I am so sorry I missed your gathering. I’m sure it was still fantastic without me.

Being an Aries, I am a fire freak. Back when I was an apprentice to a Lakota pipe-carrier (shaman) I was told that before I could do anything I had to start at the beginning. I had to start as the fire person — the lowliest of all positions. This meant that I had to scour the countryside for just the right rocks for the sweat-lodge ceremony. I then had to gather the wood. I then had to place the rocks and the wood in just the right configuration to produce the bonfire necessary to conduct the ceremony.

In hopes of advancing in my tutelage I performed my tasks with utmost care and awareness. I never chose a rock that did not loudly speak to me of its desire to be part of the ceremony, of its desire to impart the knowledge it was holding. And I never picked up a scrap piece of cedar or juniper that was dry, lying upon the ground, without feeling its desires in my hands.

I built my fire with the precision of the utmost pyromaniac.

The sweat-lodge ceremony is utterly dependent upon the white-hot rocks from the bonfire. It is only through the heat and fire that transcendence of dimensions will occur. It is the alchemy of the bonfire that leads to the alchemy within the sweat-lodge. And it is the alchemy within the sweat-lodge that leads to transformation.

That same alchemy can be achieved through the lighting of a candle.

We light things afire in this apparent reality and this creates (or burns) an opening into other dimensions. It can burn the veils separating realities. But these things will not occur unless we surrender to the fire; unless we allow the fire to burn all the barriers we have placed through our lives to that which is the true fire of our true self. Fire can strip us naked.

And it can ignite that which is below even that nakedness.