Jean-Jacques feyte, cuautlahtoa. colima col Mexico
]]>I do not agree with paying money to attend a ceremony. I see that Mr. Ray was the individual responsible for the sweat and if he was advised properly, no one would have perished. I hope that justice is served and that he pays for his negligence.
I hope that people see this as a man being negligent and irresponsible for those who trusted him to help find spirituality. I also hope that there is not a push to banned sweats for all of the spiritual leaders in Indian Country run sweats because of the love for their people and the positive effects of pray.
Oliver Plumley – Comanche/Otoe/Pawnee/Lakota
]]>Barbara Duggan – SIsseton-Wahpeton Dakota SIoux
]]>Here is my take on sweatlodges, for what it’s worth:
1) I like them. My brain blabla chills a little, and I can get into deeper questions of being, of life, of making sense of what is happening in my life, of dreams. If no sweatlodge is cooking, I go to a sauna, steamroom, thermal spa. It does it more for me than going to church and having my ear bent by some fellow with a political agenda.
Speaking of which: I am really sorry that many native Americans are possessive about their spirituality, Others are less so and they tend to annoy the first group. I believe firmly, that we live in a free world, and that makes it free. The belief in the free. Thus sweatlodges have made it to other parts of the world. Personally, I say a prayer of thanks to this ceremony and the people (ancestors) who created it. I am aware of it. And I realize, that there is a lot of suffering involved, what took place in the USA was a huge holocaust. It’s one of the reasons I no longer live there, I even gave up the nationality, because of the sheer hypocrisy of the nation as a whole, everyone running around the planet selling the American Way of Life as if it was something great, consuming, consuming, consuming, exploiting. Iraq was the last straw.
But if everybody wants to horde their little religious/cultural habits, then I suggest we make record stores for jazz, where only African Americans can shop. And we castigate everyone with, say, zydeco music CDs at home, and punish some shmuck like me singing Capoeira songs, or even great Maori hits like Te Poi. And no one other than white Europeans may listen to Beethoven or Mozart or Schoenberg, or even Olivier Messiaen. And only certified Jews may listen to klezmer, or Meyerbeer. And I am not being flippant. Music has always carried the spiritual longings and structures of society. Music is a ceremony, even if we consume it like popcorn nowadays.
My two bits, sorry if I bored anyone.
]]>The procedures for sweat lodge have been in place, and practiced for many years. I have completed 5 hour sweats with 20 plus people without injury, they should be challenging but not deadly.
Jason Bailey (SSW)
]]>Traditionally, an offering is made to the medicine man, in the form of tobacco, cedar, kopal or sometimes even food or donations. Charging thousands of dollars for a sacred ceremony of the earth is pretty outrageous. My heart goes out to all of the people who were affected by this tragedy.
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