Sweat Lodge Architecture
Conjectures3.com
Christopher Alexander, the great architect philosopher, would certainly have lots to say about the Lakota Sweat Lodge. (Alexander, C. A Timeless Way of Building; A Pattern Language, and other luminary works.)
We recall his fascination with the old Chinese man’s home which had a simple 6 foot diameter pool in which swam endlessly, two carp, one gold, one black, endlessly, perfectly, silently. Here is one of the world's great architects stating that this Chinese man's home, small, simple, efficient, with the carp pool, was a nearly perfect.
We recall his stating that one of the most perfect architectural statements he could recall was a small wooden fishing boat in the orient, one small sail, a small platform for fishing, a small place under which to hide from the sun or rain, all sitting upon the simplest, sleekest hull which barely broke the water’s surface and was so efficient that a single man with a simple oar could easily transport it with safety and beauty.
This same Christopher Alexander who teaches us that a cove is a natural structure under which we all wish to hide and find safety. A place that children make naturally with no teaching. A place that the finest architects have always reserved for sleeping and resting...coves.
This same Christopher Alexander who teaches us that the phenomenal sense of intimacy in a social setting which human beings can experience is inversely proportional to the height of the ceiling above their heads. The lower the ceiling, the more intimacy we feel and can attain with our loved ones. The greater the height of the ceiling above our heads, the more difficult it is to experience intimacy. Note that great cathedrals and train stations are designed to get people thinking and aiming at external purposes (praying and traveling), rather than aiming the social vectors inward toward intense conversations with each other and about each other.
Imagine what he would say about this sweat lodge....this structure of structures for both intimacy and spirituality. Might it be that the Native American's Lakota Inipi may be the epitome of structures for accomplishing both simultaneously? It does so with all the elegance and simplicity of the 6 foot diameter pool with the two carp swimming eternally in the yard of the simple Chinese farmer. The sweat lodge and the carp pool have much in common. They are each perfect, each eternal, each capable of endless mystery, and endless satisfaction. Each purifies at it illuminates, each invites us into its majestic vortex while freeing us to leave and go even farther than we had before. These structures....the eternal paradoxes...perfect....simple...elegant.
The Lakota Sweat Lodge is a structure that has been in use and evolving likely for thousands of years. It is a simple hemisphere made of bent saplings covered with buffalo hides in the past, and now with tarp to keep in the heat, and keep out the light. It has only one purpose: to purify.
The Lakota Sweat Lodge contains the Lakota purification ritual through which members of the tribe can speak out their sadness, their guilts, their fears of the future, all while sitting on the dirt, hunched over against the brutal heat of the glowing hot rocks immediately before them in the pit. The intensity of feeling, the honesty of sweating together, sharing life's pains together, allows each member to leave the Sweat Lodge after about three hours feeling pure, clean, and reborn. This is the Lakota Sweat Lodge experience.
The opening of the Lodge faces East, the direction of the new sun, the new day, the new spirit, and rebirth.
One enters the sweat through a small opening. One enters on all fours in the most humble of positions. As we go through the opening we say, Oh, Mitakuye Oya'sin! In all my relations; in the relation of all things.
We enter counter clockwise, the fire man entering first so he can take a seat nearest the opening flap. He can bring in new hotter rocks for each round of the sweat.
Next follow each member of that day's sweat, each entering on all fours, each saying the ritual statement, each seating selves counterclockwise. The last to enter is the leader of the sweat. In this case, it is my son, who has spent about four months with a Lakota family helping them build greenhouses to enable earlier plantings. He has been through sweats and even Hanblecchia, The Search for a Vision. Today he begins this sweat by welcoming all of us, talking briefly about the nature of the sweat and its importance, and then he sings one of the Lakora songs in full voice. He then motios to the fire man to bring in the first set of hot rocks.
We begin...
I was so moved, so struck with the importance of this ritual, and so personally helped, that I decided to write about it. Below is just one of many pieces that followed the experience of the Sweat Lodge on that hot August day in Montana.
Oh......Mitakuye.....Oya’sin! In the relation of all things!
A MEDITATIVE STRUCTURE,
A MEDITATING EXPERIENCE:
To go inside
To go inside, into the darkness
To go into the unknown purposely
To go inside ourselves, our emptiness, to find fullness again.
To go inside to listen to the quietness of the noise of our thoughts.
To go inside to loudly proclaim our emptiness and our vastness.
To go inside in order to find ourselves in the intimate space where we need to keep ourselves when we are attending to ourselves mindfully.
Meditation, that medication...of thought and non-thought, of timed timelessness.
