Clarity on the Sweatlodge

So I have my English as a Second Language partners. I got two instead of one, and we'll be working in a group. As per my privacy policy, I will not go into further detail.

I spoke with the Ojibway elder again, today. Remember that cool post I made about my sweatlodge experience? It's probably my most frequently-referenced post. It's as edgy as I've ever dared to go publicly. A real fan-favourite from this blog, if it's possible to say that this blog has fan-favourites.

Yeah, well, I went over the same story with the Ojibway elder, and he made sense of the experience.Ready for it? I was on my man-period.

No, seriously! Men need to do the sweatlodge ceremony because we don't have our monthly spiritual cleansing, which happens to women in the form of menstruation.

So the sweatlodge makes up for that. When we enter the tent, we are climbing into Mother Earth's womb, and when we emerge, that is a spiritual rebirth.

I remember women doing the sweatlodge when I was in Chisasibi, and I remember them feeling that they benefited from it. There was even a female-specific ritual. I guess it's just not mandatory unless you're male.

Kind of weird to say that my moment of spiritual reawakening can be boiled down to having had a period. Props to you ladies who every month.

He explained about the hair-braiding thing. He said that the braid is made of three strands. One represents the body, one the mind, and one the spirit. Apart, they can be torn easily, but intertwined, they are strong. I said that that reminded me of the Cree belief that there are four aspects of the human being, which were the same, but with the inclusion of the emotional aspect. He turned and pointed to an emblem on the wall, a circle with four colours, and said that the four aspects are represented by it, the medicine wheel.

Had another metaphor for the medicine wheel of four human aspects. Said that if you imagined the wheel to be your life, and if you imagine it rolling along, than if you decrease the size of any of the four colours, than it makes an indent in the wheel, and you'll hit a bump with each rotation. Life's going to be a bumpy ride unless you balance your four aspects.

Aboriginal is a slightly offensive term. It's the most widely recognized, so they use it for their office, but they're trying to wean off it. It's because Aboriginal is a government-designated term, and it refers to bloodline but not culture. Nobody's going to get too mad at you for using it, but it's most pro to use the tribe name if you can, or there's a more general word they use, but I forget it... Inishnawa or something like that.

Oh yeah, and the word tribe is slightly, slightly offensive. Like, it's a proper term and has it's place, but it's overused and oftentimes there's a better term to use. You would usually want to say "Nation". Among the First Nations, they don't consider themselves Canadian. They believe they belong to many smaller nations that existed before we came along, and which still today exist, even if they're not recognized by everyone. You know how I was in "Cree Nation"? Yeah. Everyone has a nation. Ojibway nation, Blackfoot nation etc.

But the Inuit are a separate definition to First Nations, so I don't know about them.