Sweating It Out

A friend who had just returned from a three-week learning experience around issues of nonviolence on an Indian reservation told me that she had been acutely uncomfortable during the prayer sweat. The ceremony is a ritual physical cleansing which takes place in the sauna-like sweat lodge. Heated stones are placed in the center fireplace of a small round building which seats from four to ten participants. As the waves of heat soar and ebb and new rocks are brought into the lodge from the fire out front, an experienced guide leads the group in the ritual ceremony of four rounds of prayer.