Judge not….

A mentor of mine was recently involved in a rather gruesome experience at a Sedona sweat lodge.

I have been refraining from commenting on the whole incident because I am awaiting more TRUE information, and not that which is being promulgated by the media and those who think they know what they are talking about. I have GREAT respect for the man. I cannot even begin to expound on how very much I have gotten from him and his programs.

He is NOT some Jim Jones look-a-like at all! And he has been doing the EXACT same sweat lodge for at least 7 years, with no such incident, which leads me to believe that something else happened. And I aim to wait to find out what that was before passing any kind of judgement at all on the situation.

I have done many, many sweats. MY understanding of the sweat lodge is that it is supposed to be a rebirthing experience – the participants are entering into the womb of the earth mother to be born anew.

I have done sweats with at least 50 people in a sweat lodge. I have done sweats that lasted for 2 hours. I have done sweats that were incredibly hot. And yes, sometimes it was almost too hot to bear, but we were taught how to deal with that – by being close to the earth, by grounding ourselves, by lying down. And if we still felt we needed to leave, we could leave.

I KNOW people who were at that training! I know people who were in that sweat lodge! He was absolutely NOT holding people in the sweat lodge as is being implied by some of the reports. I know a person who did leave after an hour and I am waiting to hear exactly what did happen from that person – a first hand account!

In any case, people are quick to offer opinions about something they hear about from other, sometimes unreliable sources, but I would really encourage that we all just wait and find out what really happened. That’s what I am doing.

Many blessings to all of those involved in this unexpected turn of events. May love prevail. And may we all learn what we need to learn from this.