MixedBloodMetis for a Better Future

Many is the time (in the 50 years since I participated in my first Sweat Lodge) that I have heard the "Just give it to the stones" advice or admonishment, often given by Elders to those on the Red Road, I suppose as one of the many ceremonial solutions or cures for those carrying emotional pain and or experiences of hardship, i.e. interrelational troubles, addictions, traumatic experiences (including sexual abuse), abandonment, parental negligence, intergenerational (historical) trauma and personal failures of all kinds.

After my 50 years of life influenced and enriched by the Sweat lodge tradition, I have come to believe that being clear about ones purpose when attending a sweat is of the utmost importance. Your purpose and the prayers you make will determine what comes to you from the Sweat. If you want to avoid or circumvent the emotional pain that has impacted your life by making sacrifice in the heat of the Sweat, I'm sure you will feel relief and elation at the proof that the sweat truly provides the spiritual solution to life's many woes that you've been looking for. Unfortunately, from what I have seen, the original pain seems to always resurface, at times with grave consaquenses, i.e. suicide, addictive relapes, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, failed marriages, and poverty.