Tom Brown Dr. Tracker School Part 3

The sweat lodge and unraveling of my identity.

Control has guided my path for as long as I can remember. Which makes digging out the roots of what made me this way interesting. I don’t have a great memory, which is something many who suffer from disassociation have in common. Control has kept me sober, staying away from any kind of psychedelics, not out of any moral code but out of fear of what losing control would trudge up and out of me. I had both of my babies naturally, not because of any ideology but because pain doesn’t scare me, not being able to feel the pain scares me.

I once had a friend who has suffered from addiction tell me, “I would have done anything to escape my body, you’ll do anything to stay in it.” It’s true and its exhausting, the weight of what feels like a thousand lifetimes on my shoulders, the weight of awareness in a world that is so deeply suffering. I wish sometimes I could look away, not feel everything so fully. But I do, and like all things It must play an important role in why I find myself here during this time in this body.

The night of the sweat lodge we built the fire together in ceremony. Each of us igniting our own tinder bundle. and placing it on the fire with our prayers. I prayed deeply that the message I came here for would come, a prayer for my own surrender, for the land to reach out and speak to me, an understanding of what was being asked, the awakening of the collective, the remembering of who we truly are and why we are here.

The fire roared as each of us fed her with our prayers, the wind blew, and the keepers sprayed the neighboring trees with water to keep her power from escaping. I could feel the heat of these prayers piercing my skin as the raw energy of this fire blessed the entirety of the land around us. This was our offering, from my journal “Fire strip away the barriers, the masks, the filters of trauma, colonialism, escapism, sorrow, our forgetfulness. Gift us the vision, the awakening we so desperately need.”

We were given the twilight hour to prepare ourselves. Drink water, change into our swimsuits and meet in the center of camp at sunset. I journaled and paced, preparing myself for an experience I knew would be life changing. I had never participated in a sweat lodge before due to claustrophobia, due to not ever wanting to be out of control. I was nervous and reaching for any means I could to feel more prepared, guzzled water, and had my intentions set. Even though I was afraid, I was going to do this.

We stood in the center of camp with nothing in our hands and wearing the least amount of clothing we could. A small fire flickered in the communal pit, and I could see the shadows casting on our teachers faces as they waited for us all to gather. Their demeaner embodying the sacredness of the journey we were about to take. I stood still and quiet, digging my toes into the cool dirt, the weight of the humidity on my bare skin felt like a hug, and I remember being grateful for the intimacy of the dark. I just stood in my exposed body, without being self-conscious or worrying about if something was showing or bulging.

Our teacher had us get in a single file line and walked us toward the sweat lodge. We walked for about 15 minutes in the darkness under the soft light of the moon and stars, through the pines, on the ground that witnessed us through the experiences of the last week. We stopped and waited by the fire, a tree line separating us from the pit and the keepers. Observing them tend to the flames through the trees felt like traveling back through time. Mirages of ancient one’s dancing around the fire played out in front of me. I could see the furs, the antlers, head dresses and spears, the ceremonies that have happened on this land and also the lands of my own lineages. Merging, interlacing, timelines overlapping, always around a fire. We stood for a long time in complete silence. Listening to the night calls of the animals in the gusts of warm summer wind. I felt movement happening from the people in front of me and was met with one of the German elder women turning around and giving me a tight hug. In this hug I felt my blood lines, through her for this split moment in time I was home. I turned around and passed the hug onto my friend Kelly, holding her tight and thanking the gods she was with me on this pilgrimage. I prayed she received through this initiation what she was looking for.