Sweat lodge McGuire VA cropped
The sweat lodge at the McGuire VA Medical Center (Photo by Tharon Giddens)
The latest addition to the campus at the Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center is decidedly low-tech.
It’s at the back of the complex, near the Hopkins Road gate. Driving by, you may miss it; It’s just a half-circle skeleton of sticks enclosed with tarps. It faces east, and there’s a dirt pile at its door, then a fire pit surrounded with rocks.
It looks out of place, but this is an inipi, a Native American sweat lodge. It’s a place for cleansing and renewal, and for healing.
The structure was dedicated in an event on May 8 that included a drum circle ceremony and prayers.
The four circle participants performed honor songs. One was titled “Healing and Rejuvenation,” apt topics for a VA facility, said circle participant Andrew Tyler, an Air Force veteran.
Watch the dedication ceremony
Native Americans have a long, storied tradition of service in the American armed forces. More than 44,000 saw service during World War II, and during the Vietnam War, more than 42,000 served, more than 90 percent as volunteers at a time when military ranks were filled through the draft, according to a 2012 report from the VA on American Indian and Alaska Native service members and veterans.
“We owe them the chance to practice their rites,” Chaplain James Connolly said following the ceremony. “The Native American traditions deserve to be respected.”
It’s the second sweat lodge at McGuire. There was one constructed there in the 1990s, and the new one is dedicated to Bobby Barlett, the driving force behind the first inipi and a Vietnam War veteran who was treated at McGuire, according to Jimmy Thunder Ortiz, a nephew of Barlett.
The Crewe resident led the effort to construct the new inipi here. “I took it upon myself to get it going,” he says.
A ceremony will be held inside the lodge on May 20.
HEALTHY DEVELOPMENTS
A roundup of the week’s health and medicine news
- VCU Health’s free seminars on various medical topics continue through May at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in the Kelly Education Center, 1800 Lakeside Ave. The topics include medicinal use of various plants May 13, obesity’s impact on health May 24 and a session on postpartum depression May 31.
- VA2K Walk & Roll, a benefit to help homeless armed services veterans, will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on May 17 at the McGuire VA Medical Center. Food, bottled water and toiletries may be donated. The VA is also seeking donations of bicycles, new or used, for use by homeless veterans. Donations may be dropped at a registration table at the south entrance.
- Remote Area Medical provides critical medical care at no cost to residents of some of Virginia’s most impoverished and underserved communities. You can learn more about the nonprofit at a free screening of a documentary at 6:30 p.m. May 18 at the Virginia Historical Society. The screening, part of the Created Equal film series, will be followed with a session featuring William Hazel Jr., Virginia’s secretary of Health and Human Services, and Richmond physician Isaac Koziol, a volunteer with Remote Area Medical.
