During one period of my life, I was working for an organization on the Pine Ridge Reservation doing healing work with families. Because they are based in the Lakota spiritual traditions, the medicine man would not allow me to work with their families unless the spirits approved. Prior to beginning, they took me into an Inipi ceremony (sweat lodge). Although I have lived among Native people most of my life, I am white. Normally, this medicine man does not invite white people into his Inipi lodge, but I was an exception because of the work we wanted to do.  I was nervous and unsure because Lakota tradition is not my spiritual tradition. The medicine man’s wife gave me a few simple instructions: remove all jewelry and glasses (metal gets hot) and think of the steam as the breath of the grandfathers.
 
 As I think back to that, it makes sense in a very fundamental way. We are in a dark, canvas-covered lodge, our bottoms planted on the earth. It is like a womb, as close to the mother as we can get without digging a hole. There is fire, water, steam, earth, stone, and the hum of the Lakota chants. When a person is that connected to the earth, they don’t have to reach very high. The spirits come to us. We only have to ask.
 
 The spirits gave their approval—with one condition. After each session of working with the families, I and whoever I worked with were to return to the Inipi to be cleansed and to release the ancestors who came to assist. For the next two years I returned once or twice a month to work and to sweat and pray next to the heart of Mother Earth. Not a bad deal.
 
 Those two years changed me. We are grounded when we fully accept our place on earth, our individual fate and destiny without complaint or resistance. It simply is. With acceptance comes inner strength and freedom from fear, anger, self-pity, jealousy, useless yearning, and desire. With freedom comes the clearing needed to receive something new into the mix—the touch of the Creator on our lives and in our writing.
 
 It is always a sacred thing, this kind of writing. We do not “own it.” It was given to us as a gift from above.

 The ceremony reminds us that true strength doesn’t come from striving upward, but from sitting close to the ground and letting the breath of life move through us.
 
 **Reflection Exercise:**  
 Find a quiet place outdoors. Sit close to the earth. Feel your breath as an exchange between above and below—between the seen and unseen.  
 Write one paragraph beginning with: *“When I am most grounded, I…”*