the first door

This past Saturday in Long Island, two days after a full moon and in honor of the Winter Solstice, my friend M.C.--of partial Native American descent herself--took me to my first sweat lodge. The medicine woman had in an email addressed me as "ancestor," and she had instructed me to bring, along with the memory of my grandfathers and grandmothers, a pair of shorts and tobacco.

The house was a typical suburban two-storey with Christmas lights and wood panelling. Through a swinging gate in the chain-link M.C. and I went straight to the backyard, where our ancestors were already gathering. Among them were Y., a kindly, elfin-looking woman of about forty, wearing a vibrant and multicolored skirt and a heavy coat; a muscular man of about the same age, with red hair shaved like a Marine's; and an assortment of others, mostly middle-aged Caucasians--thinning long hair and pot-bellies on most of the men, cigarettes and knitted hats with the women.

When we arrived the day's first lodge was just ending. This was, in part, a memorial service for a young actress who had died suddenly the week prior, and many in the yard were crying. M.C. said her hellos and introduced me around. Then we went into the house.

Inside it was clean and warm. In the kitchen a pot of medicines was simmering on the stove, and on a nearby table was a plain wooden bowl filled with $20 bills. M.C. and I each put in our money, then walked about the floor while we waited. M.C. explained that the lodge involved four "doors," or stages, each of which was associated with a different season, a different direction, and a different phase of life.

"I'm glad you're here," M.C. said. "If you don't go through it with someone else, it's almost like it never happened. And I think it'll be good for you too. This is all about processing loss and life, and getting in touch with the dead."

M.C. took off her sandals. She stepped onto the woven rug where I was already standing, and I looked down at my muddy sneakers.

A few minutes later we were back outside. Men and women were coming out of the lodge, steam rising from them as though their skin was smoking. The mouth of the lodge was open and the space inside it looked simple: blankets on the floor, a heap of stones in the center, wooden support beams here and there. The outside of the lodge equally unimpressive. The structure was a chest-high dome of perhaps 30-feet diameter. Its outer skin was a black-green tarp that looked like a giant garbage bag. Layered beneath this were more tarps and thin but heavy blankets. The lodge's entrance was a flap that could be pulled up or tied down; behind and supporting the lodge was the same chain-link fence M.C. and I had passed through, connected on three sides to the dome with twine.

Out came the medicine woman. Steaming like the others, maybe 50 years old, she was wearing a patterned red dress and her skin was flushed and thick. Her hair was brown and windswept, and she had the lumbering walk of a boxer. "Welcome, ancestors," she said to the newcomers. She made small talk, swigged from a Poland Spring bottle, asked someone, "Is my son in the house?" Then she went back into the lodge.

"It's time," M.C. said to me, so we took off our winter coats and sweats and hung them on the fence. "Your glasses," she said, so I took those off too.

Just before the lodge was a large firepit. Around it was a ring of stones with an opening that faced the lodge's entrance. M.C., I, and the others got in line before the firepit, then took turns throwing pinches of tobacco onto it from four directions. M.C. had told me to say four prayers with this, which I could make up myself, so I threw the tobacco for my family, for my friends, for strangers, and for the earth.

Inside the sweat lodge I found a seat against the wall between two men and behind M.C. More and more people came in, and the medicine woman repeatedly asked how many people were still waiting outside. She had evident difficulty arranging us about the lodge and said, "All that marijuana I smoked as a kid--it's coming back to haunt me."

A woman brought in antlers, which were passed to the medicine woman. A man sat down with a drum. One at a time, ten hot stones from the firepit were placed in the lodge's center. In the meantime the medicine woman said, "I want you to close your eyes and create as much space about you as you can."

Hugging my knees to my chest, I pictured a boy hugging his knees to his chest. But he, unlike me, sat alone on a stone column high above a black ocean. The world was empty around him. Then darkness fell, complete and choking--the tenth rock was inside the lodge, and the flap was closed.

The medicine woman spoke in a language I did not know. Then she said, "Welcome, Grandfather. Welcome, Grandmother. This is the first door. This is the darkest day of winter. It is also a beginning. We pass through this together. We thank our ancestors for strength." With this she poured water onto the hot stones. The lodge, already hot, instantly for me became excruciating. My shorts and shirt soaked through. My breaths came in empty. I thought, "It's okay, just breathe in slowly." But then the medicine woman poured more water onto the stones.

She prayed more, perhaps in English, I could hardly make sense of her. She said something about the antlers. Then the man with the drum hit it and began to sing. Others joined in, while I, thinking of my brother, wondered how the song's rhythm would look in musical notation.

The medicine woman poured more water onto the rocks. The heat now broke me, and, with a shame I cannot convey here, I said: "I think I need to leave."

Humiliating silence.

Then M.C. asked the medicine woman, "Did you hear that?"

"He'll stay a couple more minutes," the medicine woman said, and I hated her because I knew I could.

When the first door ended the medicine woman called for someone to open the flap. Several seconds passed, then someone asked, "Do you think they heard you?" But then the flap opened, and in poured sunlight, and out I ran. Into the air. Straight to my glasses. Cooling, drinking water, filling my lungs with oxygen, I stood by the firepit and watched others leave the lodge lingeringly. They stretched and smiled, they were sleepy-eyed and steaming. A few lay on the grass and rolled, while others threw more tobacco onto the firepit. M.C. came to me glowing. She said she was sorry.

"I told you it was hot," she said, "but I didn't tell you how hard it was." She asked how I was, and what had given me trouble. I said the breathing, and she said, "I think it's also that you're going through some gnarly stuff. If you'd just had a baby, you'd get through this no problem." I said my next door wouldn't be today. She said that was okay.

For the next three doors I waited by the fire. Many thoughts and feelings passed through me, among them a memory of another firepit some fifteen years ago. It was night and I was on a mountain. Maybe twelve people were with me, campers and counselors, among them L., the trip's supervisor. "There are four parts to a person's well-being," L. said: "physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. I want you think about these four parts, and ask yourselves where you are strong and where you are weak." And on that mountain, while I was able to assess with the expected adolescent distortions my physical, intellectual, and emotional parts, I discovered that my spiritual part simply did not exist. Perhaps, I thought both on the mountain and outside the sweat lodge, perhaps I am missing something--a piece of God--a soul, if that is the right word. Was I made without it? Did I lose it along the way? Am I supposed to find it again?

For each of the doors, someone different carried ten new hot stones from the firepit into the lodge. This was an honor, I ascertained, and a challenge. The muscular man I described as a Marine turned out to have a palsied hand. He was clearly embarrassed by how long he was taking, by how the stones shook as he carried them. But from within the lodge came the medicine woman's voice: "Grandfather can wait," she said with a laugh. When the man finished his duty, he returned to the lodge, and the flap was closed behind him.

After the final door everyone left the lodge and made a circle around the firepit. A few people lit cigarettes. A dog named True ran among us. The medicine woman brought out a peace pipe, which she raised high, then turned in several directions, and then prayed over before lighting. She went from person to person with the pipe. We blew smoke over ourselves in four directions. Then she clasped our hands, fingers-up and palm-down, and she said thank you in her language, and then goodbye. On our way to the car M.C. said, "I don't know if you noticed, but she was staring crazy hard at you. She was totally checking out your spirit."

That night I had my first good night's sleep in many weeks. In this morning I thought this:

Perhaps it didn't matter that I hadn't gotten through all four doors on my first try. Perhaps it didn't matter that the sweat lodge had proved yet another Big Moment I had watched rather than experienced, or that my soul was still missing in action. There would be other doors, I supposed, other opportunities for me to dig deep. Until then, Grandfather could wait.