The empty/full, quiet/loud/ tempered/furious part of our being where all complementarities arrive at meaning.
In the Sweat Lodge
To move toward a sameness
To move toward a levelness
To move toward complete equality
To learn to listen deeply and respectfully
To commune with others in the dark and the heat
Realizing we all have the...
Same pain
Same not knowing
Same innocence
Same guilt
Same prayers
Same humanity
All in the circle of the sweat, an architectural reminder of the circle of our lives.
Birth-growth-wisdom-death-birth-growth-wisdom-death...on and on and on...
The Circle of Life, the Circle of the Sweat
All equal placements
No differences
All equal radii
All along the circumference
All hunched forward from the curve of the low-lying roof
All humbled and bowing, all sweating and searching, all not knowing...beseeching
The sweat...the curve of curves, the ultimate state of architectural integrity
Every sweat lodge is the most energy saving of all possible shapes.
Circular, curved, centrally heated.
The sweat has the greatest volume-to surface-ratio of any architected building.
Greatest Volume to Surface Ratio!
An architectural truth that yields another great metaphor for how the lodge invites us to focus on our voluminous inside, our mighty prayers, our hopes, our fears, our dreams, our mistakes, our weakness and strengths...all our insides.
Not our exterior. So little exterior here compared to a vast interior.
We realize this as we enter, vast inside, tiny outside.
The greatest of all possible volume-to-surface ratios.
Empty/full
more/less
dirty/clean
adulterated/pure
inside/outside
toxic/nourishing
low status/high state
take flight/hunch low
we only achieve a great free flight as we succumb to the humility of
sitting in the dirt in sweat and pain.
We celebrate and know relief only by amplifying our pain.
We know of the cool, clear, clean, pure heart and head only by undergoing
the dirty, sweaty, stinking, smokey, fire and pain of the sweat.
We achieve closeness to others through not intervening, not advising, not
therapizing.....just simply sitting still and listening until each is done, and then
staying quiet...no response.
We achieve energy, power, and endurance ....only by announcing our weakness,
our powerlessness, and our fear.
We achieve endurance only through exhaustion, we achieve fullness only by emptying ourselves, we achieve meaning only by going into the unknown and unknowable.
Comfort and safety mean nothing save for the experiences of pain and danger.
The sweat: the ultimate paradox at every turn.
The Sweat Lodge: an architecture for healing.
Conjectures3.com
Christopher Alexander, the great architect philosopher, would certainly have lots to say about the Lakota Sweat Lodge. (Alexander, C. A Timeless Way of Building; A Pattern Language, and other luminary works.)
We recall his fascination with the old Chinese man’s home which had a simple 6 foot diameter pool in which swam endlessly, two carp, one gold, one black, endlessly, perfectly, silently. Here is one of the world's great architects stating that this Chinese man's home, small, simple, efficient, with the carp pool, was a nearly perfect.
We recall his stating that one of the most perfect architectural statements he could recall was a small wooden fishing boat in the orient, one small sail, a small platform for fishing, a small place under which to hide from the sun or rain, all sitting upon the simplest, sleekest hull which barely broke the water’s surface and was so efficient that a single man with a simple oar could easily transport it with safety and beauty.
This same Christopher Alexander who teaches us that a cove is a natural structure under which we all wish to hide and find safety. A place that children make naturally with no teaching. A place that the finest architects have always reserved for sleeping and resting...coves.
This same Christopher Alexander who teaches us that the phenomenal sense of intimacy in a social setting which human beings can experience is inversely proportional to the height of the ceiling above their heads. The lower the ceiling, the more intimacy we feel and can attain with our loved ones. The greater the height of the ceiling above our heads, the more difficult it is to experience intimacy. Note that great cathedrals and train stations are designed to get people thinking and aiming at external purposes (praying and traveling), rather than aiming the social vectors inward toward intense conversations with each other and about each other.
Imagine what he would say about this sweat lodge....this structure of structures for both intimacy and spirituality. Might it be that the Native American's Lakota Inipi may be the epitome of structures for accomplishing both simultaneously? It does so with all the elegance and simplicity of the 6 foot diameter pool with the two carp swimming eternally in the yard of the simple Chinese farmer. The sweat lodge and the carp pool have much in common. They are each perfect, each eternal, each capable of endless mystery, and endless satisfaction. Each purifies at it illuminates, each invites us into its majestic vortex while freeing us to leave and go even farther than we had before. These structures....the eternal paradoxes...perfect....simple...elegant.
The Lakota Sweat Lodge is a structure that has been in use and evolving likely for thousands of years. It is a simple hemisphere made of bent saplings covered with buffalo hides in the past, and now with tarp to keep in the heat, and keep out the light. It has only one purpose: to purify.
