The Swallowing Monster

In 2009, before my first combat deployment to Iraq, I returned to my reservation for a ritual called sweat. Sweat ceremonies connect us with higher frequencies. They purify our minds and bodies and strengthen our spirit​. The following words are my recollection of this deeply personal experience.

The sage bunch ignites, mixing with the tobacco in a primal dance of smoke and ember wafting through the air — elegance born from the earth itself. I stand, enveloped in ritual, feeling its gentle caress as it washes over my naked body.

The atmosphere is thick with the scent of arid lands and sun-soaked plateaus. It is fictile and robust, carrying the knowledge of generations within its tendrils. As it fills my nostrils, I am transported, if only for a moment, to a place where the earthly and the ethereal blur.

The smoke, though intangible, seems to have a taste of its own — a subtle hint of the wild, a whisper of the plain’s harsh beauty. It is not a taste that sits on the tongue. Rather, it lingers in the back of your throat, a reminder of what came before.

As it danced around me, I felt connected to something greater than myself, a sense of peace and grounding that only the natural world provides. It spoke to me silently, whispering tales of my people’s resilience and strength. I listened with every fiber of my being, savoring this…