#sweat lodge

[rabbitcruiser]

Kayenta Township was established on November 13, 1986.

[shamandrummer]

The Sweat Lodge Ceremony

In September of 1991, I began hosting a weekly teaching sweat lodge ceremony on four acres of secluded, unimproved forest land that my wife and I owned near Bend, Oregon. The ceremonies were conducted by Wasco elder Les Thomas and Oglala Lakota elder Don Fasthorse. Many people gathered to learn, and then left the group to teach others. The sweat lodge is as a spiritual purification ceremony of rebirth, rejuvenation, emotional release and awakening. The ceremony serves to cleanse the body, mind and spirit while opening a path of communication between the spiritual and earthly realms. The intense heat generated by steam created from pouring water onto heated rocks is meant to encourage a sweating out of toxins and negative energy that create imbalance in life. Sweat lodge ceremonies are traditionally held for a variety of reasons: before warriors go into battle, before and after major rituals like vision quests or for personal purification.

Sweat lodges are unique dome-shaped structures approximately four to five feet high at the center. They are constructed from supple willow branches and covered with rugs, furs and blankets. When a sweat lodge is built according to tradition, it looks like the body of a turtle. This is because the structure represents Turtle Island or Mother Earth. Entering the lodge symbolizes going back into the womb. It provides a safe and secure place to pray for self, others and all our relations. During the ceremony, spirits are invoked, drums are played and songs are sung. Spirits will enter and sing along with the participants and may even talk to them as well. If a person is not ready to hear the spirits, the spirits may not let that person hear them. Only those who are ready to hear the spirits may hear them because that is how compassionate the spirits are.

The Lakota term for sweat lodge is inipi, which translates to "Stone People Lodge." The Stone People, who are often referred to as the "grandfathers," come from the womb of our Mother Earth. The purpose of the inipi is to return to the womb of Maka (Earth) to be recreated. The Stone People become alive again when their spirits come into the Stone People Lodge. Then you can visit with them and tell them your problems. Then the power that pollutes our mind can be released. The fire from the womb of the Earth Mother will come in and destroy bad thoughts and words. Only good thoughts and words will remain. The spirits of the Stone People return our power to us. That's what Spirit does -- the Stone People, fire, water and green (the plants). The inipi is a place of healing, of purification and of prayer for all life.

A sweat lodge typically has four doors (or rounds) to the four directions (or winds), represented with colors, spirit guides and different elements. The number four has long been considered a sacred number in shamanism and Native American spirituality. All events and actions are based on this number because everything was created in fours. The Great Mystery reveals itself as the powers of the four directions, and these four powers provide the organizing principle for everything that exists in the world. There are four winds, four seasons, four elements, four phases of the moon, four stages to humanity's spiritual evolution, and so on.

The whole process is modeled after the Medicine Wheel, which is a universal symbol that can be found in many Indigenous cultures around the world. The Medicine Wheel represents the natural cycles of life and the basic way in which the natural world moves and evolves. The Medicine Wheel represents the archetypal journey each of us takes in life. This journey has four stages or rounds, each associated with a cardinal direction. Four rounds signify fullness, wholeness or completion.

[disposablebabies]

sweat lodge

[babylon-crashing]

she bang

Itchy dreams are my realms. My healing song

doesn't heal --- but it'll lure you back alive.

Outside of Pahrump, clad in bra and thong,

you crouched in the scorching dark. There were five

of you at this women's curing sweat lodge.

A friend's aunt sang for you. Far off, I sang,

too. We forget. The soul is a hodgepodge

of scars. The soul grows in pain: first she bang,

then she change. Only hate and sloth blaspheme.

They sang. I sang, too: in black heat come back.

You're loved by your sisters, the gods, this earth.

Come back home heavy with your itchy dream

filled with heat. Off in the scrub and sumac

dead things stirred as all your old lusts gave birth.

[igorthunderstorm]

I am the shaman, magician

[seleneblackwell]

Dear Open Journal: Sweat Lodge

On 1/21/18 I was invited by the water pourer to my first and maybe my last Native American sweat lodge on a res out in Colorado. It’s taken me a full week to sit with the experience prior to writing about it because it was very intense. First of all, I am not Native American nor have any true knowledge of that particular culture except what my friend who invited me shared. I was invited as a Druid, and as a friend. 

