The ceremony dates back over 100,000 years, performed by the Native people of the Americas. The potential for dramatic transformation is based on using the most powerful catalyst we know (fire) to burn away those aspects of our lives which we no longer want. After a guided meditation, during which you tune into subtle (or not so subtle) messages, we are informed of what needs releasing.

There are chants, and evocation of the natural forces, to help us see more clearly. Our thoughts are transferred to paper, and distilled and refined over many repetitions to the gem of the issue. That written nugget is then offered to the fire, where it is transformed to the possibility for another choice. The participant also uses the fire to cleanse themselves, taking it in to heal, inspire and empower.

It is interesting that the fire does not fix things. It just allows the person the freedom and clarity to see that there is another way. We may be stuck in patterns of victimization, addiction or xx. It’s not that these situations never come up anymore. The reactions just stop happening automatically. Instead, we are offered options which do not support the original behavior or thought, and that inspire greater consciousness.

I have had mixed results. I am usually moved during the ceremony, and can easily find much to offer the fire, but have difficulty converting the insights into real change. This is a repeated pattern for me, experienced over and over with each attempt I make to feel better. Sometimes the effects last longer or are more profound. Sometimes all that’s left is the emptiness of failure.

For over a decade, I became a self-development junkie, hopping onto any teaching I could get my hands on. From the extreme to the subtle, I tried it. My head was so filled with the deconstruction of all that was wrong in my life, I’m not sure how I even functioned. It was a non-stop cycle of purge and refill.

I went to see a famous doctor during this time, who practiced Traditional Chinese Medicine. I mentioned so many times the need for detoxing and cleansing that he finally stopped to ask, “Are you feeling dirty?”.  Needless to say, it shut me up.

This wise man was so easily able to see that underneath my obsession with fixing and flushing lay an intractable assumption of my own yuckiness. I realized that while I was pretending to pursue learning and growth, I was really having a field day with self-judgment and contempt. My inner beliefs about myself were the kind that would bring on a bad smell face. It was pure distaste and disdain.

I want so desperately to be free, liberated from the loathing of my own wounds. I want to know more, have more, be more, without disavowing what’s already there. I want to feel whole and right.

The lightest of snow falls greeted me the morning after the fire ceremony. I had failed once again, ironically, to burn away my faults and failures. I wanted the immediacy and permanence of combustion to vanish my impatience, uncertainty and sadness, completely and irreversibly. I wanted to exorcise my demons.  Instead, I got snow, falling slowly, staying briefly, covering them tenderly.

Although the universe sometimes works with big flaming action, this day it came in gentle flakes, almost imperceptible, leaving a soft blanket of white. The world outside my window was peaceful, untarnished, clean, just as I wanted to be. I walked out into the snow and invited my tears to join their frozen friends, praying for compassion in my transformation.