Sweat lodge and the state of being
As I was lying on my couch focusing on the breath and relaxation of my body, eyes soaking the greenness of the tree in front of the window of my apartment, I entered a memory made not so long ago – a memory of my being in the sweat lodge during the Phoenix Retreat a year ago.
Trying to stay present and not to act upon any impulse of my body to get up – the impulse which tries to avoid the unpleasant tension that paradoxically rises with relaxation – reminded me to go back to the wisdom of that experience.
That sweat lodge was the first one in my life (or at least in this lifetime). I remember my hands shaking when I got the honor of starting the fire as being the youngest member of the group that day. As a 25 year-old at the time I felt that all the knowledge I have gathered in my life could not prepare me for what will be happening as soon as I would enter the sweat lodge.
Even though I was excited, felt very strong and approached the ceremony decidedly and fatefully, on the day of the ceremony I started to listen more carefully the parts of me that were ready for sabotage.
As my journey with the Movement Medicine has started just a couple of months before Phoenix Retreat, getting ready for the sweat lodge made me question every decision I have made up to that point – including the one where I have been accepted to the Movement Medicine Apprenticeship Programme.
Even though I have been dancing for years and I do honour the intelligence of my moving body, there was something in the teaching of the Movement Medicine that made my courageous self scared to the bones. At the same time it moved me so deeply towards remembering of who I am and what am I made of in the ways my mind could only bow to it and step aside.
So, there I was, all dressed down to my most natural self, scared, excited and feeling deep respect for the ceremony that was about to happen. Even though I was a cataclysm of emotion and thought, bearing in my consciousness a couple of big life questions I was ready to bring to the Great Spirit, the thing that was worrying me the most was how will my body react to such a heat since I was having my period. The scene of walking out with blood on my thighs was my worst case scenario. Having said this, it is almost unnecessary to emphasize that it was a time of my life when I was struggling with shame around femininity. I was on the quest to discover what does being a woman really mean, what kind of woman am I and how can I accept my femininity with pleasure and respect.
I have learned very early in life to keep all my struggles to myself and not let it show. Therefore, I was surprised when the gates of the sweat lodge had closed for the first time and the darkness started to absorb every familiarity around me, that I was grabbing the closest hand to me as tightly as I could.
In the next couple of hours I have dived into a journey through the parts of me that were ready to come to the surface. I remember I had to remind myself as often as I could that there were many before me that went through that ceremony and got out of it alive. There was a part of me ready to remind me of it whenever I needed it. I must admit I was not afraid of dying, I was afraid of the fear itself.
After the first wave of panic my lungs and body remembered how to breathe in such a hot and steamy air. My mind was the next one that needed justification. In the middle of the song we were all singing together I suddenly remembered that for years I had a strong fear of darkness accompanied with the fear of small spaces. Sweat lodge was the perfect place to be reminded of it. I began sensing the tension in my body and releasing the scream that was only heard in my mind. At the same time I was thinking how fascinating it is that I had a blank spot on the memory of my fears for months before when I knew I’d be going into a sweat lodge ceremony – no part of my consciousness connected the dots between those fears and the fact that sweat lodge would be dark and small, incredibly hot and full, and the gates would be closed.
Apart from my ability to stay focused, a great deal of support was coming from the outside – from my teachers Susannah and Ya’Acov, from my companions in the lodge whose both courage and fear reminded me that I was not alone and from the entire drumming field around us, literally and metaphorically, from what is seen and unseen.
As I was sitting there round after round catching myself screaming ‘door’ in my mind every two minutes, I was on the edge of what I thought was my sanity. I was feeling layers of fear, anger, desperation and disbelief rising from somewhere within my body to my consciousness. They were getting ready to be released to the chanting, to steamy air, sweat of my body, cold ground holding my weight, to the fire and drums in front of the lodge and to the heavenly starry night above us.
Being able to stay present with what was happening within me and at the same time standing behind it and not acting upon it, I finally got to the point where my ego and mind were ready to surrender. I have entered a place where a deep prayer was the only impulse I had. I heard my voice starting to get louder and louder saying Oče naš, koji jesi na nebesima, sveti se ime tvoje, dođi kraljevstvo tvoje… (*Our father, who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name, thy kingdom come…), a prayer which I haven’t used for twenty years up to that point.
In that moment I could feel teardrops full of relief coming to my eyes and their scrolling on my cheeks. I could feel with every cell in my body, with my entire heart, with every part of my being that everything is all right, that everything was and everything will be all right. I could feel there was something so much greater then me – something so great, loving and kind that every word fails to describe it. I could feel I was a part of it and it was a part of me.
As I feel today that that ceremony lasted longer than those almost four hours we were in the sweat lodge, I can sense how much preparation beforehand was necessary. And I don’t mean it only in the practical way of the preparation of that day that connected each and every one of us closer before we entered the lodge. I dare to say that preparation for this ceremony (and every one which will follow) has been building inside me my whole life. And my life – it is a westerner’s life. It is a life that up to that point has been lacking living the wisdom that has been passed on for centuries. If I think today which part of me was resisting the most, which one tried to maneuver around facing the storm inside me, I can see that it is a part that I love a lot – a part that is ready to do whatever is necessary to keep me safe. State of doing is a part of my legacy – doing something about it, doing something is what I have learned to do. But if this sweat lodge has thought me anything, it is that being with it instead of doing something about it is sometimes even more valuable. When my thoughts and emotion were changing so quickly and intensively, state of being is what I needed to witness a new wave rising inside me until it would go back just like a tide to the darkness – to give in, to surrender, to accept whatever was happening was the only way it was possible to go from one minute to another.
As much as I value working my way through whatever it is, since that sweat lodge I have learned (and am still learning) to honour this state of allowance, acceptance and surrender with as less intervening as possible. I have learned (and am still learning) that, in order to fully embrace the answer to my prayers and the gifts that follow every hard work, sometimes I just have to sit still and wait for the magic called Life to happen.