My body seemed to mirror the upheaval in my mind. This time it was my digestive system that seemed out of whack. And like many other mid-life women, I had ferocious bouts with insomnia.
A friend invited me to a healing ceremony with the Lakota Sioux in Vermillion, SD, just an hour away from my home in Sioux Falls. I had listened to many Native people share their healing experiences at “The Red Road Gathering” which is held every fall in Vermillion. I had studied Native American Spirituality in graduate school. I had participated in inipi or sweat lodge, but never before in conjunction with yuwipi or healing ceremony.
The first task assigned to those desiring healing is to make prayer ties. These are tiny bundles of tobacco tied together in a special way. The cloth used for the bundles comes in the four sacred colors of black, red, yellow and white. A man from the Wase Wakpa (Red Road) community taught me how to tie the knots around the tiny packets. I returned home with my fabric squares, my tobacco, my string and some sage. Each packet was passed over burning sage after it was made, accompanied by a prayer. In total, I made 405 packets. One hundred of each color with five extra, as directed. I later told a colleague that you have to want something very badly to make 405 tiny tobacco bundles and tie them all together.
My Wase Wakpa teacher had told me that the color black represents courage. I determined that the black bundles would represent my prayers to have balanced relationships with my family. Red connotes healing, and with these bundles came prayers for passionate, embodied living and physical health. Yellow stands for dreams and wisdom. It had been my mother’s favorite color. I prayed that I might call my spirit back once more. It seemed lost following her death some 21 months earlier. White connotes the sacred, and I prayed that I might discern a call to Christian ministry that I was experiencing.
Although by clock time, the process of creating prayer ties and praying over them was a lengthy endeavor, the time flew. Joanne Shenandoah sang in the background. The sage burning, the candles, the dog sleeping nearby…all of this added to the warmth I felt.
At the sweat lodge several days later I had a moving experience which almost defies words. The sunset was beautiful. The glowing hot rocks were moved by the firekeeper into the womb-like structure dug into the earth. We silently took our places around the periphery. The flap-like door was closed. Total darkness surrounded us. The leader poured water over the rocks which immediately rose as dense steam. When the time came, I raised my prayers without reservation, also praying that all people might find the courage to feel their feelings. I knew that this was part of my life’s work, to encourage that journey within.
I came to realize in the sweat lodge that I had made gods of money and the intellect. Gene Thin Elk, our spiritual leader for this preparatory sweat lodge, said that we must be willing to give something up to receive healing, that it all had to do with heart. The drummers drummed, the singers cried out. I cried out with them of my sincere desire to forgive the past. I wiped the slate clean. I renounced money and the intellect as my gods.
Now, some six years later, I can see that many of my prayers were answered. I found the courage to go toe-to-toe with my father and we enjoyed a better relationship in the few years he had left on this earth. I did heal from the deep grief I had experienced when my mother died. Within hours of the healing service which followed the sweat lodge, I received a call from a nearby town requesting that I fill their pulpit for several months. This was very helpful in discerning the call to ministry. The last prayer request, for vibrant health, has not yet materialized, but I know that I must give up some things in order to gain that healing, as Gene predicted.
It was delightful to re-read my journal entries from around the time of this spiritual journey. Some people may question how a Christian woman can find healing through Native American ceremonies, but this has never been an issue for me. My final journal entry about the ceremonies ends with a song I had sung many times with a Gospel Choir in Chicago: “I love you, Lord. You heard my cry, and pitied every groan. Long as I live, and troubles rise, I’ll hasten to your throne.”
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Ann Bolson
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