The Sweatlodge
Old things go, new things are born!
Hello, my name is Harald,
Since my initiation as a leader (or water pourer) of sweatlodges 16 years ago, I have always been deeply touched and grateful to experience how people begin to open up during a sweat lodge ceremony and thereby free themselves from thoughts, feelings and emotions that burden them, are painful and block them…………
However, in order to achieve this complete opening, it is also very important to prepare well for this moment. At some point I felt that it is hardly enough to explain before sweating together how the sweat lodge, the stones and the fire are to be prepared. As well as which process and rules we follow during the ritual.
When I met Manitonquat (Medicine Story †18) and graduated from the naturopathic school for psychology, I learned a lot that made me aware that there is a path that I will take to enable everyone to experience an intensive experience of holistic cleansing of body, mind and soul.…………….
On this path, I began to incorporate rituals and shared activities over the entire period of the sweat lodge day so that a community can emerge that is homogeneous, compassionate and respectful, thus creating a positive environment.
Thus, the whole day became a ceremony and sweating together becomes the highlight………
The sequence will vary in some points again and again, as it is important to me to take into account the needs, questions and wishes that those present bring with them on this day……… so it is hardly possible to always follow the same sequence…….
Recurring shared rituals are: preparing the food, individual and group discussions, breaks, building the fire, setting up the sweatlodge, lighting the fire, sweating, breaking the fast together………….
As dusk begins, it is time to go into the sweatlodge and begin the transformation, just as day transforms into night…………
Accompanied by the words:
“The stones are hot, it is a good time to die”
Don’t worry, no one will really die physically…only the EGO….
In the sweat lodge, everything that each individual allows for themselves will be possible…liberation, healing, insight, etc., but it will have an intense cleansing effect on everyone.
I have learned that it is important as a leader to be a part of the whole and I am walking the same path with you……….. to suffer in the heat, to let go and to experience healing. Manitonquat once said to me after a sweat lodge that he led: „To feel and suffer the same as everyone in this sacred space and yet be filled with the power of his spirits as a compassionate companion, this is the gift that a water pourer has received at the beginning of his path”
At the end of the sweatlodge and our cleansing we have arrived at the spiritual level,
we feel free and light.
..........Visions appear as answers to our questions!
After we have metaphorically died and the door opens for the fourth and final time, this is the moment when we are reborn when we leave the lodge…………certainly a little changed because a lot has fallen away from us, we feel free and “One with everything”!
When we return to the sacred fire we experience ourselves as “newborn people,” we shine in our own light, the loving energy and the connection with everything is visible and noticeable to everyone.
"Everyone has created their own personal miracle of healing and life begins as something new in us, individual and unique for each of us!"
After a time that we spend in silence to experience a good return to everyday reality, we meet for a meal together to break the fast...
After that I say goodbye to everyone in a group...
The story about the sweat lodge and me in written form is now over for now.
It will be a great joy and honor for me and Eszter to be able to continue and expand this story during many sweat lodge ceremonies that will follow
With love, Harald
ENGLISH