"Life is an art. The way we live our lives is an expression of our deepest understanding and our whole being" Thich Nhat Hanh
It has been a long road back from the ocean to the desert and then from the real world to the plastic world. It seems loong long ago and oh so far away, but let me recount the tale of the sundancer's sweatlodge or temascal in Puerta Vallarta.
Linda, Masauke's long time companion, a sundancer and a medicine woman in her own right,is a strong woman who casts her own shadow. At the age of 59, after accomplishing a lot of impossible tasks in the Sierras, Linda decided she was going to sundance recognizing the four year commitment that involved. I met Linda 2 and a half years ago at the sundance but did not really get to know her until I started to spend time studying with Masauke. I had heard that Linda poured water for a traditional Lakota sweatlodge but had never had the opportunity to sweat with her.
I had sweat many time in Toronto with the Anishnawbe women. My teacher, a MiqMak elder, Wanda Whitebird, had been teaching me the tradition she follows. I had also sweat with the supporters at the sundance and the women who poured water there followed a variety of different traditions. I had never experienced a traditional Lakota sweatlodge.
The sweat lodge is a traditional medicine that was given to many indigenous peoples. It was given to the Lakota people by White Buffalo Calf Woman. It is a purification ceremony that involves healing the mind, body and spirit. The physical purification results from the sweating and the release of many toxins stored in the body. The spiritual purification comes from going into the womb of the mother, mother earth, which is what the sweatlodge represents, and being reborn, and the mental healing is accomplished by through the prayers that are done on behalf of the group as well as individually. The sweat lodge is a place for leaving that which no longer serves you behind, letting go old emotions, releasing bad habits or old relationships and asking for whatever you want to become part of your life. The gratitude, the petitions and the prayers are a powerful part of the healing. Lodges can be done as a healing for a particular person or they can involve asking for healing for ones self or for others.
Three days after we had arrived in Vallarta Masauke had been invited to perform a blessing at the beginning of a local temescal or sweatlodge. The sweatlodge is not his medicine and Masauke never participates in them, but he has a strong relationship with the fire so he agreed to open the ceremonies. At that temascal, which was a mixed lodge, i.e. for men and women, Masauke asked if there was a women's group who would be interested in a women's sweat, knowing that Linda, his companion was coming to Vallarta in 3 days. The women of Vallarta were thrilled with the possibility of a traditional Lakota sweat and Diana, a young woman, friend of my spiritual brother Julian and his very spiritual roommate Javier agreed to organize the women and make the arrangements with the owner of the site where the lodge was held. Julian volunteered to get the wood for the sacred fire.
I emailed Linda to confirm that the sweatlodge was really on as Masauke, in his usual mischievous fashion, had only told her to bring her feathers because he had left from the desert without his, thinking he was going on vacation. He would later tell me "That's what I get for thinking about taking a vacation!". Linda arrived on Tuesday and the sweat was scheduled for Wednesday evening. The morning of the sweatlodge Julian, who is a scuba instructor par excellence, arranged for Linda and I to take the first scuba lesson in a pool in one of the luxury condominium hotels by the sea. I had scuba dived many years before but at 63, this was Linda's first time trying something she had wanted to do all her life. The experience of connecting with the water, which I will elaborate on in a later entry, was to prepare us well for the sweatlodge that was to follow.
Diana, the young Mexican woman who was to become Linda's chief assistant for that sweatlodge, also a scuba instructor, joined us at Los Tules. At 5pm we headed out of town to a close by suburb where the group had built the sweatlodge. The men agreed to wait in the van outside the property, where Masauke would later hold court for the young men who would arrive. After sweeping the entire grounds and putting the coverings on the lodge frame, Linda was ready to say the opening prayer needed to set the wood for the the ceremonial fire. That done, Linda set the base pieces of wood in the directions they needed to be and then we piled on the rest of the wood and added the 28 grandfathers and grandmothers, the volcanic stones that would be holding the heat for our ceremony.
Under Linda's instruction Diana tended the fire. When the stones were hot enough we made the prayer ties that would carry our prayers and would serve as protection during the ceremony. Two women who were on their moon and one who was 8 months pregnant could not enter the lodge but stayed outside with the sacred fire. The remainder of the group of about 15 women entered the lodge, circling around the now enclosed frame and circling at the entrance way before going in. It was a very large lodge. I was used to lodges that were much smaller.
I sat in the position I usually sit in, facing the door, one of the hottest spots in the lodge, though I expected that would not be an issue because of the size of the lodge. I was wrong! Linda's lodge is very traditional and very powerful. We started about 9 pm at night and it ended about 1 am. It was the first evening lodge that I had ever taken part in. Linda sang some powerful Lakota songs. The women joined in with an array of songs in Spanish that I had never heard. We greeted the spirits, invited them to join us, each said our own prayer and then thanked the spirits for joining us. Even though the fire was dying towards the end, each of the rounds was hotter than the last.
I felt that I was recognizing and letting go of some powerful companions that had been with me for a long time, energies that I no longer needed. Although it was not as hot as other sweats I have been in, there were times when I felt I could not breathe, that there was an elephant sitting on my chest. I was praying constantly. I felt that I was 'pagando caro' as the Huichols would say, paying a heavy price, for what exactly I was not sure, some past emotion, deed, thought or action that I needed to be rid of. It did not want to let go of me and struggled till the bitter end to stay in place. In the end, the power of the sundancer's Lakota lodge had it beat. When it was finally time to leave the lodge, I did feel as though I had been re-born, as if I was crawling out of the womb.
All the women who were in the sweat lodge were incredibly grateful to Linda for all they had learned about the Lakota way of the sweat lodge and for the powerful blessing and healing they had received. I too had to say thank you Linda for the incredibly powerful healing!!
Lessons learned: 1) When you are on the spirit path there are no vacations!, 2) As I have learned in my martial arts training, always be prepared to do anything you know how to do!, 3) Expect the unexpected!
Stay Tuned. Staywell and Travel with Spirit, Spirit Traveller.
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