There was a lot of similarities to Druidry such as the calling of the directions and of spirit and the recognition of that which is inside ourselves as well as the genus loci, ancestors, etc. The opening ritual, for lack of a better word in my vocabulary, had very familiar components. The sweat lodge itself I experienced without my wards, no shields, with a pure unadulterated sponge-like quality. It was in three parts, the first part being focused on giving recognition to those who were there with us. There was A LOT of spirits of place with us, a lot of ancestors, a lot a lot a lot of them were women, and the water pourer told me afterwards that she saw ‘The Ancients’ there behind me, which “is odd since they don’t pay attention to day to day things. Then attend when gifts are given or paths are changed.” (A sentence I have yet to fully decipher as I don’t know what The Ancients are but she looked at me very funny.) 

The second part of the ceremony was focused on recognition of the pure pieces of shadow self which they had given up at the previous lodge to be cleansed and purified so that they would be able to work with that piece of themselves and transform it into usable strength. It just so happened that at Alban Arthan, approx 1 month ago, I had given up the shadow piece of myself which focused on the future and neglected the present. At this lodge I took back up that piece of myself with the desire to acknowledge the past, to LIVE and experience in the present, to continue to make plans for the future but not to LIVE in it. 

Then there was the chanting and clapping. It was intense. My body stayed firmly in spot but my energy was diffuse and traveling. I saw shapes in the dark, faces, birds of fire. My heart was calm but my energy was pounding. I sucked up so much energy from the earth, the spirits there filled me up and were more then happy to share. I felt so glad that I went. I felt like a guest who was being filled with food and love.

The third part of the ceremony was prayers and appreciations and announcements of joy. I thanked Foresti, with whom I have started working, and my hosts, both spiritual and physical. I felt very honored to have been allowed to attend such a wonderful and spiritual experience.

In darkness and in light, where truth is still truth,

Selene Blackwell /|\

ps - They shared with me quite a few of their horror stories of sweat lodges that were not held in the traditional methods but more held to make white people feel special where traditional items were used in ways that were actually cursing and not blessing and done without thought and with full fledged cultural appropriation. Just. No. All I can say is that I won’t go to another sweat lodge unless I am yet again personally invited out to that one because I enjoy spending time with my friends but it is their culture, not my culture. 

pps - blah blah blah. yes. There is some historical evidence of Druids utilizing half built caves with heat but not “sweat lodges”.

[tonguetiesuntied-blog]

Spirit Farm Idiopan in Iceland ( plugged in )

Enjoying the peace that resonates at the Spirit Farm near Selfoss, Iceland. A beautiful farm that provides a spiritual, healing, and relaxing atmosphere. We ...

Enjoying the peace that resonates at the Spirit Farm near Selfoss, Iceland. A beautiful farm that provides a spiritual, healing, and relaxing atmosphere. We had fun hooking the idiopans up to the speaker and connecting with new friends before their first sweat lodge of the season! - Tongue Ties Untied

[funnyfacehouse]

Funny Face House New Album 2017

The next time you find yourself wondering, “What’s real?”, you can rest assured that Funny Face House IS REAL–or at least the band’s new 6-song LP out on Youth Riot is (digitally) real. Ontological questions aside, we can also assert that Funny Face House is a real band from Tacoma, WA featuring the artist/musicians Adam Szyndrowski and Mallery Petty on guitar/vocals and bass, respectively, as well as Youth Riot Records’ Daniel Cohn on drums. The group’s new collection of songs was recorded to 4-track in a living room of the house shared by Szyndrowski and Petty, and it captures the band’s casual, do-it-yourself spirit with gritty immediacy. Unabashedly tone deaf, IS REAL foregrounds the exuberance of creation over the rigors of musicianship–while still managing to dish out plenty of tasty hooks! “SOUP,” the album’s psychedelic opener, sounds like a band trying to manage the onset of a massive buzz. Giddy energy prevails while a hazy late-night approach to things has everything upside down and slightly out of whack. With the rhythm section chugging along at a casual, glue sniffing pace, Szyndrowski unleashes a chiming guitar lead like a crooked perma-grin while his vocals sound as though they were sung with a mouth full of Spaghetti-O’s and a styrofoam cup over the mic. Like the later tracks “Lazy Susan” and “California“, “SOUP” is the smoky shadow of a catchy pop tune but it comes dusted in lo-fi grit and rusty jangle. Other tracks like “1998,” “Cadillac,” and “Green Tercel” find Funny Face House smashing their head on the grungier side of the Punk Rock. “1998” borrows a stolen riff and drives it into a ditch just for the fun of it while “Cadillac hauls ass with its backside dragging sparks and flame. Busted out kick drum and bass fuzz makes a crusty halo on the later cut, as Szyndrowski bashes white lightning licks with his wig on fire. Equally off its nut, “Green Tercel” rolls out of the garage like a juiced up beater lurching forward in clouds of carbon monoxide as the band sings along obliviously. Dented but proud, Funny Face House proves cruisin’ on empty is still the best way to get high on the fumes of inspiration.