We were holding it together pretty well until he mentioned the antlers, writes Róisín Ingle
Shivering in the sweat lodge, our bottoms already soaking from the damp mud and grass, we squinted as we adjusted to the dim light. A few feet above our heads we could see the willow-branch roof woven together in a low dome. A round pit had been dug in the centre of the lodge, where red-hot stones from the fire were to be placed.
"Where's me antlers?" asked Dermot O'Hara, Celtic shaman and keeper of the lodge, sticking his head out through the low door. Call us immature, but we collapsed in a fit of tension-releasing sniggers. An unseen helper produced some antlers. "No, they are the wrong ones," said Dermot. And we were off, perhaps inevitably, again.
Luckily, a few minutes before, I had told Dermot, on behalf of the group, that we might laugh at inappropriate moments during the sweat-lodge ceremony. He seemed to understand. Before signing up for boot camp - if you weren't reading last week, three days of relentless physical activity and a 1,000-calorie-a-day diet - we had thought a sweat lodge would be nothing more remarkable than an outdoor sauna. How wrong can you be?
On our way to the lodge the clouds parted to reveal a plump, if not quite full, moon. In a damp field on Kippure Estate, in deepest Co Wicklow, a huge bonfire had been lit beside a tepee, the scene like something out of a low-budget cowboy movie. A group of, mainly, women picked their way along a path, clutching torches and towels. We knew our friends would never believe it if they could see us now.
Dermot, known also by his shaman name, Silver Birch, had told us after dinner that a sweat lodge was not merely an outdoor sauna but a Native American purification ritual for spiritual growth and healing.
Now we stood around the roaring fire, and our bellies rumbled, betraying the fact that we'd been living on meagre, if super-healthy, rations. "A few cocktail sausages on that would be lovely," said one of two men on the boot camp, motioning to the fire. We all murmured agreement, but it was time to go inside the tepee, where another fire was blazing. Rattles and drums were handed around the circle, and we had a sing-song to get in the mood.
"Mother I can feel you under my feet. Mother I hear your heart beat," we sang. Dermot told us that the lodge represents the womb and that the ceremony was a way to be reborn. He also said he might make animal noises.
Some of us were in swimsuits, some in shorts and T-shirts when we crawled through the low door of the lodge. Dermot explained that four rounds of stones would be placed in the pit and that with each round the lodge would get hotter, as the heat from the steam intensified. As the first fiery red stones were passed in, on a long-handled shovel, Dermot intoned "mitakuye oyasin", which he told us meant "all my relatives". He sprinkled herbs on the stones, which made them sparkle, put them in the pit, using the antlers, and then closed the door, leaving us even more in the dark than before.
It was freezing, so the first round of cleansing steam came as a welcome blast of hot air. As Dermot tended to the pit he told ponderous stories about his career as a healer, a shaman and a clairvoyant. With each round we were encouraged to exaggerate any coughs caused by the throat-tickling steam. "Get it all out, that's right," encouraged Dermot as at first we politely ahemed and then grew brave enough to cough out loud. In the dark, after all, nobody can see you splutter. When he started howling like a wolf, some obviously felt it was only polite to join in. "Woof," said one woman. "Woof, woof." More giggles. More stones. More steam.
By the third round the sweat was pouring from us. Dermot encouraged us to breathe the burning air right in, to avoid creating a "firewall of resistance" in our bodies. I felt myself letting go, and, in surrendering to the experience, began to understand the freeing nature of the lodge. By the fourth round, when we were encouraged to hold hands, a deep kind of peace had visited the hut.
Dermot had said we might have strange dreams after our experience. I scoffed inwardly but dreamed that night about sitting beside Samantha Mumba in an aircraft that, on landing, turned into a Dart and crashed. Interpreting my dream, Dermot said I needed to do more karaoke and stop running from the creative possibilities in my life. Er, no sweat.
www.celticshaman.com