The Sun has reached its’ zenith, and all over Europe people are lighting ceremonial fires to celebrate this mid-Summer festival of light, and the male fire element. We have also been holding fire circles to celebrate this time, possibly the only remnant of pagan times still part of our consciousness. It may seem strange, counter-intuitive or an act of denial of climate change to be lighting a fire at this time, but fire is not so much the problem, it’s the humans using fire that is causing the imbalance.
I have been reflecting on the myth of Prometheus, the child of the marriage of Gaia the earth element and Uranus the sky. Of course it makes sense to see this Demi-god now as representing lightning, and our early ancestors discovering fire from Prometheus’ gift. Prometheus (meaning ‘forethought’) had a soft spot for the lowly humans living in the cold and dark and gave them the gift of fire (stolen from Zeus) which enabled the creation of civilization as we know it. Now the planet burns, and we rain down fire on innocent civilians.
Aboriginal scholar Tyson Yunkaporta reminds us that we have largely lost touch with the fire in our bellies, relying as we do on our thinking brains – overthinking everything and failing to connect with the feeling brain of the gut – ‘The Savage Self’ as I call it, the part of us that unites heaven and earth, the part that literally processes the produce of the earth, the same earth that we have fought over for eons. Tyson says we have ceased to be a part of those ecological, symbiotic feedback loop systems that are sustainable and connect us to Heaven and Earth, lightning and fire, head brain and gut brain working together.
It is our gut that “governs terrestrial relations and is in constant communication with land and all our human and nonhuman kin.”
In our small fire circles and on the Water and Fire retreat this weekend, we will welcome fire as our ally, to cleanse, transform and illuminate our lives, we will honour the eternal Spirit of Fire – the symbol of life and passion, and we will take great care to consciously acknowledge the dual nature of fire.
In Japan both the creative and destructive sides of fire are reflected in their mythologies. Kagu-tsuchi is the Shinto god of fire known as ‘he who starts fires’. He was born from 2 creator gods and his heat was so strong he burned his mother as he was born. Horrified his father cut him up and scattered him across Japan becoming the 8 sites of Japanese volcanoes.
