Sweat Lodge

Published in E.P.I.C. magazine, Durango edition, Nov/Dec 2016

SWEAT LODGE

by Winter Ross

We throw cedar on the rocks,

Breathe and Bless ourselves and Pray

For each other and the World.

Water Pourer calls the Buffalo.

From its horn, he dashes water on the glowing stones.

Even though the earth vibrated beneath our feet as we stood

Near the line of tobacco linking fire to buffalo-skull altar,

The horn runs dry.

A river rock cries and cracks in the hot dark.

We have never known him, and so

Buffalo does not come.

Fire Tender calls the Stones.

“Aho! Welcome, Grandfathers!”

I pray only the prayers in my heart.

I don't need tobacco, lectures on magic, feathers or judgement.

I need the smell of copal: its sweet scent rising on the breath of the rock people,

Sweat and heat to ease the ache in my back and

The voice of the Singer to take me to the Other World and so

I sing only the songs I know.

Drummer calls the Bear.

I imagine him ripping through this cloth dome.

Sitting in the line of power, we would receive his claws.

What would we do

With our bloody tattoo?

Flaunt the wounds as a badge of honor like the flesh offered at Sundance?

This is hubris, and so

Bear does not come.

Nephew prays for his vision;

He is praying for the healing of his Earthly eyes.

Grandmother prays for everyone's vision;

She is praying for our Spirit eyes.

Together, we call for the Door;

The night mist is sliced into moonlit ribbons and I See:

A Bruja silhouetted in the doorway of a medicine tipi,

Dark light streaming from her fingertips -

Goddess of Past and Future: the Answer to white man's Christ.

No one calls the Spider,

But she has come.

We sit protected in her embrace.

She crouches over us in the sweat lodge,

Eight white willow legs arched into a star shaped web,

Her body is a translucent orb at the Center of the Universe.

As the drum begins its song, I see her heart beating.

We are Children in her trembling nest.

Throw cedar on the rocks,

Breathe and Bless yourselves and Pray

For each other and the World.