Native American Sweat Lodge

I experienced something amazing recently. I love my Native American heritage and I had the opportunity to go and participate in a sweat lodge that my sisters friend had built. A sweat lodge is something that Native Americans have used for a long time to cleanse themselves. It is a very ritualistic and symbolic thing.

It was prompted by the influence of European culture with its corrupting effect on native culture. With the introduction of alcohol and the inhumane treatment of native people, the need to re-purify themselves and find their way back to traditional ways of living became evident, as they were becoming increasingly poisoned by European culture. The Sweat Lodge Ceremony was the answer.

With the help of Medicine Men and Women, they could repair the damage done to their spirits, their minds and their bodies. The Sweat Lodge is a place of spiritual refuge and mental and physical healing, a place to get answers and guidance by asking spiritual entities, totem helpers, the Creator and Mother Earth for the needed wisdom and power.

In my experience we crawled into the sweat lodge and took our places around the pit in the middle. Glowing red rocks that had been sitting in the fire all day were brought in one by one. As each was lain down I would touch sweet grass to the rocks while my sister touched sage and another person tossed tobacco on them---all to pay tribute to ancestors. Once all the rocks were in place and we were already dripping with sweat, the door was closed and we began the first round. Every minute or so the leader would throw a cup of water infused with eucalyptus oil onto the rocks, sending a wave of steam at us. It was almost overwhelming. You had to concentrate on every single breathe. My eyes stayed closed to stop the sweat from dripping into them. In the darkness as I heard the cup being dipped into the water bucket, I braced myself for the next wave of heat. Twenty minutes had gone by and round one was over.

The door was opened but you stay inside. Weakness hit me. I could feel what was being taken away from me. We drank water as even more rocks were brought in for the second round. More rocks meant more heat. I knew my mind would be tested.

The door closed and round 2 began. In this round we lied down. It was a symbolic gesture. The heat was so intense you had to humble yourself--get as close to the ground as possible and breathe in through the dirt. The air down there was cooler. This round was silent. We all were within our own minds---willing ourselves to keep going. We knew our bodies could handle the heat but it was our minds that we had to convince otherwise.

Finally, we decided it was time to get out. We crawled out through the small opening in the lodge and it was when the cold air hit my face that I realized how close to passing out I was. The dizziness lasted only a moment and then the best feeling in the world hit me. I felt so clean, so pure. I lied on the grass and looked up at the vast sky---every star was visible. I could feel my heart pounding hard through my body. This was the most amazing experience of my life.To go through something really hard, something that tests you both physically and mentally, and then have such a great reward is priceless.

SORE

It was pitch black and my flashlight had just burnt out. I had been hiking for an hour with friends at 1 in the morning and we still had 4 hours to go to get to the top of the mountain in time to see the sun rise. I was scared to death. The trail was about a foot and a half wide and even though I could not see what lay to the side of the trail, I could sense that it was cliffs. With every step I could feel the weakness in my legs, but I pushed on, one unsteady step at a time, because turning back was simply not an option.

We had began the hike with a group of about 20 people, but before long we all got separated so it was just 4 of us. After my light had burnt out I had to rely on Ricky. Every few steps he would shine his light back towards me to make sure I didn't step wrong on a rock and go tumbling into the darkness. It was hard relying on someone else for my own safety.Not being in control just added to my fears.

At one point the trail we were on began going down the mountain when we knew we were suppose to be going up. The other guy that was with us found an "alternative" route and so we followed him. Before I knew it, I was scaling what seemed to be an 80 degree cliff. I clung to whatever vegetation I could to pull myself up to safety(on the way down we discovered it was a dry waterfall bed). Finally, we reached our destination. We still had some time before the sun rose and so we huddled together in a little shack, in the freezing cold, waiting. I could not wait to get myself off of that mountain. The second I saw the sun rise I took a few moments and enjoyed the beauty that was before me. It was an amazing sight and for a split second I was glad I had made this trip--but then reality set in again and then I booked it down the mountain, leaving everyone else in the dust. I wanted this ordeal to be over and the easiest solution to that was to get down as fast as possible. I practically ran. When I reached the bottom, a good hour before anyone else. I just sat there, so happy to finally be done, to finally not be in danger.

If I had known what I was getting into before I had done it, I know I would have never found myself on that mountain. It was the best thing for me to do that hike in the dark, to not see the dangers that lay to the side of me. Sometimes I think it is best we dont see the whole picture. Its best to leave some things in the dark.

I have been asked before if I would ever like to know the day I was going to die, and it always seemed like a tough decision. On one hand if you knew, you could make sure you did everything you wanted to do before you died, and not have any regrets, but on the other hand, you would live each day with that knowledge looming over you that that day was one less that you got to live. If we see everything before us, all the details laid out, life would be different. We would take less risks because we could see the dangers and the potential failures. Yes, that hike was difficult, more on my mind than anything else, but if I had not done it, I would have missed out on that magnificent sunrise, and the feeling of accomplishment and gratitude for my life that I had when I was sitting in that parking lot waiting for everyone else to come down off the mountain.

Some of the best moments in my life have come in times when I have done something risky, something scary, things that if I had known what it would be like before I had done it, I probably would not have even attempted it. In these moments I have truly felt alive. They make me realize that to have the life I want, I need to feel this way more often.

In the day to day life that most of us lead I feel like we become numb. We do the same thing day in and day out. People think I am weird but one of my favorite feelings in the world is being sore. Feeling sore makes me feel alive. Every movement makes me feel like I am doing something--being something--just like wanting to be pinched when you think you are dreaming--that pain, that discomfort, that break from monotony reminds you that you are there and that you are alive.

