Glimpses of Fire

 .

Sitting around a fire together

for hundreds of thousands of years

is a big part of what makes us human.

Author Unknown

There is something about a fire, whether in a fireplace or a stone circle out doors that embraces me like home.  I cannot help but wonder how many fires have warmed me down to my soul.  Give me a good book or a journal or just thinking time, and I can travel incredible distances accompanied by the crackling fire. 

Staring into the hot coals, I can easily eliminate not only time but space.  It is as though the flames are a mere tunnel welcoming my mind to wander where I have been on journey before.  The tunnel is a portal that opens into all that ever was. 

Transported, I find myself with brown muscular legs running barefoot through a forrest following a soaring hawk.  The hawk leads me to an opening in the might trees where people are gathered around a fire.  These people welcome me home.  They are my family and love me.  Everyone is drumming and the vibrations run up my powerful legs calling me to dance.  There is ceremony and ritual igniting my soul and creating passion.

Transported, I find myself to be a mere spark released into the air from a hot flame.  There is drunken laugher and cruel words with screams of horror and fright.  The intense flames lick their tongues against the flesh of the innocent as souls are released up into the air.

Transported, I find myself sitting around a fire, wounded in a soldier's uniform.  Men are gathered into the circle, but most are really young boys.  We are hungry, filthy, tired, and broken.  We no longer care who the enemy is and we have forgotten the reasons for war.  We long for our families and the safety of our homes that we will see never more.

Exiting the portal, escaping back through the tunnel, I sit with bone shaking emotions by the fire in this time and place.  I send love, light, and healing back from where I have been.  I remain safely seated in my chair until I feel calm and peaceful again.