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.
