- Joined
- Nov 28, 2006
- Messages
- 76
I posted this in another forum but just thought I'd share it with all my knife buddies too.
Thought I'd let you in on an awesome experience I had yesterday. I'm lucky enough to be married to a Navajo so I've been begging my father-in-law to take me to do a sweat for awhile now, well, finally my pleas came to fruition and he took my brother-in-law and I to do our very first sweat, it was such a neat experience. I'll preface by telling you that I won't be able to go into depth about the specifics of the ceremonial aspects of the experience out of respect for my father-in-law and the grass roots beliefs of the Navajo people, however, I can and will tell you about the physical process.
We prepped by totally hydrating ourselves for several days before the sweat so as to avoid possible health problems that may ensue from losing that much water all at once. Most sweat lodges that I know of and see online consist of a frame of saplings and then various leaves and other such materials making up the body of the lodge, well, here in the southwest deserts such materials are not readily available so the Navajo's utilize Juniper (part of the cedar family) as the skeleton with the body being composed of mud and sand. I've only been told of the use of hot rocks with sweatlodges but this particular lodge that we used had a small wood stove associated with it so you could use just the stove or both rocks and stove. We used both. Here's my Father-in-law doing some last minutre repairs to the lodge.
So we stoked the stove and started prepping the rocks by firing them for about 40 minutes or so
During the sweat sessions we put different sweet smelling herbs on the rocks for ceremonial and medicinal purposes. We already had some cedar leaves that my father-in-law purchased but we needed some sage so I went and picked some. Here's the sage and some knife porn of my Scrapper 6 for ya
Here's the inside of the lodge while my Father-in-law is putting hot rocks in it, there were really a lot more rocks than what you see here.
Here's me before entering. (Caution: You should procure a set of sunglasses or better yet a welding helmet before viewing the next picture due to the light reflecting nature of the pale individual posing for the camera)
Now my father-in-law said that this was a traditional Navajo sweat but I'd be willing to bet that sweat ceremonies can vary greatly even among the Navajo tribe from family to family, so this is waht we did. We did four 15 minute sessions in the sweat lodge, each session represented or meant something different and we were to meditate and reflect on that particular thing during the sweat. Let me tell you, what a cool experience, when the herbs are thrown on the hot rocks you can hear the crackle and in the pitch black of the lodge you can see little coals forming, all of the sudden the sweet aroma of the smoke flows into your nostrils and fills your lungs breaking up mucus and any other bad stuff in there. The small size of the lodge requires very little water on the rocks to be effective so I would just dip my hand in the water container and splash some water on about every 3-4 minutes. If you've never done a sweat then its hard to explain how much you actually sweat during the process, think of a time you've worked out the hardest and sweat the most and times that by five, thats about how much you sweat during a sweat lodge ceremony. It takes a few minutes after getting in but once I started sweating it was a steady drip, drip, drip from all over my body until we got out. My pours just came open and I swear let out every ounce of liquid in my body all at once, imagine how clean that would make you. My father in law explained that when you shower or bathe you're just cleaning the outside of your skin but when you do a sweat you are cleansed from the inside out; he explained to me that its a spiritual cleansing as much as it is a physical one. Let me tell you too, its not easy, 15 minutes of a hot sweat was about all I could handle. Once you get out there's an amazing surge of cool air that hits you and you feel absolutely refreshed. Inbetween sessions is a time to rub sand all over you, this is also a cleansing agent, you rub the sand on your wet body and let it air dry for about 5-10 minutes then it just rubs right off giving you the best exfoliation you've ever experienced and leaving your skin so smooth. Here I am with sand all over me inbetween our 2nd and 3rd sessions, now I'm looking a little more native eh!!
After the fourth session instead of rubbing sand all over you completely douse yourself in cold water washing off all the sweat and closing all your pours, refreshing and exhilirating barely describe the intense feeling of that last rinse. Afterwards your skin feels like that of a baby's, which brings me to something else. My Father-in-law explained too that doing a sweat is like re-experiencing what we as humans experienced in our mothers wombs, its hot, moist and dark, and when you come out you come out coughing, crying, cold and a bloody mess; when you're in the sweatlodge you're in the womb of Mother Earth and its the same; hot, moist and dark and when you come out you come out spitting and coughing (from the smoke breaking up all the junk in your lungs) and cold and dirty, so everytime you do a sweat its like a physical and spiritual rebirth and your skin feels like baby's skin afterwards. It was such a neat experience and now I want to build one in my backyard, so if I get to I'll post pics of the process. I hope you all enjoyed this explanation as much as I enjoyed the sweat. Here's my brother-in-law and I after the sweat.
I also wanted to mention that I don't think this experience would interfere with your religious beliefs. I am a very devout Christian (LDS) and I was afraid that this experience would contradict my personal beliefs but after my father-in-law explained it to me I was at ease, all this did was give me a chance to meditate and think on my personal relationship with God and with my Savior and it strengthened me and helped me reflect on what I can do to improve myself and follow my Savior to the best of my abilities. It was a different experience and something I was not familiar with but it did not interfere with my personal convictions. That being said Happy Easter All!!!!
