This past Sunday, I participated in a sweat lodge. One of my previous posts, from August 2005, spoke a little about my other experiences with sweat lodges. In this post, I am going to recount my experience from a slightly different perspective.
This was my second sweat with Tom Blue Wolf, of Earth Keepers, as water pourer and host of the lodge. Each of the sweats I participated in are unique and beautiful in their own way, and I am extremely grateful to have been invited to participate in each of them.
In preparation for this particular lodge, I fasted for two days prior to the lodge, and since we didn't emerge until early evening, I was at 70 hours without food before we ate. Also in preparation the week before the lodge, I made prayer ties. Some of the prayers I used were from different traditions, and some where just from the heart or from guidance from meditations. On Sunday, I was able to place the prayer ties I had brought onto the lodge. We then covered the lodge, made the fire, said our prayers, lit the fire, and waited for the grandfathers (rocks) to heat. A little more than two hours later we entered the lodge.
One of the objectives of this sweat for me, besides curiosity, was a basic and thorough cleansing. My personal experience has shown me that this particular method of purification has been transformative and healing in many ways. The other objective, if extremely personal, is that I had already dreamt it and wanted to see how it would be this time around. Experiencing the reality of the dream and the other reality of living it on Sunday, gave me tremendous insight.
From a spiritual perspective, it is one of the most interesting rituals I have ever participated in. The songs and prayers along with the extremely high temperatures tested my endurance and took me to a place of total joy the last time. This time, the lodge took me to a place of clarity and increased personal awareness of who I am. During this lodge, like the previous one, I recognized many of the participants from prior dreaming.
The lodge consisted of four rounds. Each round began with grandfathers coming into the lodge. The first round we sang and each of us said prayers for awakening. The second round, we did the same thing for healing. In the third round of four, I received a vision of a small spider who suspended herself right in front of the middle of my forehead (third eye region). I had seen this the week prior to the sweat in one of my meditations, too. During the final round of the sweat, (and the most difficult round for me because of the heat), we all prayed aloud as one. At one point, words came out of my mouth that I didn't recognize. I found myself responding to or echoing a prayer I was hearing Tom say, and I had reached my limit. Fortunately for me, we were able to end the round shortly thereafter, and receive fresh air.
There have been times in my recapitulation of these lodges where I have found myself slightly embarrassed by my actions or words. This reminds me that the path of enlightenment can also be the path of embarrassment. Finding that I had to end the fourth round seems to be a slightly personal embarrassment. Also, slightly embarrassing (in retrospect) is the way my heart opens and I become more affectionate and less inhibited communicating than I would normally allow myself to be. This might be because I feel familiar with these people, since I've "known" them before from my dreaming. As time passes, I have even more remembrances of my dreams of these people and more of my own 'part' in those dreams.
The lodge and it's unfoldment continued last night and this morning, as I looked out at the full moon, and in my dreams. Coincidentally, this full moon is in Gemini and fell directly on my ascendant (astrologically) early this morning. It was spiritually meaningful to me to be able to be a part of "birthing" this new lodge and full moon.
