When Fire Speaks

Last night when I came into ceremony with Fire, it spoke. Not in words or prose, but in what it showed me. The message felt personal and collective at the same time. And I felt it needed to be shared.

Connecting with the elements of our Earth is a powerful way to receive wisdom, healing, and guidance in our personal and collective lives. Each element has their own medicine and power. Air can renew and allow your soul to take flight. Water can wash away heavy energies and cleanse your soul. Earth can ground and reset your nervous system. And Fire can transform and heal.

Around the world indigenous traditions honor the Fire with various ceremonies and customs. Many of these practices are kept private from the public and used only by trained Shamans. For most, this is not out of gatekeeping, but from a place of deep reverence and understanding of the great power of Fire.

Fire is often used in ceremonies of transformation, initiation, and new beginnings. Like all things in the shamanic world, it is considered alive and conscious. By giving gifts to the Fire we create a relationship of reciprocity and gratitude as it takes away the energies and old paradigms we wish to release and activates and ignites new seeds of potential and beginnings. The Sacred Fire also shows us messages and conveys wisdom if we take the time to sit with and observe it during the ceremony.

Yesterday I had the honor to hold a virtual pop-up Journey Meditation for those who wanted to connect with the New Moon of Virgo. During our sacred time together I invited everyone to blow their prayers and energy into my prayers sticks. Yes, even virtually, we can connect in this way.

As I do with many of my fire ceremonies, I took these prayer sticks to the Sacred Fire and came into ceremony. For many of us in the western world this may sound exotic and foreign. Fire Ceremonies even sound sacrilegious to some. From my lens of reality, I deeply believe that a true ceremony is simply a moment when we come into sacred space -- that's it! The smallest of daily habits can become a ceremony if we give it our sacred attention.

Drinking a mere glass of water can become a powerful sacred ceremony when we take the time to appreciate the extensive journey and cycle of water and its life giving properties before we take our first sip. I encourage you to try it sometime.

And so it is with fire as well.

The fire ceremony is a powerful and tangible experience for our mind and body to receive healing and initiations. But it is often sorely lacking in our modern civilization. We go through immense transitions and changes in our life without giving sacred time to honor and support them.

When we go into a Fire Ceremony, we take the time to build the Fire in sacred intention, carefully creating with special items like colored beeswax candles to represent the directions, sugar and cacao to offer generous gifts back to the Earth, beauty and color from flowers, resin, and herbs... And once the Fire is lit, the magic unfolds.

This beautiful Fire that I helped create is now alive. I come into relationship with it. I ask if it will receive my heavy energies and transform them into gifts of light. I listen. I wait. I tend.

Last night when I came into ceremony with Fire and my prayer sticks, it spoke.

Not in words or prose, but in what it showed me.

The message felt personal and collective at the same time.

And I felt it needed to be shared.

When I offered the Fire the prayers stick with the released heavy energies from my virtual gathering -- the Fire happily and generously accepted. Beautiful large flames wrapped up the prayer sticks and dissolved the heavy energies right back into light energy. It was beautiful. It was strong.

And then I offered the Fire my prayer stick with blessings and prayers. And it is here that the fire spoke.

At first it began to accept this beautiful prayer stick wrapped in flowers and blessings. But then suddenly, with no warning, the fire grew weak. Whenever this happens in a fire ceremony, my first (very human) instinct is to think I have done something wrong and did not make a good Fire.

But then I sit and wait, watch and listen.

The fire nearly went out on several occasions throughout the ceremony. There were hot embers, but the flames simply would not last. The fire continued to go out unless I provided constant tending.

There was a message here and I needed to listen deeply to understand. Hours passed and the beautiful prayer stick wrapped in flowers was smoldering but never fully lit. I tended the hot coals and blew with my air. I asked for understanding and I finally received an answer.

I felt the words in my soul.

"We must work hard in these times on our planet, to tend to our Vision.

To tend to our hearts. To tend to the prayers and blessings we wish to bring into our realities.

This is not for the faint of heart."

Our world is going through dramatic shifts and changes and it is very difficult to see a path forward.

And yet, that is what Fire shared with me last night. It showed me that it may seem impossible, and on several occasions our fire may seemingly "go out." But to keep tending, keep believing, keep nurturing.

Do not let go of the vision your heart holds.

And so I tended this Fire for hours. At times it would come back to life, and then in seconds it would return to hot embers and smoke. Back and forth. I grew weary and tired. Eventually I called out for support from ancestors and ancient fire keepers to tend to the fire while I slept.

When I awoke in the morning, I immediately stepped outside to check on the fire. Usually by morning after a Fire Ceremony, the hot embers have cooled and there is only ash of what remains. But this morning, the hot coals were still there and a graceful stream of smoke made its presence known! The Fire was still alive and slowly, ever so slowly, it had received the prayers and blessings from the prayer stick.

I had more energy now and tended to what remained of my Fire. I heard crackles and pops as the fire seemed to appreciate this tending. The smoke grew and then suddenly, "pop!" the flames returned.

For me, this felt like a powerful message for us all.

As we go about our own personal and collective changes and transformation at this time on our planet, it may seem difficult to hold onto the vision of our hearts, the prayers of our soul. And I invite you to remember this story of the Fire when you find yourself in these moments of your journey. Tend to yourself, tend to your heart, tend to the light within you -- do not let it go out. And call out for support from the spirit world, ancestors, and other Fire keepers in your life.

Much to you all.