Sweating it all out
My experience of a sweat lodge
Yesterday I went to a full day of a sweat lodge, my first experience of such a thing. Saunas are chicken feed compared to the intensity of this experience. It was challenging, to the extent that I asked to be let out part way through the first stage, but went back in for the second and third stages, an allowance being made for us all as first-timers. Normally if you leave, you are out and cannot go back. I am glad this was allowed for me however. I would not have missed the rest for the world.
Let me go back a few steps.
This was a Celtic sweat lodge, not a North American native tradition. The Celts once lived right across Europe, covering many countries and last week I was in Romania experiencing some remaining Celtic ways of life at a place called Viscri, which immediately gave me a deeper sense of connection with this tradition.
The framework of the lodge is made of many young hazel saplings bent over each other, anchored into the ground in a circle, and tied and woven together into a dome. This is covered in many blankets, though traditionally they are made of stone and mosses and grass used to make them solid. But this was a temporary structure and the blankets kept out the light just as well as anything. It was then covered with a tarpaulin, anchored by logs and smaller stones.
