Divine intermediaries, sauna prayers, and cultural appropriation

Part of the global nervous breakdown permeating all of our lives comes from the endemic emotions associated with the shattering of traditional hierarchies. My brother-in-law wrote a brilliant book describing this breakdown in the media (shameless plug alert) - but I want to talk about it in terms of God.

Obsessed might be too strong a word, but let us say I am very captivated by Meggan Watterson’s Mary Magdalene Revealed, especially her chapter on Thecla. The chapter is called, “The Girl Who Baptized Herself,” and that pretty much sums up her story…

…except for her rocking miracles. She was tied to a stake for running away to Paul (yes, Bible Paul). Right as her accusers light the pyre, the heaven’s open up, the flames are doused. She was thrown into an arena with wild animals for the transgression of not only preaching with Paul but also resisting rape. The lioness sent to kill her protected her. Finally, part of her punishment was a tub full of seals/sea lions (after the lioness was defeated). Thecla jumped into the water and declared, “In the name of Jesus Christ I baptize myself, “ just as a bolt of lightening comes down and zaps the water beasts.*

According to Watterson, the papal authorities were not interested in including any accounts of Thecla’a time preaching with Paul in the Biblical canon. The story of a female preacher, self-baptized, who lived her own relationship to the Divine - without intermediaries, without a book telling her how to behave, and without teachers other than her devotion to the ideals of Jesus Christ - was left out of the official writings. Her agency and authority to initiate herself as a member of the church directly threatened the priesthood.

She blessed herself and was blessed in return - no intercessors. Thecla ignored the vertical hierarchies of the time and followed her heart. Kundalini yoga talks a lot about the shifts associated with moving out of Pisces to the Aquarius Age. Thecla was an Aquarian 2000 years ago - good for her.

The Piscean Age has been dominated by hierarchy, and power. The key phrase for this age was from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “To be or not to be.” To make a successful and happy life, you needed to resolve this question. The key to the astrological sign Pisces is “I believe.” During this age, in order for you “to be,” you needed to find someone or something to believe in.

During [the Aquarian] age, the focus is no longer on your identity and existence (“to be or not to be”), but on accepting yourself as a whole person (“be to be”) who does not need to believe in something outside of yourself. You are ready to accept that you have the knowledge and wisdom within yourself. It is no longer necessary to attach to something outside yourself, but to become a leader of one: yourself.

Thecla was certainly a leader of one. But according to the Aquarian Age we are now in (as of 10 years ago, officially) - that is for all of us. To be our own leaders of one.

Which brings me to praying in our outdoor sauna. I have been truly grateful for the past few years to have been able to participate and sing in sweat lodges with indigenous teachers and teachers trained in those ways. I have heard it referred to as the Red Road. There are many guidelines: where to enter the space, how you pray by offering tobacco to the fire and the teacher, women are modestly dressed, the stones are blessed just so, and the songs are led by one who has been sanctioned by a teacher and undergone personal ceremonies as part of that sanctioning. In other words, there are lot of layers of how you behave, speak, interact. One could say rules.

So here is my dilemma. My indigenous people were the Germanic tribes that overran France and England or the Germanic tribes that stayed put. Or the Celts who were there before the Slavic expansions. Celts, Ostrogoths, Franks - take your pick, it is a big soup of bloodlines. Thanks to Christianity we have very little record of what their spiritual practices looked like. Did they participate in healing ceremonies, plant medicine, or water devotions 3000 years ago?

How could they not?

Humans are both Divine and matter. According to Mary Magdalen (via Watterson, pgs 74-76) our job is to unite the two parts of us and that is what Christ showed us how to do.

God is not referred to as the Father (or the Mother) in the Gospel of Mary, but simply as The Good… We are not just this body, but also the soul that inhabits it while we’re alive…The gospel stresses the importance of integration … to be a “true human being” is to united the ego, or self, with the nous, or the soul…being human is a privilege and a purpose itself. To be the bridge between the created world and the creating world.

We realize this aspect of who we are, our divinity, our angelic form, the nous, or the highest aspect of the soul, by allowing the soul to ascend. This ascension, however, is not about going up and over; it is not about transcendence. This ascension is about going inward, more fully into our emotions, our own embodiment, to purify the heart.

We are here to attain the freedom the soul remembers. We do this by using the spiritual technique that Christ used called kenosis, the path of self-emptying love. It’s a spiritual practice** that allows us to upgrade from the ego… of viewing others are separate from us, to the unitive consciousness of the soul.

Humans are here to pray and behave from the heart, from Love. I learned in college that humans evolved to what we now think of as modern Home Sapiens by 30,000. This era was hallmarked by larger brains, art, burial rites, musical instruments, cave paintings, female figurines, and jewelry. Standing in front of the Venus of Willdendorf in Vienna - my whole body was tingling. Archeologists speculate these rites, drawings, and figurines may have been evidence of spiritual practices.

I choose to believe that my indigenous bloodlines were interested in cultivating a relationship with the Divine. I hope they participated in body movements that might be called Yoga today. plant medicine ceremonies, and sweat lodges. Ancient Romans were obsessed with thermaculae,*** Northern Europe is devoted to the sauna, Germany has a laudable kirhaus culture - all of these tell me that sweating was in the land from whence my forebears came. I don’t think is too much of a stretch to postulate - before the elaborate pipes, electrical monitors for monitoring steam saturation, gleaming white tiles - my forebears made a simple hut out of skins/mud/wattle, warmed up some rocks, and poured water over them.

I certainly hope so. Because I find myself kerfuffling about it.

Cultural appropriation is defined as, “the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.” Am I adopting practices I was exposed to on the Red Road? Check. Am I part of the dominant people? Check. Am I praying and singing songs inside the sweat lodge like the many I have participated in? Check. Have I been sanctioned by anyone indigenous to pour water over stones? Nope.

This was the conversation my husband and I were having as we watched the fire heat stones on New Year’s Eve. We constructed a frame using the oak saplings from our hill, tied together with strips of sheets from my great-grandmother, and covered in moving/painters blankets. Instead of wearing modest clothing, the whole family went in naked. We said adieu to 2021. I sang Kundalini mantras, thanked my bone marrow for a good 45 year run, and listened to my heart as I dripped sweat onto the grass. Other than an intention to be safe, “of course, Bean, you can leave if it feels too dark. Of course, Dragon, you can lie down with your head against the opening of the door flap,” there were no rules other than listening to nudges of what to say or sing.

I emerged glowing, grounded, and grateful for the sacred time spent together. The family felt supported, strong, and connected.

Where is the line between cultural appropriation and being a “leader of one” on this? Is it different because we used oak instead of willow? Sang in Gurmukhi/Latin/English instead of Lakota? Blessed the stones with our words instead of cedar? Call it a sauna instead of an Inipi? Are acknowledging the gurus and my own bloodlines that I have brought me to where I am now serve as sufficient gratitude and recognition?

I certainly hope so.

I honor and praise all of the threads that brought me to this place - my ancestry, my own spiritual explorations in this life, my inner nudges, the time of Aquarius that pulls us to trust our intuitions outside of hierarchies. Thank you

Thank you

Thank you

Wahe Guru

* The Acts of Paul and Thecla and also The Acts of Thecla might be worth exploring further.

** And yes, her soul voice meditation includes three deep breaths and focusing on your heart, just like Dr. Bailey and Rob Wergin that I wrote about here!

*** Hot baths for those of you not remembering your latin.