Sweat lodges and other rituals

Small rituals familiar to many of us include saying grace or giving thanks in some other way before a meal; going to a place of worship; or even just walking the dog. But ritual used to have a much stronger presence in daily life: in comparison to our forefathers’ times, ritual has been sidelined by the traffic of the 21st century.

Larger moments in peoples’ lives are still marked by rituals like weddings and funerals, and African tradition sends boys into the wild to mark their transition into adulthood; but most significant moments go unremarked. Many of us don’t ever stop to touch the “great silence” from which wisdom springs. History suggests we should: some of the world’s most powerful teachers have gone into solitude before formulating their teachings. Jesus, Moses, Siddharta Gautama and Serafim Sarovsky are just a few (maybe Bush should go into the bush for a while).

There are few mountains I would feel safe walking into by myself. So what do you and I do to find the solitude and time for real reflection?

Two options with a quiet following in South Africa are sweat lodges and vision quests. Both come from Native American traditions.

Sweat lodges
A sweat lodge is, superficially, pretty much an extreme sauna. There is a contained space in the lodge which is pitch dark, inside which the group is seated on the ground; outside, there is a cleared “sacred space”, in the middle of which a huge fire burns, and in which stones are heated until they glow.

There are generally four rounds to a sweat lodge, each hotter than the last. At the beginning of each round, the glowing stones are brought into the lodge. My favourite part is seeing the bright red stone in the pitch darkness, and the amazing sweet smell that is released from the steam. The four elements are incorporated in the process through the use of fire, the stones, the air and the water – which all make the steam.

Sweat lodges vary, depending on the traditions under which the keepers were taught. In some, a pipe is passed around; in others everyone goes naked (which is much better); in others you actually build the hut and choose the rocks together. Some are more intense.

Vision quests
While a sweat lodge is a personal purification journey shared in community, a vision quest is a personal journey shared in solitude. Often, the sweat-bath purification rite precedes the vision quest.

Historically, a vision quest is undertaken by a boy as he enters puberty. It is intended to exert a powerful force in the maturation process, providing a focus and sense of purpose, personal strength and power. Other purposes for which vision quests are traditionally undertaken are to focus questions and intention in times of war, disease, death, and childbirth. In some Native American tribes the rites are conducted for girls prior to puberty.

A medicine man
A friend, Talia, recently did a four-day vision quest with Shaman and Medicine Man Tim Sikyea from the Dene tribe. She asked me to support her, which included doing sweat lodges at base camp. I have done one vision quest and many sweat lodges, and was intrigued by the integration of the two, as well as the presence of a medicine man from direct lineage.

Traditionally you have to do at least three sweat lodges before you are ready to partake in a vision quest. It is from the third lodge onwards, during a pipe ceremony, that you ask if you can do a quest. If there is agreement that you are ready, there is still a three-month preparation. This phase is a time of abstinence from alcohol, cigarettes, sex and caffeine – basically, anything that could stimulate a withdrawal when you are without it on the mountain. For example if you had to deal with a cigarette craving whilst you were on the mountain it would distract you.

Talia added biscuits to her “give-up list” and said it was the hardest pleasure to release, “It’s an interesting time to realise what we rely on for nourishment.”

There were five of us supporting Talia, and after a certain phase we did not speak to her as we walked her to her spot in the mountain. Nature’s palace for Talia was next to a waterfall in the heart of the Greyton mountains. Talia chose and cleared the spot prior to the event, so we went straight there. The idea of being on the mountain is for the seeker to pray hard from the heart and pay attention to the world around.

Talia explains: “My process started days before I committed as I had to be sure of why I wanted to do it. Actually, from the moment I heard about it, it appealed to me and scared me. I had to work with whether it was necessary to go to such "extremes"...

“Now that I have done it, I feel there is no such thing as ‘extreme’. I worked through many belief systems. One that I overcame was the fear that my body would not cope, and that I would do damage – I now feel that was unfounded, since it really was such a little time.”

Real value
Sometimes a vision comes to the seeker, and other times it does not. I speak from experience when I say that becoming one with Nature’s rhythms, and cutting off human contact, is incredibly difficult, but also intrinsically valuable. Like Talia, I initially feared the lack of food, but the experience made me realise how much nourishment there is in the wild.

The Vision Quest I did “allowed” liquids and was supported in a 10-day process.

Many people – especially the men in the group – experienced it as a rite of passage, but for me it felt more like returning home. It is an experience I have referred to many times since, and has become a template to compare myself against in turbulent situations.

- (Claire Latouf, Health24, August 2008)

For more information about Vision Quests, call Judy or Valerie at (021) 782-1826 or email: vmorris@rbanet.co.za.

For more information about Sweat Lodges, contact David on email: standingdeer@iafrica.com.