Christiana Aro-Harle

One of the initiations I was put through was with Fire. 

I have a theory which goes like this. Bear with me.

Once upon a time folk in the non-animistic, non-indigenous lands stopped feeding Fire. Oh, they fed alright. Bits of paper with things they Wanted. Bits of Scraps. Written words in various forms of ceremony or ritual or psychopomp; written down to pacify their souls and guilt; words of contrition; words of grief; words of letting go; words of desire and manifestation; family members and relationships to bring into being or out!; phrases and punctuations of therapeutical Take this and Eat! 

We danced around Fire, we fed our effigies, we burned women at the stake, we wrote out our desires and what we wanted to manifest. We read them aloud for all to hear exposing ourselves to a group of similar folk.

We saw the act as symbolic of transformation – of change. Our guru’s and landowners, lords and ladies, officials cheered us on. Our therapists and spiritual teachers held our hands and hugged us. Our priests and priestesses stood holding the space place. We sought out visions from Fire’s tongues and glows, ripples of heat. Our children and youth thought all would change in that moment.

And sometimes it really worked. We were – are – all touched by Fire. 

We weep around Fire, grieve around Fire, we have sex around Fire, we jump over Fire with or without our knickers on; We burn books; we roast our food, toss in packaging, kick fire logs, dump water on, spit in Fire; we get stoned, high, drunk around fire; we toss in our cigarette butts; we spread Fire to cause harm; we heat up our houses with our garbage collection; we bring our recycling to bins to be shoved into fire to heat homes and industry; we just feed fire with waste because burning is better than scattering or burying or making the effort to drive or carry it out; we threaten and use fire against others; we capture fire through the wire tendrils spread around Mother Earth. 

Always asking Fire: TRANSFORM, TRANSMUTE, SEND FORTH, FIX, RELEASE, CLEANSE, GIVE “ME” 

How is that any different from how we “treat”, work with, cooperate with, order around, control, use Water, Air, Land?

We chant and yell out Water is Life and protect Water with legions of rules and legislation. We gather at sacred wells and springs, lakes and rapids proclaiming Her right to flow free and Live. We do the same with Earth with our organic farming, our soil depletion, our rules and regulations to yes, please, don’t use so many fertilisers or GMOs etc. 

Do I need to list all of this in detail? 

And Air? We have the right to have lots of clean Air. We even take all these to the Human Rights level. 

And Metals? And Wood? And Fungi? And mosses and lichens? All the animals? All the plants, minerals…. And yet who stands alone in this? Fire.

BUT What if all the Fires, these burns, these out of control forest fires that are sweeping the continents are the culmination of our dumping our “stuff” into Fire? What if the intentions guiding the ballistics that spread fire that eats up lands, peoples and other life forms of Mother Earth are a result of no balance? 

What if Fire has received all our collective weekend and evening and week-long gatherings of burning bits of paper and cloth or carved wood pieces and truly now is doing what we asked? Trying to transform, transmute, send forth, free, release, cleanse? 

And just Not as we expected!?

Is Fire truly now answering all our prayers? 

What if…

She had enough. She is full. 

And if that is so, then perhaps the balance is off? 

We truly have caused changes.

That is my theory – musing.

So I sit with Fire, I feed Fire, I care and nurture Fire. And this has changed me and DOES change what I can and cannot do, what privileges have to be let go of and re-formed; enabling and humbling in service. A great lesson in what apprenticeship means.

Every action has a response. Every question, proclamation, prayer, mantra, order, request has a response. Fire responds, just as Water, Air and Earth does. Even silence is dialogue.

Indigenous Knowledge holds that the Indigenous ones who have been holding and in care of the Lands (includes above, below and around) knew how to be and live in balance with Fire. That is why I support Land Back projects¹. They understand.

In Tuva One of the initiations I was put through was to be with Fire. Practise, participation and performance. And still continuing. There I learned through loss the differences between a Social Fire and Sacred Fire.

Balancing

Feed – literally. With food. There we had all white foods, and fatty meat usually of sheep. Their indigenous sheep is a fatty-tailed one. There was a particular way to approach and interact with Fire. Travel to Guatemala and found the same: feed, remember, prayer, deliciousness, colour, beauty, cacoa beans to Fire. My Swami acquaintance and I built a Fire together at one gathering and we wondered could it be done? Two cultures from different lands? And we found the same: with fats, and smells, and food, and colour and beauty. With words. With prayers of blessing. With words and song, and stories. 

I hear some voices saying: “oh that is easy. I go out and buy some goodies for Fire”. But that is the surface. Perhaps it is a start.

My friend and colleague who is Marakáme (Shaman-Initiated Healer) and has kept and tended Fire Circle/Ceremony for some twelve years once a month (except when they were on pilgrimage to her Elder’s sacred mountain). They do not talk about this much yet I am inspired by such devotion… and love!! In service to Fire, her Huichol Elders, Humans, Life. All donation-based.

Yes, transformation. Yes, cleansing. Yes, blessing. Yes, healing. HOWEVER one needs to learn how to be and tend and feed Fire in order that BALANCE exists. And that comes from sitting with Her during the cycles of Earth, during the Moon times, during ceremonies – days and nights, hours. Watching and watching, feeling and feeling. Observing and listening. Time and time again. Re-learning, re-membering, tending and intention. Feeding, approaching, learning her language, protecting and respecting her. Or him. Them. Fire.