No Sweat

I have done a couple of sweat lodges, both of which were very powerful for me, so when my friend decided to do one for New Year's Eve, I was very surprised not to be excited about it. Normally I would jump at the chance, especially on New Year's Eve! How better to prepare for the new year than to release the old by litterally sweating it out? Still I just kept feeling I wasn't going to take part, atleast inside. My friend totally honored my feelings, suggesting I be a fire tender instead. The image of standing alone by a blazing fire, in sacred space beneath the full blue moon, while others sang, prayed, and sweated nearby appealed to and lit a spark in me. How symbolic as I birth my own light! I felt extremely ready for this job, having spent a vast amount of hours building fires and poking at them with my dad on our family campouts as a boy.

As with most things, I didn't realize the full significance of things until after the event. In fact some have only now occurred to me as I write this. There I was under the watchful eye and guidance of Artemis, Goddess of the moon and of childbirth (and my personal Matron Goddess), tending the fire and standing watch, ready to help others who lay in the womb of the Earth preparing to be born again. Unwittingly I was following in Her footsteps. Wow!


Anyway, accepting the fire tender duties resolved my feelings of confusion, and I excitedly looked forward to this new honor. Of course I was expecting a nice quiet leisurely night of standing around, poking at the fire and gazing lovingly at the moon. ...That's not how it works.


We started preparing the lodge and getting ready for the ceremony. As we were choosing the Grandfater stones that we would heat in the fire then place in the lodge, thunder boomed through the air. My friend stopped. "Is that what I thought it was?" Again a booming rolled and resounded through the sky. The Thunder Beings had arrived, gracing us with their presence and witnessing our lodge. "Watch what you say," my friend reiterated what she'd told us earlier. "They're listening and anything you ask for, or challenge them with, you will face." "Have you got a gag I could borrow?" I replied, smiling, fully aware of the influence Coyote, the Trickster in Native American mythology, sometimes has over me.


We started stacking the 30 Grandfathers, and despite working with the 'bones of the Earth' I found myself very ungrounded, to the point of stumbling and tripping over things in the dark. Not surprisingly, our first attempt toppled and we had to start over. My friend reminded us "Listen to the stones. They will tell you where they go." We began building again, and I found as I quieted myself and picked up each stone, I would see where it would fit on our growing stack. The second attempt stood. We lit the fire from the four directions, then let it burn for a few hours, allowing the lava rocks to heat to the point of glowing.


Finally we were ready to start, so one by one everybody turned to the four directions, knelt down, and crawled into the lodge. That's when my job became more active, and I was surprised at how winded I got, digging 10 stones out of the fire, balancing them on a pitchfork as I carried them, first to get the ashes brushed off, then to the sweat lodge where I slid them, still on the pitch fork, on the ground and deposited them in the pit that was dug into the middle of the lodge. They were big and heavy and literally red hot, and it was with a sigh of relief that I sat down outside after closing the door flap of the lodge. A lot more work than I thought!
I walked around the fire, feeling like a mother alligator burying her eggs and keeping them protected and warm, as I swept burning wood and coals over the stones, now strewn around the sacred fire. I paused a number of times to look up at Grandmother Moon shining brilliantly down upon me, and I whispered a prayer of thanks to Pan, Greek god of Nature, for answering my request for a clear night. There were still sprinkles here and there but for the most part it was perfect.


In the lane between the fire and the lodge was a small altar, and part of my job was to keep the candle on it lit. This proved impossible under the branches of the hazel trees that shelter the lodge, for they continued to drip water even if it weren't raining. After burning my finger on my last attempt to light the candle, I looked up at the moon, framed beautifully in the dark lines of the branches, and realized She was providing the light for the altar tonight. I smiled and sat back at my post outside the door of the lodge. Then, even though I wasn't sweating with everyone else, I began my own cleansing. Tears began to fall.


Toward the end of the third round of adding new stones and closing the door, one of the participants said he needed to get out. This is not uncommon as this is a very intense experience that pushes people to their limits. Anyone is allowed out at anytime they feel it neccessary. However, this person, as he arrived at the opening of the lodge, passed out.

It was interesting where my mind went at that point. Still feeling rather ungrounded, all my fears lept to the forefront of my brain. Granted, I've never been around someone when they pass out, so that was unnerving in itself. But as we helped him come around, got him to the fire and retrieved some water for him to drink, my thoughts kept ranging back and forth, rooting up old doubts and fears, mostly about "what if none of this is real and someone nearly died?" The funny thing is that earlier that day I had been talking to another friend about my vision quest, saying one of the biggest things that came out of that experience was the realization that I could no longer pretend these things were not real. I do hear my spirit guides speaking to me. I do tune into the feelings of others. I do talk to animals, particularly, it seems, dead ones. But here I was questioning again.

The ceremony continued it's 4th and last round uneventfully, but I was feeling pretty shaken. I did start feeling better, even to the point of joking and laughing, as we returned to the house afterwards and ate a bit of food, despite it now being 2am. The man who had passed out was recovering, which did wonders for my mood. Still the little doubts and questions persisted, and were still present when I awoke the next morning. "Where is this coming from?" I kept asking myself. "I've already dealt with this crap. I've been through this before. Why is it coming up again?" I walked into my friend's bathroom, my head still wrangling with these thoughts.


All it took was a moment to regain my balance and groundedness. I looked up and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar flash of light. It was a faery.


"Okay! It is all real!" :)


NOTE: I should state that the man who passed out did not nearly die. That was just one of the fear thoughts running around in my brain.