Sweat Lodge
The “grandfathers” are brought in one by one, smoking hot with a red translucence in the gloom of the sweat lodge. The grandfathers: stones brought from the earth, heated with the fire of grandmother tree. The deep, round hole in the centre of the low, round lodge fills up with crackling heat.
The door on the birchbark-and-cloth hut is closed. The afternoon sunlight disappears and the darkness is total.
Water is ladled onto the stones as a voice emerges from the darkness. There are no holy people, nor unholy. No devil, either. Those who preach such fear-mongering are seeking followers, not leaders. This is a place for leaders.
The water hits the stones, hissing like snakes, crackling like bullets. The heat hits me like a tidal wave and I can’t breath. Panic rises as I glance in the darkness toward the door; one word and I’m out. Around me, men and women settle in for the first, “warm,” round. I hear them breathing, feel their bodies.
I concentrate on breathing in, breathing out. I put my towel over my face. It cools the air enough to take it in. Out. In. Out.
My heart settles.
The sweat lodge is about humility, about going deep down into the earth to find your roots. My guide, who asks me not to use his name to honour the spirit of humility, told me about his long road to the lodge. Raised in day schools, he learned to hate himself. He fell into a bottle and when he emerged, he was surprised to see “an Indian” staring back at him. Everyone else knew he was an Indian, he said. He didn’t. He learned. He had been taught to be ashamed of his Mi’kmaw culture. He thought it was dirty. When he watched cowboy and Indian movies at the cinema, he rooted for the cowboys.
He cleaned himself up. He studied sweat lodges for seven years before he was able to offer them himself. He learned the road the grandfather walks is the road the grandson inherits.
Water smashes against the hot stone; the air is incinerated. My skin is a lake. I find my towel, soaked with snot and sweat. I hesitate for a second, then press it into my face: the air feels so cool filtered through it that for the first time in my life, snot seems beautiful.
Prayers are offered, songs are sung. Grape juice and moose meat is handed around.
Another ladle of water lashes against the stones. It’s like breathing in raw fire. I struggle to stay calm and notice a funny thing: when my mind wanders to how I’m going to set this status on Facebook, or to whether I remembered to lock my car, I lose my breathing and start to panic. When I focus solely on the business of breathing in and breathing out, I can just manage. I’m starting to feel like a Zen master.
Another lash of water on the hot stones and my nose just refuses to pull in any air. I tell it this is a bad idea, but it doesn’t care. I stuff the snotty and sweaty towel to my nose, but it makes no difference.
Another lash.
I turn away from the centre, crawl to the back wall of the lodge. I lower my head to the ground, claw at the canvas until the earth is revealed. I press my nose into the soil, sucking in the dirt-scented air.
My guide told me the sweat lodge is not a spiritual experience, it’s a human experience. It’s mental and physical, he said. That’s all we know. We’ll learn the spiritual side when we get to the spirit world. Don’t bang your brains out worrying about the spiritual now.
Another lash on the rocks breaks me.
“All my relations,” I croak, and the door is opened, flooding the lodge with light. I crawl toward daylight, pressing through a haze of faces travelling deep within themselves, past the smoking pit of stone. My arms and legs tremble as I crawl to the unbelievably blue sky. I collapse in the freshest patch of grass I’ve even felt. The breeze passes blissfully over my skin. It tastes sweeter than sugar.
I’m overwhelmed by the joy of being alive.
Of breathing.
First published in the Chronicle-Herald Sept. 6 2009