Native American Sweat lodge

Whew! This week is about over and I have to say that I'm pretty durn glad. Emotionally I took a huge hit. This is not the way life was supposed to go. Honestly, if I had to rate the last two months I'd have to say that this week was pretty much the worst so far.

I'm a fighter and I'm strong. I think most anyone that knows me would use those words to describe me. When faced with difficult things initially I may whine or fuss, but usually in pretty short order I move into action. I enjoy challenges. I love to win. It's impossible to approach Hannah's death the way I always have every other difficult thing that comes my way. I'm having to learn a new way. That way is not easy. It goes totally against the core of how I have approached life, yet it's the most freeing when I am able to embrace it.

A friend sent me a book right after Hannah passed away. It's called, "Waking up to this day by Paula D'arcy". It's a really great book and I'm amazed at how it speaks to where I'm at. I'm going to share a quote from it. It's rather lengthy but so worth sharing with everyone.

The Native American sweat lodge provides another way of thinking about moving the way life is moving. The lodge is one of the most recognized of all Native American ceremonies and is a traditional way of facilitating healing and purifying body, mind, and spirit. The lodge itself is a domed hut built from willow saplings or some other supple wood. Stones are heated in an exterior fire and then brought into the covered lodge and placed in a central pit that's been dug into the ground. When water is poured on the stones it creates a dense steam.

During my first lodge I was fearful of the reported heat that rises up from those stones. I knew that some persons have to leave the lodge because the intensity of heat is so great. Yet when we received our final instructions from the lodge keeper his advice to us was, "Don't resist the heat." He told us that resistance would cause our experience of the heat to worsen. Instead, he encouraged us to let go of our resistance and befriend the heat. "Welcome the heat by acknowledging it's presence," he said, "and your experience will transform."

At the time, his words were a marked departure from the way I'd always thought about things. "Don't resist," he advised. "Acknowledge what is." I'd always believed that by resisting the things I wanted to change, I would exert the greatest power. Now I was learning otherwise. Only by first acknowledging and accepting what is-including the things I cannot change, or do not want or expect to happen- do I posses the true strength to meet life. Life calls us to meet it as it is. In acknowledging what is, respect for life is implicit. When acceptance precedes doing, then the steps we take have a distinct clarity and power.

The same dynamic applies to acceptance of ourselves. Zen teacher Joko Beck reflects, "In times of confusion and depression the worst thing we can do is try to be some other way. [When] we experience ourselves as we are, not the way we think we should be...a gate opens."

So, what I'm learning is to be in the moment. It's the only thing that works well. Acceptance has always felt like giving up to me. The more I bring myself back to it though the more I realize it's the only thing I do that works. My hope is that since it works so well, I'll come back to it enough that it'll become familiar territory. That would enable me to go back to things that don't work less and less. That's my hope anyway.

I think I've rambled on enough today. Many have asked how they can help. Most have said they don't know what to say or do for me. I think if you want to help me you can remind me often "in the moment, next step, next breath Marcey". That will help me more than you know! Thanks for the support, prayers and care!

God Bless!