Veterans Retreats at Deer Hart Lodge
During veterans retreats, veterans and first responders have the opportunity to face the dark times in your military service in the company of the community in whose name you acted. Looking straight at the past, telling your stories, in the company of your peers may help restore your hope in the future.
These retreats serve as a space & place where you can share your stories safely and offload your deepest burdens & the soul wounds of war. By including supporting community members, our retreats allow community members and society at large accept its responsibility for your actions.
You will be listened to deeply, and tended lovingly. Your truth will be honored, & respected in sacred space where you can share your burdens with those of like mind and experience. We will build a supporting community that you can continue to be a part of and share the work with fellow veterans and first responders.
Most of our retreats are for both men and women. This provides the opportunity for the whole community to learn from and grow with each other. We sometimes hold separate men’s retreats or women’s retreats.
Civilians attend our retreats in order to listen to and learn from you. They are honored to hear your true stories and to share your hard-earned knowledge of the best and worst of human nature and most importantly to bear the burdens of war with you…as they belong to all of us.
Depending on the length of the retreat, Inipi Ceremonies (Sweat Lodges) may or may not be included in the retreat.*
Our First Sweat Lodge!
The Inipi Ceremony (Native American Sweat Lodge), which means “to live again” is like an earth based healing cleansing sauna/steam bath. The Inipi is made of willow, string and blankets with a hole in the middle for the Oncashalas (Grandfather stones). The dirt from the hole for the stones is piled about 3 feet in front of the door to make an earth altar where the Chanupa rests as well as placing items there to be blessed during the ceremony and offerings (gifts of thanks) to the Water Pourer (person running the lodge). Depending on how the stones heat and break up there are 4 or 5 rounds where 7 stones are brought in by the fire keeper and placed in the hole. Then sacred herbs are added to the stones as they are welcomed into the lodge. Then the water pourer ladels blessed sage water onto the stones filling the Inipi with steam. Then songs and prayers take place in each round. Typically there ared 4 rounds, one for each of the 4 directions, and if the stones crack, we use the left over pieces for a Medicine Round to release any final things folks may be holding on to.
The Inipi represents the womb of the sacred earth mother. We enter the Inipi with reverence and grateful humility knowing that the Great Mother will take what you offer hear and serve as a space to allow you to heal and release all that needs to go returning you to the world reborn and sweated clean having released your burden.
If there is a pipe (Chanupa) carrier present we would have a Chanupa ceremony in the sacred space outside the lodge before disbanding. The Chanupa is the sacred pipe of the Lakota people.
*Inipi ceremonies are not necessarily included in all retreats and Inipi ceremonies will take place at Deer Hart Lodge at times when there is no retreat in session.