I went to a traditional Native American Sweat Lodge Ceremony this morning, I guess I just wanted to sweat it out. It was really a surprisingly humbling experience. I was appointed to be one of the firekeepers for the ceremony because I was early (wahh waahhh) but it was tight because I got to play with the volcanic rocks. (The medicine man Samuel told me the rocks were a race of beings, so I was to be gentle with them.)
The fire oven used to heat up the volcanic rocks 'till they were glowing was on the east pointing
directly to the west, and the entrance to the sweat lodge, which was basically a dome-shaped
structure covered with a bunch of blankets and tarps. The last layer were really colorful woven
quilts. Samuel even thought of putting one of those pretty quilts as the first layer so we'd have
something pretty to look up to. The ceremony went underway, and there were four sessions that gradually added 7 more rocks to the pit inside the lodge.
All's I got to say is, shit's intense. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually. So intense, that the water that they had to drink between sessions tasted soooo good.
But afterwards, the family that hosted the ceremony fed us some menudo, burritos, fruits, and juice. I was hella hungry. After getting my fill, I felt really good. Like I-wanna-run-hella-fast-and-do-a-not-so-long-long-jump good. There's a lot of other things that I should write about, like how the fire oven and the lodge was arranged to symbolize man's passion and the woman's womb.
There's some other cool things like how the ceremony was really the re-enactment of the creation story. And how I felt that I saw a real difference between adults and young people at the lodge. It is all about experience.
In the meantime, there's finals to knock out.
