… I was dying.

My skin was on fire. My breath came in short gasps, inhaling air that burned my nostrils and throat. My eyes stung from searing steam. My cramped body, unable to relax, forced me to pay agonizing attention to its every discomfort. Every moment was sheer hell.

It was my first true sweat lodge.

Two hours later, I was born again. I emerged into a world I had left long ago, but one that had always been there. It was dusk when we entered the lodge; we came out into the night. Time literally hung in the air, made solemn by the quiet solitude that the surrounding woods gave us. As I embraced each of my companions, who had shared the lodge with me, I was closer to them, closer to the earth, and closer to myself than I had ever been before.

I had traveled to a dark edge, and had come back alive.

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Three months.

Three months can last forever. It can change your insides. It can alter your reality. At least it did for me.

In three months, I have gained experience in starting fires by bow drill; skinning, gutting, and butchering animals, and preparing their hides for use as clothing; making bowls and utensils out of wood; tracking animals; moving in the woods; identifying animals and plants; predicting the weather; dealing with mosquitoes; and much, much, much more.

What’s in a summer?

I’ll keep this brief. I had an amazing time in the woods. And, I will be going back. The adventure is only beginning.