The lodge builders

The sonic call of a whip bird breaks my sleep. Under my window there is a tiny jingling, tinkling sound, like a small solitary Christmas bell. I hear the rustle and hiss of a goanna moving with slow deliberate purpose in nearby scrub. A kookaburra cackles insanely, and overhead the lyric call of a currawong warbles a greeting to the new day.

I'm staying at 'Narrowleaf' with Terry and his wife, Trish. 'Narrowleaf' is a sanctuary-cum-hospital for the rehabilitation of injured native Australian wildlife. Bats, possums, koalas, wallabies, sugar gliders, echidnas, lorikeets and dozens of other animals and birds are brought here and nursed back to health. Some of the animals have been electrocuted. Others have suffered attack by humans or domestic animals. Many are the hit and run victims of collisions with motor vehicle, left to die by the roadside. Those whose injuries and diseases are evidently too distressing or too advanced are humanely put down on return to Narrowleaf.

In the six years since they established Narrowleaf on the outskirts of Queensland's Gold Coast, Terry and Trish have built a network comprising hundreds of volunteers who retrieve and care for injured animals. Together, they have established research and teaching links with veterinarians and universities, and travelled the world to educate themselves and others about animal breeding, physiology, anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology, and veterinary surgery. They've ploughed hundreds of thousands of their own money into a venture stretching across southeastern Queensland that has helped countless thousands of animals.

Today men are coming to Narrowleaf to build a sweat lodge as a gift the local community. Daniel Cloud and I have already cut the Casuarina saplings that will serve as a framework for the lodge. I feel happy and curious. Today will be my first opportunity to build a sweat lodge.

By mid-morning everyone has arrived and we start work. The lodge builders are Terry (Flying Fox), Rick (Bat), Daniel (Powerful Owl with Frolicking Tui), Shannon (Happy Dragon), Steve, Michael (Tiger's Eye), Damian, Bill (Southern Eagle), Allan (Big Bull), Antoine (Possum), Peter, Wayne (Dingo) and myself.

Spades, picks, crowbars, axes, saws and string - lots of string -- are employed to fashion the lodge's dome-shaped skeletal structure. Daniel and Rick are our tutors. Later they will share water-pouring duties inside the lodge. Later, Jai Hennessey and Larry make a visit. Larry has brought his young grandson, Lachlan, who is smudged into the circle with the men. Later, we stand in a ceremonial circle and I hold young Lachlan's small hand in my own as Larry offers a blessing for our work.

At the centre of the lodge a deep hole is dug with sufficient depth to hold 20 or so "grandfather" rocks. Later, these will be roasted in a fire until they are fired to a glowing orange-red. The "grandfathers" remind us that all matter is ancient and changing. Like the grandfather rocks, we are all in transition from one form to another. For me, the grandfathers represent all that is past, present and future.

They explain that the lodge entrance will face eastward, towards the sun-lover energy. The archetypal energies are acknowledged around the lodge and its perimeter by tying gold, red, black, white, blue and green cloths on stakes. Young Lachlan ties the gold coloured cloth onto the stake in the east, representing new beginnings. When we have completed the lodge's framework we drape it in layers of underlay and canvass. Inside, the lodge is pitch black.

Some time later Trish visits us at the lodge. She is holding a dead male fruit bat whose back was broken last night, probably due to a collision with a car. She tells us it has lain all day where it fell by the roadside, suffering an agony of pain and bewilderment. A broken back means its life as a bat is over, Trish explains, so she has injected it with a sedative and a fatal quantity of barbiturates to stop its heart. Thanks to her the bat was able to die in peace and dignity after its long ordeal.

She wraps it in a soft cloth, like she would an infant, and hands it to me. She asks me to give it to Rick, whose totem animal is Bat. When Rick returns from his water pouring preparations I tell him the story of the bat's ordeal and its final hours of loving care by Trish. He cradles the bat, caressing its ears and stroking its black fur. Later, he buries it (headfirst) in the hill that rises to the west of the lodge.

