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Before the previous day’s introduction session, we had all been strangers.
The desire to learn about Native American spirituality had brought a couple dozen of us together for a two-day workshop on the Lakota Inipi, or sweat lodge ceremony. It was taught by Marilyn Youngbird, a teacher and tribal member of the Arikara and Hidatsa Nations.
On the first day, we were given some basic instruction on how to participate in a good way, being as respectful as a bunch of mostly white, privileged, and clueless twenty-somethings could be within the Earth-aligned, indigenous ritual. The second day involved an hour-long bus ride out of the city to upstate New York, where we would be invited to enter the lodge.
It was the end of the Eighties and I had spent much of that decade finishing college, grooving on the party scene, and finding my way as a young, commercial artist in the corporate worlds of southern Connecticut and New York City. There had been a lot of cocaine, hazy sex, drunken driving, and disenchantment.
One day, I found myself sobbing in my room, trying to keep quiet so the other young, self-indulgent professionals I shared a large house with wouldn’t hear. It was the first time I had cried in over ten years and I couldn’t stop.
That was the day I quit the booger sugar and became a seeker for some meaning beyond the chase for worldly success and hedonistic thrills.
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A sympathetic friend gave me the book, “Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions”, by Richard Erdoes, hoping it would inspire some type of healing. After reading it, I wanted to discover my own vision of how to live my life.
The bus ride on the second day felt quick and we pulled through the gates of an ordinary looking farm. There were a few buildings scattered about, the typical red barns with white trim found in that part of the country. It was an unlikely place for a Native American ceremony.
We parked in front of one of the barns and were shown a bathroom and a place to change clothes. Marilyn had suggested how we should dress for the lodge and that we should have extra clothes with us. One of my classmates had jokingly asked if that was because we would be shitting ourselves. No one had laughed. I changed into some cutoffs and an old t-shirt.
The lodge was on the back end of the property, away from buildings. It was a dome shape with its center about five feet tall. There was a small, dark opening on one side. It was made from a framework of bent willow branches and covered with large pieces of canvas and blankets. There was a roaring fire for heating stones close to the opening.
Marilyn sat on the ground and welcomed each one of us with a bath of smoke from a bundle of burning sage as we crawled on all fours into the lodge. She ensured we were covered with the smoke by fanning it with a large, beaded eagle feather. As we had been instructed, when we entered we each said, “Mitakuye Oyasin“, which is a prayer honoring the knowledge that we are all related, all the living beings who share this planet. Some of us spoke it out clearly, others, including myself, whispered the sacred words.
Marilyn was the last to enter. It was very cramped as we squeezed against each other and settled in as best we could around an empty pit in the center. I was feeling anxious and excited. She called out to a young couple who were tending the fire. “Bring in seven stones!” she said. And, one-by-one, a young woman brought in seven, glowing stones from the fire with a pitchfork. Marilyn offered prayers and smoke to each stone. She guided the stones into the pit with a pair of antlers. Once the final stone was in place, she asked the young woman to close the flap.
It was black, except for the glowing stones. She poured water over the stones and the darkness instantly filled with moist, sizzling heat—heat like I had never felt before.
There was four rounds total, with more stones added each round. I tried to escape the heat by bending low, getting as close to the ground as I could. I actually had my mouth pressed against the earth at one point.
After the final round, Marilyn called for the flap to be opened and we all welcomed the cooling air like it was the miracle breath of the Almighty.
We crawled out of the lodge and looked for a space to gather ourselves. I was covered in sweaty mud and found an inviting oak tree to sit against. I was smiling in the most honest way. My heart was totally exposed, beating happily like a newborn baby. Everything and everyone was just awesome and all was love! The truth of Mitakuye Oyasin, of the deep connection we share with all of life, filled my thoughts and senses.
We had discovered who we truly were underneath all of our ego nonsense.
The songs we sang together, the prayers we offered, the breath we shared in that wondrous and moist darkness, had split me wide open, ripping apart the ego armor I had manufactured over the years to protect those more delicate parts of my soul. The honest expression of my humanity had never known such freedom. I had never felt more exposed or vulnerable. And it was all good because all those who had just crawled out were sharing that same, entangled, intimate headspace. It was safe, natural, and delightful!
That feeling of intimacy lasted for the entire bus ride back to the city. There wasn’t a lot of talking, but the energy of love and the connection of shared spirit was palpable.
As we got off the bus it suddenly dawned on us that the glorious experience was over. We promised each other to keep in touch and went our separate ways, each carrying a bundle of muddy clothes.
I was suddenly alone in lower Manhattan and the bliss of moments before became shadowed in the frenzied pedestrian currents of East Broadway. I made my way to the subway station. I felt too high to be in public. My love-filled heart was beating outside my chest, like the heart of Jesus in a velvet painting. But the context for such vulnerability was all wrong. I became afraid.
I somehow made my way onto the correct subway. I looked at all the downturned faces in the car and felt all their pain and fear that normally bumps up against my ego-armor without notice. But not today. I was too open, too exposed, and defenseless for the city.
Even though I wasn’t close to home, I got off at the next stop. I was closing in on a panic attack. I needed to get grounded, back to my usual armored self. I ran up to the street and found the nearest bar. I ordered a double shot of tequila. It quickly did the trick.
That shared experience in the lodge showed me how far we live from our natural state of being in this contemporary world. We are made for that open state of love, connection, and vulnerability. This is who we truly are.
Our hearts belong outside, beating in the fresh air! Instead, we imprison them beneath the contrived walls of our calloused and fearful personalities. We’ve become the tragic victims of our own fear.
The lodge gave me a mission. I began making it my business to discover that open-hearted state again, and to learn how to bring that openness and vulnerability into the insanity of the modern age without fear. This has been a work in progress for going on thirty years now. Maybe this is what we are all here to do. I guess Marilyn Youngbird had put me on a pretty serious path, the path of Mitakuye Oyasin, of knowing and expressing that we are truly all related.
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