The Lakota Sweat Lodge contains the Lakota purification ritual through which members of the tribe can speak out their sadness, their guilts, their fears of the future, all while sitting on the dirt, hunched over against the brutal heat of the glowing hot rocks immediately before them in the pit. The intensity of feeling, the honesty of sweating together, sharing life's pains together, allows each member to leave the Sweat Lodge after about three hours feeling pure, clean, and reborn. This is the Lakota Sweat Lodge experience.
The opening of the Lodge faces East, the direction of the new sun, the new day, the new spirit, and rebirth.
One enters the sweat through a small opening. One enters on all fours in the most humble of positions. As we go through the opening we say, Oh, Mitakuye Oya'sin! In all my relations; in the relation of all things.
We enter counter clockwise, the fire man entering first so he can take a seat nearest the opening flap. He can bring in new hotter rocks for each round of the sweat.
Next follow each member of that day's sweat, each entering on all fours, each saying the ritual statement, each seating selves counterclockwise. The last to enter is the leader of the sweat. In this case, it is my son, who has spent about four months with a Lakota family helping them build greenhouses to enable earlier plantings. He has been through sweats and even Hanblecchia, The Search for a Vision. Today he begins this sweat by welcoming all of us, talking briefly about the nature of the sweat and its importance, and then he sings one of the Lakora songs in full voice. He then motios to the fire man to bring in the first set of hot rocks.
We begin...
I was so moved, so struck with the importance of this ritual, and so personally helped, that I decided to write about it. Below is just one of many pieces that followed the experience of the Sweat Lodge on that hot August day in Montana.
Oh......Mitakuye.....Oya’sin! In the relation of all things!
A MEDITATIVE STRUCTURE,
A MEDITATING EXPERIENCE:
To go inside
To go inside, into the darkness
To go into the unknown purposely
To go inside ourselves, our emptiness, to find fullness again.
To go inside to listen to the quietness of the noise of our thoughts.
To go inside to loudly proclaim our emptiness and our vastness.
To go inside in order to find ourselves in the intimate space where we need to keep ourselves when we are attending to ourselves mindfully.
Meditation, that medication...of thought and non-thought, of timed timelessness.
The empty/full, quiet/loud/ tempered/furious part of our being where all complementarities arrive at meaning.
In the Sweat Lodge
To move toward a sameness
To move toward a levelness
To move toward complete equality
To learn to listen deeply and respectfully
To commune with others in the dark and the heat
Realizing we all have the...
Same pain
Same not knowing
Same innocence
Same guilt
Same prayers
Same humanity
All in the circle of the sweat, an architectural reminder of the circle of our lives.
Birth-growth-wisdom-death-birth-growth-wisdom-death...on and on and on...
The Circle of Life, the Circle of the Sweat
All equal placements
No differences
All equal radii
All along the circumference
All hunched forward from the curve of the low-lying roof
All humbled and bowing, all sweating and searching, all not knowing...beseeching
The sweat...the curve of curves, the ultimate state of architectural integrity
Every sweat lodge is the most energy saving of all possible shapes.
Circular, curved, centrally heated.
The sweat has the greatest volume-to surface-ratio of any architected building.
Greatest Volume to Surface Ratio!
An architectural truth that yields another great metaphor for how the lodge invites us to focus on our voluminous inside, our mighty prayers, our hopes, our fears, our dreams, our mistakes, our weakness and strengths...all our insides.
Not our exterior. So little exterior here compared to a vast interior.
We realize this as we enter, vast inside, tiny outside.
The greatest of all possible volume-to-surface ratios.
Empty/full
more/less
dirty/clean
adulterated/pure
inside/outside
toxic/nourishing
low status/high state
take flight/hunch low
we only achieve a great free flight as we succumb to the humility of
sitting in the dirt in sweat and pain.
We celebrate and know relief only by amplifying our pain.
We know of the cool, clear, clean, pure heart and head only by undergoing
the dirty, sweaty, stinking, smokey, fire and pain of the sweat.
We achieve closeness to others through not intervening, not advising, not
therapizing.....just simply sitting still and listening until each is done, and then
staying quiet...no response.
We achieve energy, power, and endurance ....only by announcing our weakness,
our powerlessness, and our fear.
We achieve endurance only through exhaustion, we achieve fullness only by emptying ourselves, we achieve meaning only by going into the unknown and unknowable.
Comfort and safety mean nothing save for the experiences of pain and danger.
The sweat: the ultimate paradox at every turn.
The Sweat Lodge: an architecture for healing.