The weekend had been set aside to perform an all-night Native American Church ceremony on my property. However, as I looked more into that I got “cold feet” because of the use of Peyote in the ceremony. Not that I have a problem with the Peyote, but because of the legal implications of having a bunch of people over to my house to use an illegal drug. The Indians have certain exemptions for its use, but it wasn’t clear to me that I would be protected by those exemptions. However, since my Toltec friends and I had already set the time aside we decided to perform a Mother Earth healing ceremony instead.
The ceremony was to be a burial event where we would spend the night in shallow “graves.” Our first task was to dig the graves. We each picked out a spot and dug a long, shallow hole just big enough to lie down in and turn over in the night. The dirt was hard clay soil and rather difficult to dig. There were no rocks, but the dirt needed to be loosened with a pick, or a lot of hard effort on the shovel. The hole was a whole lot more difficult to dig than it would have been when I was 50! This was the first major lesson of the night, my body is changing and I will no longer be able to do things as easily as I had in the past.
We were supposed to have written a “will” before the event, which I forgot to do. The will was not something about how to distribute goods after death, but rather a thing telling those that are left behind what we wanted to tell them, but never did. It was to be in the form of thank you notes, apologies, or whatever else seemed right. I worked on mine in my head while I dug the hole. I came up with some things concerning my children and my wife about how I have been ignoring them, or at least not giving them the attention and showing them my love in a way that I would have liked.
We finally got our holes dug, and covered them with boards, covering the boards with dirt so that we could be entirely enclosed in the earth. This took us most of the afternoon; the set up was done just before sunset. We sat in a field and watched the sun go down, meditating as the sun set. While doing this we were to meditate upon what we wanted to let die in our graves and what we wanted to allow to be re-born in the morning.
One of my current problems at that time was associated with my making assumptions about why people do what they do, and then acting on those assumptions as if they were somehow real. This had been bothering me because it so often results in my doing inappropriate things in response, and just makes the whole issue of being clear with others that much more difficult. Inevitably the other person does the same, making assumptions about what I am thinking in order to act the way that I do. We just keep spinning further and further apart.
Because of this, what I wanted to let die was my habit of making assumptions about what others are thinking and acting on those assumptions as if they are the truth. I might make some tentative guesses, but need to check them out before I think I know the truth. I intended to be reborn with the ability to just let them be without making the assumptions. I want to respond to what I actually see rather than what I imagine.
The four us who were to be “buried” oriented our holes in the four directions, with a fire at the center. Bob was toward the north, Lauren to the east, Adriana to the south and I was in the west. Everyone but me put their heads away from the fire; I aligned my head to the east – toward the fire. My Native American friend, Irvine, later said that I had done the right thing. Apparently there can be problems with sleeping with your head toward the west.
As dark came upon us, we started the fire and got ready for our night in the earth. We each had sleeping bags, and the men had “pee bottles.” I don’t know what Adriana planned on doing about that. Adriana wanted to know what we should wear. Ramin answered that the appropriate attire was as we were born since we would be “re-born” in the morning. She wasn’t willing to do that so she changed into some sort of long sleeping garb. I think the problem had more to do with lying with bugs than with being shy about being naked in the hole in the earth. My choice was to wear only my underwear because I was concerned that otherwise it would get too warm.
A couple of the others were nervous about getting claustrophobic. I was confident that I wouldn’t have this reaction because I have always liked being in closed, confined spaces. That kind of situation seems to put me into a sound sleep. I fully expected to sleep well that night.
It was finally time to crawl into our holes. We each crawled into the space under the boards and Ramin covered the rest with dirt, leaving a small slit open at the head end for air. I found that I was very sleepy. Once we were all settled in, Ramin started to drum. His job for the night was to sit up and watch over us, protecting us – helping if we needed help, keep; the fire burning – and drumming. I heard very little of the drumming because almost as soon as he started I fell asleep.
Some time later (I don’t know when because I didn’t have a clock), I woke up feeling like I was suffocating. I started to panic, wanting to get out of my hole – but I couldn’t because I was covered with too much dirt to move. I was hot, sweaty and breathing hard. I crunched up closer to the air slit and decided that it was probably safe – even though I was still claustrophobic and wanted out. I finally managed to relax myself again, and decided that I would just have to wait it out.
The first bug to visit me crawled into my ear. I tried to get it out, but it just went deeper. When I tried to get it with my finger, it started going around and around inside of my ear canal. That got my attention for a long time. It finally either crawled back out, or stopped moving. In either case, it stopped “bugging” me. I was on top of my sleeping bag instead of inside of it because it was too hot and humid to stay inside. Things started crawling over me. It felt like spiders or something small moving the hairs on my legs. They were too light to actually feel them walking on me, but I could definitely follow them because I could feel them in my body hair. I thought about swatting them, but since I really couldn’t reach down because of the cramped space, I decided to just let them be – wondering if they were going to bite.
After a bit I got pretty thirsty, so I reached around to get my water bottle to get a drink. As I did so, my arm cramped. The sharp pain made me straighten it and hope that the cramp would go away. It finally did and I found a way to use the other arm to get the water bottle. However, it really started to worry me because I sometimes get really strong leg cramps that demand that I stand and walk on the leg to get the pain to go away. I started to worry about what would happen if I got a big leg cramp. This put me back into the claustrophobic mind set once again. About that time my leg did start to cramp as if on cue. I managed to get it positioned to let the cramp subside, knowing that I would have to be very careful about what position that I got into.
After awhile I noticed that Adriana was up with Ramin. Apparently she had decided that she had enough time in the hole. I rather envied her courage to just give in instead of stubbornly staying in the hole. I could see a tiny bit of what was going on through my air slit. Pretty soon she went to bed in her sleeping bag next to the fire, and Ramin resumed his vigil sitting and keeping the fire burning.
After successfully peeing in my bottle while lying on my side, I started to think about what it must be like for people who are trapped in a collapsed building or that little girl who fell down the well shaft. Those people would really have to find a mind place where they could just let it be. Otherwise it would be absolute terror. Being trapped and unable to move would be terrible. I was not really trapped because I knew I could get out, and I could move; but it was still pretty scary. I spent a lot of time imagining how it would be to be trapped like that. It was funny, but those thoughts brought me comfort. I had it easy, what was I being so upset about? All I had to do was relax and things would be just fine. I finally did relax and fell back to sleep for awhile.
The next thing that I was aware of was the rising sun streaming through my breathing slit into my hole. It was really wonderful to all of a sudden be bathed in the light, and it felt like I was awakening again. Maybe I even felt a little like being re-born. It filled me with peace and comfort. Pretty soon Ramin came by and unearthed me, so I could slide back out into the world and enjoy the new morning.
Once we were all out and stretching, we did some little ceremonies and then filled our holes back in again. I wanted to go get the tractor to push the dirt back in, but Ramin said that part of the ceremony was in filling up the holes. He was right, it was an important step – but it was once again painful and tiring.
I am still wondering what that night brought to me. Was it an actual “rebirth”? Or was it just a long, uncomfortable night? Did I learn something important? How will I know?