, we're told to throw our prayer ties into the fire and then either go lay down in the grass or...I forget the other command, honestly, as all I wanted to do was to lie down belly to the earth, the way I saw a squirrel do a few weeks ago. I snicker at the image in my head. Someone hands around fruit, which is possibly the best idea ever. Most of the people in the lodge are starving, and have been talking about pizza for the past hour. My own hunger hits well after everyone else's, just in time for the high tea we are now late for.
I didn't have the experience I..expected? wanted? ..to have. Though I love that there was a lot of humour about it from the people running the sweat. Laughter made it all not quite so intimidating. I found that there were things I didn't say aloud that others said for me, that I wanted to pray for, that were caught up in the bundles of tobacco over my head. I'm glad I went into the sweat. I'm not sure I feel the need to do it again. I do know I have some more thinking to do about the whole thing.
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. Each of the 8 participants - all women, as (to my understanding) sweats are either all female or all male - were smudged with a feather fan made from a flamingo wing (a creature who creates the Wynn joy with its legs while standing still - interesting..) before stepping onto the island, where we were instructed to make prayer ties to bring into the sweat lodge with us. Besides being a way to focus ourselves during the sweat, it was also a way to make sure the things we wanted to pray about were not forgotten once the temperature started to rise.
(My prayers have a common theme, regardless of the colours chosen. Which wasn't my intent but made me laugh at myself once I realized what I was doing.)
We then took a break to use the ladies' room if need be and to change clothing if need be. Clothing that wicks away water is a good idea - obviously - though some people prefer to wear all cotton. (I wore a swimsuit with a sarong tied around my waist, and this worked well for me.) I should also say, it's not recommended to eat much before the sweat - yes, drink water, and lots of it; no, don't drink alcohol the night before. The fire -which looked something like - but really nothing like - this - had been burning since around 10, 10:30AM or so, and within the fire had been placed several large stones, referred to as "grandfathers," "grandmothers," or sometimes "the bones of the Earth." Generally, the stones are newly selected each time, and honestly, I don't quite grok yet the whole "grandfather" thing..which will become obvious further into the story. :) But! The stones, the "grandfathers" are sometimes taken as symbolic representations of our ancestors, and sometimes - I think - taken to be quite literally the spirits of our ancestors.
We are smudged again before returning to the island. All jewelry is removed because hot metal is - obviously - not so good against bare skin. No contacts, no glasses. One by one we crawled into the lodge, this symbolic womb, with our prayer ties in hand and with the warning that the lodge operates as a convection oven. Heat rises to the top and runs down the walls of the sweat. The hottest place to sit is directly across from the door. The coolest place, should you need a break from the heat, is closest to the ground.
The floor of our sweat was covered in pieces of cool, moist carpeting. As instructed, we tucked our prayer ties into the structures above our heads. I chose to sit not quite in the hot spot, but fairly close to it. (One of the other ladies decided to be braver and moved past me to claim that seat.)
The sweat consists of 4 stages, 4 additions of rocks. The fire tender passes a number of rocks via a metal tool of some sort to the person running the sweat, who transfers them to that small pit in the middle of the lodge. The door is closed and the lodge is made to be as dark as possible.
We settled in. One woman described her walk to the lodge earlier and said a groundhog had stopped and checked her out. "I've never been so close to one before," she commented. The woman in charge talked about what Groundhog represents and sounded pleased. I thought about my hummingbird. Interesting.
"Oh! Your ring!" The woman next to me points at the tiny claddagh I wear on my right hand. Oops. We hand it around the circle so the fire tender can put it on the altar where everyone else has left their jewelry and glasses. We're told that because it's right outside the door, our items will receive some blessings from the sweat lodge.
Prayers start, and water is poured onto the rocks.
The first blast of heat was stifling. I forgot how to breathe just for a moment, and thought oh hell, there is no way I'm gonna be able to do this...
I 'saw' a shadow move behind me, to my left, to the south. It felt male. My skeptic brain of course immediately jumped up and down and denied that impression. In some traditions, strength comes from the South, though, so..hey. I'll take that.
The first round of prayers focused on community. I was too shy to speak aloud, which was a bit of an issue. I hadn't realized the women around me would be waiting for their turn to speak; by my not speaking, I had confused the order. (Oops.)
I shifted my hand around the ground and found that under the rugs, the stones beneath us were very cold. That bit of cold helped me with the surrounding heat. I remembered how to breathe. And...I liked being that hot.
The rocks sizzled with the addition of water.
The door was uncovered, drinking water was handed around, and we talked a little. I am fascinated by how much the body can sweat...I've never seen such large water droplets created from my skin. Someone had seen a vision of a yellow tapestry. Another person had seen a white dove. I sat there and thought about how our eye wants to see things even when there is nothing to see. My skeptic brain wouldn't shut the hell up. I surely wasn't having a mystical experience..
More rocks were shuffled into the lodge, and the door was recovered.
The second round was to pray for the men in our lives. The third round was for the women. The fourth was for our Selves. People around me started talking more, sharing more...I didn't loosen up, really, until the last sweat is poured. There is so much water at this point on the grandfathers that it sounds to me like stone soup. It is warm enough, steamy enough, that all I can smell is the tobacco from the prayer ties over my head.
And my second ghost-sighting-of-sorts happens when the women around me start talking about a health condition. It looks to me like there are lots of shadows milling around the grandfathers, the rocks. Logically, I'm not seeing anything. Logically I can't even see the steam I will spot later when the doors open. But. I am seeing shadows churning around as if spirits are listening in with great attention.
I don't say anything. It frankly doesn't make any damn sense to me until I ask someone about it later and he says matter of factly, "Of course you did. That was the grandfathers."
But they're just rocks. They're red hot rocks.
But I saw something.
But but but.
When we leave the lodge, we're told to throw our prayer ties into the fire and then either go lay down in the grass or...I forget the other command, honestly, as all I wanted to do was to lie down belly to the earth, the way I saw a squirrel do a few weeks ago. I snicker at the image in my head. Someone hands around fruit, which is possibly the best idea ever. Most of the people in the lodge are starving, and have been talking about pizza for the past hour. My own hunger hits well after everyone else's, just in time for the high tea we are now late for.
I didn't have the experience I..expected? wanted? ..to have. Though I love that there was a lot of humour about it from the people running the sweat. Laughter made it all not quite so intimidating. I found that there were things I didn't say aloud that others said for me, that I wanted to pray for, that were caught up in the bundles of tobacco over my head. I'm glad I went into the sweat. I'm not sure I feel the need to do it again. I do know I have some more thinking to do about the whole thing.