“Don’t sweat the small stuff” (it could kill you)
I’ve heard of a bad schvitz, but this is ridiculous. Last week in Sedona, Arizona (the modern mecca of spiritual shysters), three people died in a Native American sweat lodge. Additionally, twenty other participants became ill. A huge price to pay, for the $9, 000 forked over to James Arthur Ray; the illustrious leader of the sweat. Apparently I’m one of the vast majority of unenlightened slobs, because I’d never heard of Ray. I also don’t watch Oprah where Ray often appears, to preach his unique brand of “harmonic wealth.” Judging from Ray’s own modest proclamations, if you follow his philosophy you’ll soon be sharing stock secrets with Bill Gates. But don’t purchase that personal jet, just yet.
Even after assiduously reading Ray’s arrogant assertions, I’m still a tad confused, as to the differentiation between ordinary, pedestrian wealth and extraordinary, harmonic wealth. It appears that harmonic wealth isn’t only about accruing boocoo bucks, but having a life that’s both harmonious and healthy. Throw in a few Beemers and a McMansion, and you’ve got the picture.
So how could such a popular paragon of profit fuck up, and turn a sacred ceremony into a dangerous death trap? Beats me. I have an issue with anyone who appropriates and exploits, “bits and pieces” from indigenous cultures, and then charges people for partaking in events. A sweat lodge was originally intended for “ritual cleansing and purification,” not to make some narcissistic white guy even richer. Ray actually had the chutzpah, to call his workshop for the wealthy a “spiritual warrior seminar.”
Gag me with a 24 carat spoon. A spiritual warrior doesn’t need to pay some schlub thousands of dollars to become evolved; because they’ve earned their “war wounds” by trial and error. A spiritual warrior doesn’t need to listen to the metaphysical version of a used car salesman, because they walk their own path. A spiritual warrior doesn’t fast for five days, and then pig out at a brunch. And a spiritual warrior, sure as hell doesn’t wind up sitting with sixty other schmucks in a 120 degree “heated hut,” experiencing “blood, sweat, and fears.”
I’ve endured the joys of a sweat lodge. Once. Frankly, I’d prefer listening to Barry Manilow while having a root canal – to ever setting foot in another lodge. After several hours of feeling like a roasted Costco chicken, I emerged from my ordeal. I was as wrinkled and wrung out as an old dishrag. But I was truly “enlightened”; I vowed to never join a gym that had a sauna.
I’m fortunate that I don’t have the dough, to go to an expensive newage (sewage) retreat. I can achieve my own enlightenment in the privacy of my bath. All I have to do is cram towels under the door, so no steam escapes, turn on the shower, and throw some stones in (for authenticity). I can also light scented candles, put on an Enya cd, and meditate about buying a new kind of cat litter. I might not become as “evolved” as those spoiled, suburban “spiritual warriors,” but I’ll have something valuable that they don’t : my life.
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