Going inside

I have been on a journey. I put it out in public at the start of the year that I was lacking a spiritual practice in my life. I needed to find some form of expression. Pretty soon afterwards the person I said it to, invited me to come to a sweat lodge in  village about an hour from here. I had never done a sweat lodge before but I was familiar with the physical idea of people stitting in a hut in the dark with roasting hot stones in the centre. I had heard of this in many 'indigenous' cultures. So I jumped at the chance.

I had little or no idea what I was letting myself in for. I still don't. I asked questions but got no answers. I did get a message to contact a guy and do what they call a vision quest. When this was first suggested, I loved the idea. It was finacially impractical, logistically difficult and I let it drop.

I went 4 times and sweated . Each time I got this same talking to. The last time I thought I better really pay attention.  So I sent an email and was told I should go to Paris and be seen.

I was anxious about things like Personality Cults, and new age wackos and all sorts of things that could be wrong, but it seemed to open up before me once I decided to go.

To make a long story short. I found myself in Paris this weekend, on the outskirts in a village next to a forest. I knew no one. I arrived. I involved myself in the journey to cut young trees and collect stones. A hut was constructed. People introduced themselves one by one.
I am not really saying anything here. I have skimmed over all the details and only given a brief outline of the experience. Suffice to say I react to people on a feeling level. When I meet someone for the first time, I look in their eyes, but even before that, I feel. I have always been like this. I feel energy and I react accordingly, or I respond to that energy, with my own baggage I suppose, my own energy. So some people I was instantly in touch with, others required that I waited. So I did. Sometimes I don't.

For many people it was their first time. There was in total I guess about 20 of us. The shamin was a swiss guy who looked nothing like a shamin. But he had studied theology and then later studied with the Lakota people, and then also studied with shamins in I think Malaysia. The fire keeper was German, tatooed quiet, we communicated a bit.

I had the most fun I have had in a long time. I was taken by fits of laughter, bouts of tears, I was burned by the sun and the steam of the sweat lodge, I was touched by peoples stories.....not always expressed through words... I could feel things. Yeah I know some of it was in me, but for sure some of it was in them.

The shaman accepted me. I will now do a vision quest in June 9-16. I have long thought about this. I have to make a little sac of tobacco for every month of my life. and string them together, I have to clean up my act, get my house in order, say goodbye, and go have my vision.  I don't know what will happen. I don't know if this person writing will come back. But I will go inside, deeper than I have ever been before... it's scary but it is fun, but by god it's scary.

Think of me!