Sweat Lodges have been around for thousands of years in many indigenous cultures. Although the Native American sweat lodge is most known to us today, similar structures and ceremonies have been part ànd are still part of cultures closer to home than you might think initially. In fact, there is a Celtic sweat lodge tradition still alive to this day and also archeological evidence of sweat lodge ceremonies in for instance Iceland, the Nordic countries (Scandinavia) and Europe.
"As far as the Native American ritual is concerned, it is known to be performed for a variety of reasons or combination of. For instance for physical, mental and spiritual healing and/or purification. For transpersonal development. For direct communion with our Creator. For communion with spirit or animal guides, elemental powers or one's own soul. It is a place where someone may figure out life's personal challenges by seeking visions and guidance from the spirit world.
In the past it has been used by the tribes to prepare for sport and games, or to make 'protective medicine' before going to war. Those who came back from war made ceremony in order to cleanse the soul from the atrocities, to remove potential mental flashbacks and to protect against possible tormenting ghosts. Up to this day it is sometimes used to purify oneself after a funeral. The Sweat Lodge ceremony, in this respect, has served and serves as both a spiritual tool and a way of dealing with all kinds of aspects of life." *
* source: Medicine Grizzlybear Lake - Native Healer 1997 T.P.H. |
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Through my personal experience over the years of attending lodges, tending fire for them, serving the rocks and pouring water in the Lodge, I have found that the ceremony is a most profound opportunity to commune with our Creator whilst at the same time being intimately close to our Mother Earth.
During the ceremony the door to the spirit world is wide open, our souls are tenderly held in the loving hands of our Creator, and the magic of life freely enters our hearts. Our bodies and minds are purified and the space is held for deep healing to occur.
The ceremony brings us 'home' to being deeply connected to the divine ànd so very much integrated in our human-ness and in this physical reality. The gift of the Lodge for me is that it bridges Heaven and Earth within our human experience. |
In general a ceremony consists of four rounds of prayer, one for each cardinal direction: South, West, North and East.
At the beginning of each round the 'pourer of the water' (the one leading the ceremony) invites the Spirits of each direction into the Lodge upon which every participant gets the opportunity to pray out loud with a rattle and a talking stick. Meanwhile he or she, who leads, pours water on the red hot rocks that sit in a pit in the center of the Lodge, creating the purifying steam (the breath of the rock people).
The actual praying in the Lodge is preceded by a smudging (purifying by burning sage or other herbs) of all the tools, everybody involved and the area of the Sweat Lodge. The building and / or covering of the Lodge structure, the beautifying of the altar, the building and lighting of the fire used for heating the rocks is shared by all and everyone also observes a period of fasting prior to the ceremony. |
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My first experience of a Sweat Lodge ceremony was in the late 90's with my current teacher Peggy Dylan. Then, as part of the SUNDOOR Masters program that started in 2000, we received an introductory initiation into sweat lodge teachings by a Native American Ceremonialist and a descendent of the Tigua, Ysleta Pueblo del Sur of Texas and the Tarascos de Michoacan of Mexico.
Over the following years, within the SUNDOOR trainings and under the strict guidance of Peggy, who herself was taught by Richard Deertrack, a Native American medicine man of Taos Peublo descent, some of us slowly developed the ability to hold the ceremony in its completeness. It took me years to be gifted enough of an inner space and spiritual maturity and capacity to hold the space of the ceremony in its entirety.
I am aware that I've only skimmed the top of the amazing depth that the ceremony holds and consider myself a student and instrument of Spirit foremost and always. From that place I've been leading Sweat Lodge ceremonies ever since and in the ceremonial work have adapted a fluid mix of the teachings of my before mentioned teachers, and their teachers.... |
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