I am really tired today.
I got up around 5:30, Caligula alarm clock woke me up then. Took a shower, got Michael out of bed and while he was showering I got everything together for the second day of the Shaman course. We were out the door by 6:30.
It’s amazing how little traffic there is at 6:30 on a Sunday morning. We arrived in Malvern at 7am, sat and talked with some other members of the group until everyone else arrived.
Around 7:30am we got to watch and participate in the fire building ceremony for the sweat lodge. That was cool.
The sweat lodge was great. I made it through the whole thing! And apparently it was an especially long one, so I was really proud of myself.
During part of it I got very tired and saw some things, what I’d normally attribute to the “I’m about to pass out” feeling, but then I decided to take some of the things I’ve learned from my fellow students about visions and thought about these things I was seeing. It had amazing results, not only did thinking about what I saw pull my attention away from how tired I was feeling enough to get me through that round, the meaning I gathered from analyzing that vision was enough to carry me through the rest of the lodge. I let myself believe that what I was seeing was a spirit guide helping me through the ceremony.
This belief led me into a place that has always been dangerous spirituality for me. Nothing I want to discuss in public right now, and I don’t think I’ll have trouble getting past this now, but it will take some thought.
The morning sweat took up the entire morning, by the time we were entirely finished, had taken a dip in the pool and changed back into our clothes it was noon. We settled down for a nice breakfast for lunch, then gathered inside for more teaching.
The afternoon was spent discussing different things. We were all pretty tired from the sweat, but hung in there. Around 2:30 we went outside for a drum dance, which was fun and kept us all awake. When we came inside there was more talking and then a short journey and closing ceremony. We were finished around 3:30, and although we wanted to stay for the Crystal Bowl Healing, I was way too tired.
As part of our “homework” we’re going to get into the habit of journeying at least once a week, and writing down our journeys. Since I’m very inexperienced I’m going to try to do it more often than that. We also are supposed to try and keep a dream journal. I think I might put these together into some sort of electronic form, maybe a private blog? Filtered blog? We’ll see.
In all, I had a really good day, but it was exhausting. Having a sweat in the morning like that really is something else.
Going back to work tomorrow is going to be tough %)