Why I think Native American Sweat Lodges are Amazing

 Though I have had many amazing experiences in a Sweat Lodge between 1980 and the present the most amazing experience for me personally on a purely physical level was at Stewart Springs with Charlie Thom who was a Karuk Medicine Man from Happy Camp, California.

That particular day it was snowing there and there was ice in the river next to us where we were going to jump in in between rounds in the Sweat Lodge. I was likely somewhere between 32 and 37 then and my family was there with me (wife and 3 children). So, we all got into the Sweat Lodge with Charlie Thom. The amount of people often at one of these sweat lodges where white people were allowed was usually somewhere between 10 and 50 people. That day I think it was about 25 people there at Stewart Springs which is north of the town of Mt. Shasta and to the west about 30 minutes drive from Mt. Shasta.

So, it's winter time and it's snowing out and the large rocks are covered with snow and we are all stripping down to bathing suits (most people) and maybe a t-shirt for the sweat lodge to go inside to sweat from the hot rocks from a fire outside that are put into a pit dug into the ground in the center of the Sweat Lodge.

So, it gets often between 110 and 130 degrees in a sweat lodge so at some point you have to get out and cool down. 

So, we all piled out of the sweat lodge and broke the ice in the river so we could jump in the river.

It was at this point that I realized just how amazing it was to be doing this at all anywhere. Because in America most places where I grew up it was suburbia like surrounding Seattle then San Diego and then Los Angeles and there is no way you are going to have this kind of experience there at all like this.

So, I realized just how amazing it was to be sweating with a group of White people and Charlie Thom a Medicine man from the Karuk tribe from Happy Camp and how happy I was to experience something like this where I actually broke the ice to get into the river and I was okay with all of this and healthy and ALIVE in a way I likely had never felt before quite like this in my whole life!

So now, as I think of that day it shows me just how amazing human beings actually are that they could actually do something like this and get stronger and stronger physically, mentally and spiritually in their lives!

By God's Grace