As cliche as it is, we need to live each day to the fullest--take risks--feel alive. We need to be sore more often.

Medicine Man

Above my bed is a giant picture of an Indian Chief. I do not know who this man is, what tribe he comes from, or what he did in his life, but what I do know is that he is familiar to me.

Whenever I tell people that I am part Native American, they look at me with a skeptical eye and that confused look is usually followed by laughter. Maybe they laugh because of my blonde hair or maybe its because of my pale white skin--but no matter the reasoning, they usually don't believe me.

I am proud of my heritage. I do not claim to know very much about the history of my people because I don't, but all my life I have felt a connection to these people and their culture. I remember when I was 5 years old, I was playing with our neighbors in their backyard in Portola. We found some arrowheads in their backyard and I kept them as treasures from the past. When I was 10 and we moved to a house in Loomis, the backyard had Indian grinding stones and we would go and gather acorns, grind them up in the holes and pretend like we were the Indian women making dinner for the tribe. To us this was just fun and games but in a way it always came with a sense of reverence.

When I was 15 I took a trip with my dad to my Grandmas house. We went the long way and made a few sidetrips. We turned off the main highway, crossed the river and started descending down on a dirt road barely big enough to fit the car. We finally got to the bottom and it was a small railroad camp. My dad pointed to a spot by the river. That spot was where my great grandma Nina Wood was born in a teepee. I remembering thinking--this is SO cool!

My dad and all his siblings went to register for the tribe and when they walked into the office, the people just stared at them. They thought at first--maybe they think we are imposters--but when they talked to the people they found that the stares came because they looked exactly like relatives of these people. The people in the office pulled out the geneology books and they showed my dad and his siblings the family tree and where they fit into it. They belonged to this tribe and its nice to belong to something.

As I have come to college I have been blessed to get my education for free because of my heritage. But along with that has come the need to defend my heritage and that I actually belong. People take one look at me and they see my Norwegian heritage. But if they looked closer they would see my high cheekbones and my big-boned build. They would see the Indian in me.

I was hanging out with a friend of mine a lot when he had gotten sick. He was worried that he would give me what he had but I told him not to worry, because I am strong and I never get sick. He replied by saying--Oh yeah you got that medicine man watching over you at night--I just laughed but at the same time I realized I kind of feel safer and watched over with him there. The wrinkles next to his eyes remind me of the wrinkles next to my Grandma's eyes. The look of leather in his skin reminds me of my great Grandpa Wood. Whats in the big chief on my ceiling is in my Grandma and its in my Great Grandpa and it is in me.

Two years ago we had a family reunion. We were all sitting in a pavillion outside after our annual golf-tournament and our family started talking about things we remembered. My dad started sharing how my great Grandpa Wood always wanted the family to be together. He said that he would be sad that people were missing from this reunion. We all sat there with tears in our eyes and I think we realized that we had strayed from what was most important--family. In our heritage the tribe was a group of people organized for mutual care and benefit. They looked out for one another. We had let our tribe disintegrate. We had lost people we cared about. Hopefully one day we can all be together again and care for one another like we should.

I love my heritage because it gives me a sense of who I am. As the old saying goes--you can't know where you are going until you know where you have been. I am who I am because of my family.

So when people call me Sacajawea or give me a blanket as a joke I, I take it with a smile because it reminds me of who I am and what an amazing place I come from. And when I go to sleep at night I look up at the big chief and know that I am watched over and that I will always have somewhere to go.

Emotion

In Mitch Alboms Tuesdays With Morrie, he talks about emotions (great book, read it if you havnt already). In life we have things happen to us that enlist certain feelings, some good and some bad. Morrie believed that we should not let our emotions run our life. When we feel sadness or despair, we should not let it control us for more than a moment. When we feel something, we should recognize it for what it is. Say to yourself, this is sadness. I recognize that I am sad, I am going to live these few moments of sadness and then move on.

I think sometimes when things in life happen, like a loved one dying we have a hard time getting through it. We live in our emotions for longer than we should. Life does not wait for us to get over things.

I remember when I was 2 maybe 3 years old my Grandpa passed away. He had come to stay with us because he had Cancer and needed help. That day I had walked up to the high school with my dad to get something from his classroom and when we came back there were ambulences in front of our house. I remember my mom putting all us girls in her bedroom and we couldnt help but peek out and see the paramedics people running down the hallway. He died that day. The next thing I remember was sitting next to my dad on the church pew at the funeral. I distinctly remember looking up and seeing a tear roll down his cheek. That was the first time I remember seeing my dad cry.

I think a lot of people refuse to have emotions or at least show them. When something hard happens they bottle them up inside, until one day they just lose it. I think Morrie is right when he said that we should allow ourselves moments to live in our emotions, but only moments. If we allow ourselves to give into the sadness and despair, just fully live it and recognize it for what it is, we can then move on. When we bottle it up we are just giving it a chance to eat at us slowly.

I am grateful that I saw my dad cry that day. I think that I got my emotions from him. If anyone knows me at all, they know that I cry pretty easily when I feel something. Its almost embarrassing. Every time I go to say goodbye to someone in my family, I always see them look at me to see if I am crying, and I always try to pretend like I am okay but the second my gaze meets their eyes it all comes flooding out--but I live in that moment and then I move on. I recognize my emotions and then I live my life. It is okay to cry and it is okay to feel things. You are not weak if you do. My dad lives his emotions but he does not let them run his life. When he feels touched he lets the tears come and I admire that.