We build the fire that will be lit at day's end by our fireman, Allan. According to tradition, the fire represents the sun's male energy. The sun communicates with the moon via a "heart line" that has been traced in yellow-white powder on the ground. The moon, representing the feminine principle, is created from earth dug from the hole we have dug at the centre of the lodge. The moon mound serves as an altar. We place sacred objects such as talismans, worldly chattels and mementos on it for safekeeping.

A stake placed through the centre of the moon-altar is decorated with green and blue cloths. These represent mother earth and father sky. The heart line running from sun to moon continues into the lodge. Inside, the heart line communicates with the "womb" that will hold the grandfathers.

Each of us places a grandfather rock in the fire, setting our intention for the sweat. Wayne and Steve are the "rock bearers". Later, they will scour the fire with a long handled pitchfork and shovel and bring the glowing grandfathers to the lodge. I will be "inside doorman", a human bridge who communicates messages between the fireman, rock bearers and the water pourers.

Finally, the fire is ceremonially lit. It burns for an hour or so while we talk contentedly, reflecting on our good work. Allan recounts an uproarious story about his search for the string that now binds the lodge together. At dusk we enter the lodge. The first set of six grandfathers is brought inside. The lodge door is then closed, leaving us in inky blackness. I brush the grandfathers with sage, sweet-grass and a mix of crushed native herbs gathered by Daniel. Their sweet, smoky aroma begins to fill the confined lodge space.

The first round is the round of the lover to the east. As each man speaks to his feelings, the water-pourer sears the rocks with water. The steamy air warms and closes in around us and we start to nudge up against one another, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. We allow room for each man to claim some unanchored part of himself and I feel the healing spirit of the sweat lodge beginning its magic. The lodge for me is a dark, safe, sacred container that mirrors a sacred space I hold inside me.

Round two is the round of the warrior in the north. The water pourer invites us to honour ourselves for our capacity to stay the course in the face of adversity and self-doubt. I speak of my father, who at age 14 ran away from home on a boat, leaving his native Ireland for good. Six years later he stepped ashore as a man of experience in Australia. His gift to me was the dogged determination and self-reliance he learned at sea, and later, as an immigrant to this land. Now the lodge is cooking. The juice of men's truth is firing us to go deeper.

Round three is the round of the magician in the west. What burdens and wounds do I carry? Does it serve me to carry on being a victim? A perpetrator? Am I courageous enough to speak to my wounds and my wounding of others? And having done so, am I prepared to let them go into the void, trusting spirit to take care of the rest?

Now the lodge is a thick, intense place filled with the groans and moans and tears of men. We name those who have wounded us and those we have wounded. We vent our torments. We unburden ourselves, howling at the unseen moon that now bathes the lodge in a pure white light of feminine understanding. We swoon. We ebb and flow into and around one another, as the healing magic of the lodge transforms our pain into an ecstasy of release.

Round four is the round of the sovereign and we name that which is kingly in us. We honour and bless ourselves for what we hold dear in our kingdoms as fathers, grandfathers, brothers, husbands, sons. My breath is a searing hot gas, tearing at my throat and lungs. Part of me can't stand the intensity any longer yet I am deliriously happy here with my band of brothers. The grandfathers of countless generations are holding me safe in their wise embrace. At last, the door is flung open and we drink the cool night air that floods the lodge. I crane my neck to see father fire and mother moon dancing in a heat haze before me. Above, a billion points of light dazzle and dance in the cosmos.

After a brief respite, rounds five, six and seven follow in quick succession. All the grandfathers have been welcomed into the lodge and they hiss as they are lashed with water. The heat is so intense that I have to bend my body and breathe close to the earth where the air is a little cooler. We chant. We sing. We laugh. We weep. We're dying and being born anew. Then, something warps inside me. I feel a massive leviathan spirit has consumed me. I am deep inside its gut. I surrender to this and feel my shame peel and break and fall from me. I'm free again.

The door opens for the last time and we stagger and slither from the lodge, exhausted, happy and complete. We hose our bodies then drift into a ragged circle to dry ourselves around the fire's embers. We check out, feeling wrung out, serene, happy, wizened and complete. A man remarks to the group that today is my birthday. And so my brothers sing to me a happy birthday that I will cherish for the rest of my days.

It is done and we are one.