Native American Sweat Lodge

Southern Yarns and Fly Hooks

“Dear Carp South,

Have you ever participated in a Native American sweat lodge? While I know we have not met; I can sure as hell relate to where you come from. My pursuit of happiness is never ending. We all have to play the hand we are felt; some are just luckier than others with the cards they have been given. I always feel like the more you have to work at something; the more you are going to appreciate it. (Could be wishful thinking) Follow your gut!”

I am so grateful to have readers who possess a wisdom about them, as they help me polish the ole mirrors of perception because I can often forget my moorings. A reader I have not met and that I consider a friend for their insights into my stories today and yesterday wrote me the above message, and though it felt like an invitation to a Native American sweat lodge, it also felt like he was suggesting I needed more time with shamans. Perhaps I need to be appreciative for all that I do have, and not burden my readers with my professional angst. I might have done this in my last “Solar Flares” post.

I really want to hang in a tent and sweat out some impurities, Lord knows I have many things I need to sweat about. I imagine a George Catlin painting of Native Americans hanging upside down in tents, but that is because I am overeducated with some twisted humors.

I couldn't help but respond in a way that hinted at my time being as difficult as the next person’s, whether I held a boat in Texas hold em, or threw a seven at the craps table on the come out roll.

Still this fellow seemed to get me. The hand we are “felt” says so much about me, and this little sub stack. I “felt” so much about a really good hand in life that I have been dealt. I felt complex emotions about it all. Being human is still the hardest part of life. To be an alien would be much simpler. Just pick up and leave when the planet is destroyed. Use it as a colony and move on. Be a transient and treat your place like a toilet and move on. How simple would that be? Only, for me, my roots would not allow me to leave. I say that as if I wanted to go somewhere else. Really, my small town was paradise.

But the mask was slipping. Today I told the Director of Curriculum that I couldn’t possibly take forty hours of college classes in two years as the board of education expected me to do. She seemed to understand. For that I was thankful because she was a close professional friend of my wife.

I responded to my substack friend:

“I feel as if we know each other well enough to tell you that I have just had the most trying day, and because I will probably not post about this (I lied) I do feel you should know that I did my first native American sweat lodge tonight.  So timely that my first was when you wrote me.  

My sister did a home birthing then got in a post partum altercation with our mother who incidentally was also severely post partum with my own birth thirty nine years ago.  My Dad and I decided to go free my son from childcare, and I stopped for a few bbq sandwiches on the ride to take my father home.  He fell on his mountain yesterday, scraping up his side something terrible.  His friend gave him some epsom salt to bathe with, and I dropped him off, traveling to take my son to my wife for some more childcare while I went for some freedom over a set of green monster fishing lights.  Just as the spaghetti was about to hit my plate I received a call from my father's bookkeeper and I registered some concern for my father's well being.  When I got to his house the dog seemed alarmed and the bathroom door was closed.  When I entered over the drone of Tucker Carlson I found my seventy two year old father in a bathroom sauna unable to stand.  I got him into bed carefully and took his blood pressure.  He was elevated but stable.  I brought him a phone, and left him to sleep.

My gut is huge, the problems are all relative, but I have to trust it.  I will keep working, and never let me give you the impression that I don't appreciate it.”

I can’t stress this enough. Never let privileged people get away with thinking they have it harder than someone else, but as one, I also feel it is important to remember that privilege doesn’t mean that you are free. It doesn’t mean that humanity, or mortality, is any easier. Maybe if we were not so rooted, and we could live as footloose and fancy free as E.T. the extraterrestrial, riding our bicycles into the night sky, but who really wants that? It will be turkey season soon.