Thought I'd let you in on an awesome experience I had yesterday. I'm lucky enough to be married to a Navajo so I've been begging my father-in-law to take me to do a sweat for awhile now, well, finally my pleas came to fruition and he took my brother-in-law and I to do our very first sweat, it was such a neat experience. I'll preface by telling you that I won't be able to go into depth about the specifics of the ceremonial aspects of the experience out of respect for my father-in-law and the grass roots beliefs of the Navajo people, however, I can and will tell you about the physical process.
We prepped by totally hydrating ourselves for several days before the sweat so as to avoid possible health problems that may ensue from losing that much water all at once. Most sweat lodges that I know of and see online consist of a frame of saplings and then various leaves and other such materials making up the body of the lodge, well, here in the southwest deserts such materials are not readily available so the Navajo's utilize Juniper (part of the cedar family) as the skeleton with the body being composed of mud and sand. I've only been told of the use of hot rocks with sweatlodges but this particular lodge that we used had a small wood stove associated with it so you could use just the stove or both rocks and stove. We used both. Here's my Father-in-law doing some last minutre repairs to the lodge.
So we stoked the stove and started prepping the rocks by firing them for about 40 minutes or so
During the sweat sessions we put different sweet smelling herbs on the rocks for ceremonial and medicinal purposes. We already had some cedar leaves that my father-in-law purchased but we needed some sage so I went and picked some. Here's the sage and some knife porn of my Scrapper 6 for ya
Here's the inside of the lodge while my Father-in-law is putting hot rocks in it, there were really a lot more rocks than what you see here.
Here's me before entering. (Caution: You should procure a set of sunglasses or better yet a welding helmet before viewing the next picture due to the light reflecting nature of the pale individual posing for the camera)
Now my father-in-law said that this was a traditional Navajo sweat but I'd be willing to bet that sweat ceremonies can vary greatly even among the Navajo tribe from family to family, so this is waht we did. We did four 15 minute sessions in the sweat lodge, each session represented or meant something different and we were to meditate and reflect on that particular thing during the sweat. Let me tell you, what a cool experience, when the herbs are thrown on the hot rocks you can hear the crackle and in the pitch black of the lodge you can see little coals forming, all of the sudden the sweet aroma of the smoke flows into your nostrils and fills your lungs breaking up mucus and any other bad stuff in there. The small size of the lodge requires very little water on the rocks to be effective so I would just dip my hand in the water container and splash some water on about every 3-4 minutes. If you've never done a sweat then its hard to explain how much you actually sweat during the process, think of a time you've worked out the hardest and sweat the most and times that by five, thats about how much you sweat during a sweat lodge ceremony. It takes a few minutes after getting in but once I started sweating it was a steady drip, drip, drip from all over my body until we got out. My pours just came open and I swear let out every ounce of liquid in my body all at once, imagine how clean that would make you. My father in law explained that when you shower or bathe you're just cleaning the outside of your skin but when you do a sweat you are cleansed from the inside out; he explained to me that its a spiritual cleansing as much as it is a physical one. Let me tell you too, its not easy, 15 minutes of a hot sweat was about all I could handle. Once you get out there's an amazing surge of cool air that hits you and you feel absolutely refreshed. Inbetween sessions is a time to rub sand all over you, this is also a cleansing agent, you rub the sand on your wet body and let it air dry for about 5-10 minutes then it just rubs right off giving you the best exfoliation you've ever experienced and leaving your skin so smooth. Here I am with sand all over me inbetween our 2nd and 3rd sessions, now I'm looking a little more native eh!!
After the fourth session instead of rubbing sand all over you completely douse yourself in cold water washing off all the sweat and closing all your pours, refreshing and exhilirating barely describe the intense feeling of that last rinse. Afterwards your skin feels like that of a baby's, which brings me to something else. My Father-in-law explained too that doing a sweat is like re-experiencing what we as humans experienced in our mothers wombs, its hot, moist and dark, and when you come out you come out coughing, crying, cold and a bloody mess; when you're in the sweatlodge you're in the womb of Mother Earth and its the same; hot, moist and dark and when you come out you come out spitting and coughing (from the smoke breaking up all the junk in your lungs) and cold and dirty, so everytime you do a sweat its like a physical and spiritual rebirth and your skin feels like baby's skin afterwards. It was such a neat experience and now I want to build one in my backyard, so if I get to I'll post pics of the process. I hope you all enjoyed this explanation as much as I enjoyed the sweat. Here's my brother-in-law and I after the sweat.
I also wanted to mention that I don't think this experience would interfere with your religious beliefs. I am a very devout Christian (LDS) and I was afraid that this experience would contradict my personal beliefs but after my father-in-law explained it to me I was at ease, all this did was give me a chance to meditate and think on my personal relationship with God and with my Savior and it strengthened me and helped me reflect on what I can do to improve myself and follow my Savior to the best of my abilities. It was a different experience and something I was not familiar with but it did not interfere with my personal convictions. That being said Happy Easter All!!!!
