ST38 ... I crawled out of the sweat lodge on my elbows
My arms were paralyzed
I crawled out of the sweat lodge on my elbows. My arms were paralyzed. My first ten times or so of experiencing sweats in mid winter took me to my limits. My best friend had just hung himself. He used a huge beautiful maple tree a few blocks from his home on the side of a hill in the back yard of a church over looking a vast field of a high school. How appropriate. We had just sat under that very tree a few months back with the beauty of autumn leaves falling all around us. He confided with me about his suicidal thoughts, his tortured times. We talked about life and death as we often did. It didn't feel more unusual than normal.
I was feeling guilty at times for not helping Don more than i did. Of course now, looking back, that is expected. None the less, of course, i could have done more. We can always do more to help out in this world. Even saints fail, often.
I was having difficulty in these first few sweats. I remember one time that i promised myself that i would stay in for the whole sweat no matter what, no matter how hard it was, in honour of Don, to help his wandering spirit. This was one of those intense, hotter than hell, ultimate panicking sweats. I couldn't, i didn't. All fear wrapped up into one moment of panic, undescribable. After yelling to get out, Vern the conductor(medicine man) had the flaps opened. That was after the 3rd round but then he let me back in after i regained my strength, my balance. I was very thankful and after the sweat and after breaking thru the ice of the creek to immerse my being, i thanked Vern. He said, he could feel there was a break thru happening and he was just listening to his heart for instructions. That is the job of a medicine man running ceremonies. There is no program, it's all live lessons, micro moment decisions. At any rate, i made it thru and felt better, humbled and empowered. I didn't let Don down and i had no right to judge him for his actions, not that i did, but many of my friends did and probably still do. No human is perfectly right, strong, always totally courageous. We all need help and we all need to help. One can never know just how difficult it is for another human being within their wounded mind and disconnected heart.
That was one of those lessons that embeds a deep groove into the brain somewhere never to be forgotten. It is beyond memory, a lesson engraved into the souls genetics of ones being. Not necessarily understood by the mind, but forever present in ones spirit. I don't claim to understand and certainly not to express this with words that can never reach the pure essence.
Ceremonies such as rain dancing for four days from sun up to sundown with no food or water and then on the fourth day piercing ones chest and breaking the skin from dancing backwards attached to a sacred tree leaves one in a state that slips into the spirit with a similar sacred touch. This is common amongst indigenous ways thru-out the world. Ceremonies that alleviate the misinterpretations of the mind to connect directly with the intelligence of life, the universe, christ-consciousness, the great mystery…..call it what you want, it is nameless. These ways help man to be in balance from the arrogance of the mind and its constant attempting to control the mysterious intelligence that comes thru the heart with knowings a healthy mind would certainly recognize and obey.
We have lost so many of these ways to the adoration of reason, logic, science. We are the fallen angels. The digital separators to one or the other has destroyed the understanding and beauty of a little yang in yin and a little yin in yang. This may seem all too simple but we are attempting to clarify the great mystery with 'knowns' that can never be purely black or white.
One can wake up naturally, or with a slap in the face, a knife in the back. Today, these slaps and knives are cancers, deathly experiments , catastrophes, torture of ones soul, mind, body.
We are walking symbols of ways that don't exist in reality, abstracts unnatural, dreams twisting nature into a knot.
But it's all good. We have the tools for the way. The beauty surrounds us, our time is short and we are forgiven with love much too simple for our complicated minds to comprehend, but our hearts know…………'that sentiment was once whispered thru cosmic winds embracing my open mind along side grandfather peyote'.
for don, once a best friend
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From Charlotte - charlotte.timmins16@gmail.com You nailed it here. You have written a poignant description of loss wonder and going ahead anyway.
I loved reading this, even the alone sadness has meaning for hope.
Thanks,
I remember the sweat lodges at your place in Petersberg....good memories that reverberate through the mists of time. Gratitude for those times.
"We are forgiven with love much too simple for our complicated minds to comprehend, but our hearts know....." There's a pearl.