Round two of the sweat was easier now that I knew what to expect. Before round three, the prayer leader let us leave the tent and take in some cool evening air before returning. A white man in his mid-sixties with a scraggly white beard didn’t return. I took in a few deep breaths, drank some water, and chatted deliriously with some of the men I was sweating alongside. By the time we had to go back in, I was still light-headed, but high enough on endorphins that I was almost excited to return to the sweat.

In round three, listening to the people around me pray in Navajo and English, I decided that I would need a mantra of my own to keep my mind focused. And so, for the first time since my bar mitzvah, I prayed with real focus and concentration. In fact, I did the only prayer I remembered:

Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai echad.

It probably sounded absurd. I didn’t care. I just kept repeating it over and over to myself, and focusing on it helped me breathe. By the time round four finally rolled around, I wasn’t worried anymore.

And then five more people packed into the tent. By the time we were halfway through the prayers, the prayer leader had splashed some more water on the seemingly endless supply of hot stones. It was hotter in there than anything I had experienced. I could no longer pray; I was focused entirely on the effort of just breathing steadily. It took everything I had, and so I forgot myself in it. That’s when I finally understood why Native Americans have prayed in sweat lodges for eons. Once your breathing and the prayers are all that is, you feel like you’ve given yourself up the universe for a short time.

When the prayers had ended, we staggered out into cool night air and shook each other’s hands. The sky was overcast, but when I looked over the edge of the plateau on which the festival took place, the desert floor seemed to be dotted with stars. They were the street lights and house lights of a town so minute and scattered we hadn’t even noticed it during the day.

It wasn’t long before the prayer leader had an announcement: there were still stones left on the fire, and the two young boys who we had sweated with wanted to lead two more rounds of prayer.

I was exhausted, my limbs were rubbery, and I was soaked with so much sweat it was as if I had just showered in it. I took a few more swallows of water and went in for round five because why the hell not? I guess I failed to recall that total forgetting of self that had characterized round four. And so, like most of the other sweaters, I opted out of round six.