Firewalking
Jun. 20th, 2011 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alee_grrlWarning: Long post, possibly triggery, slight discussion of past suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. Mostly a long discussion about healing from past trauma and an awesome experience with a shamanic firewalk.
Back at the beginning of May one of my friends gave me a tremendous gift. She paid my participation fee for a firewalking session. Firewalking is a spiritual/healing journey based on various religious and cultural traditions. Two of my friends have gone to several of the firewalking events held by this facilitator and each time found the experience to be a powerful and healing one. I have been fascinated by the experience since my friends first described it. There is no way I would have been able to justify the fee, particularly at the end of the semester when my funds were running low. So I am very thankful for my friends gift, which came at a perfect time.
Fire is an element of change and transition. Many focus on the consumptive or destructive power of fire, but such destruction is not necessarily bad. Forest fires lead to new growth. The mythical phoenix is reborn from its own ashes.
Firewalking focuses particularly on this cycle. It is a communal event, and is made more powerful because of its communal nature. The participants arrived in the evening a few hours before dusk. Some of us knew each other well (like my group of friends who traveled there together), some recognized each other from previous walks, and others were complete strangers. Some were there with a specific goal and others out of curiosity. For that one night we were a tribe, supporting each other on this journey.
We spent some time getting to know each other, and then walked down to where the fire would be. There we each took some wood and focused on imbuing that wood with our intent, our purpose for being there that night. The intent could be something you wanted to move away from or change, or it could be something you wanted to encourage, a passion you wanted to grow. For me my main intent was to let go of childhood events and old beliefs, to accept that I was no longer the little girl who tried to commit suicide because she wanted the pain and confusion to end. Twenty years have passed since that first attempt. So I thought of my eleven year old self, my teenage self and my young adult self. I thought of my mother, her mental illness, rage and lies. I thought of the poison she had injected into my soul with her words and actions. I focused all of these things on the wood that I stacked. After all of us had placed our wood for the fire, the facilitator asked us to think about those thoughts and doubts which had bubbled up like oil during this process, those things that might be holding us back. Then she passed around a large container of vegetable oil. Each participant was invited to think of these doubts, or to name them aloud as we poured oil over the wood. I poured all the lies my mother had told me onto the wood. Those lies had enflamed my self-doubts for decades. Now they could encourage flames of a different sort. Next we worked together in groups and lit the fire using rolled newspapers and remnants of oil. Once the fire was merrily blazing we walked back up to the main facility (a lovely yurt) and proceeded with other exercises meant to help us on our night's journey.
When we had arrived that night, each participant drew a name tag out of a bag. While the name area was blank, each tag did have a phrase written at the bottom. All the phrases began with "I am" and ended with a powerful descriptor like "divine," "safe," "held," or "beautiful." I knew before I went to the event that I wanted to focus on health issues both mental and physical. Appropriately, I drew the "I am healthy" name tag. One of the first exercises we did once the fire was lit was to go around and reintroduce ourselves using our descriptors. Each time I said "I am healthy" I grinned a little wider. We did a few exercises in pairs were we got to know people we hadn't known before. We got a blank piece of paper and were told to depict our ideal lives with words or pictures. This was something for ourselves to keep and look at later, and so we did not have to worry about sharing.
These exercises were voluntary. We were often reminded that we did not have participate if we did not want to and that watching was just fine (this went for firewalking as well, it was a very self-directed sort of night). In a way all of the exercises were about awareness of the self, of our bodies and spirits and the things that they can accomplish when working together. There was also a large focus on surpassing fear and hesitation and acting with intent and purpose. When we hesitate due to our fears is often when we or those we love get hurt, as was nicely illustrated by one of the exercises I participated in. The two main exercises before firewalking were: breaking an arrow (blunt-tipped) placed against the hollow of your throat by stepping towards the person bracing it; and bending a piece of steel rebar (also placed against the hollow of your throat by working in coordination with another (who held the rebar in the same way) and walking towards each other. The second was by far the hardest for me since I've worked with rebar before and know how hard it is to bend. My intent in participating in these exercises was to move past the pain that has been plaguing me for so long (physical and mental) and encourage a belief that my body was not my enemy. I was very frightened by the rebar because I knew it would hurt, but determined to move through that pain. The first try I hesitated and this caused both me and my friend who I was partnering with some pain. Everyone was very supportive and encouraging. My friend and I stepped back and decided to try again. With everyone's help I acknowledged that it was hard to let go of the pain, which had held on for so long. Our facilitator asked me what I wanted to replace that pain with, and I struggled to think of an answer. When pain has been present for so long it is hard to imagine life without it. Many of our temporary tribe suggest love as a replacement, but I often feel that I do not know what love is. It is one of those definitions that I find tricky and particularly sticky. So I knew that it would not be a good fit. Instead I thought of the small joys that I had found over the years, that contented feeling of happiness found in those wonderful, quiet moments of life (enjoying time with friends, finishing a complex problem, seeing a magical bit of beauty during a walk). I imagine replacing all the pain I felt (the emotional pain of old traumas, and the physical pain of my fibromyalgia) with that contented happiness and together my friend and I walked towards each other bending a long piece of steel rebar between us. We met in the middle in a wondrous hug and laughed with relief at our accomplishment. I wiped the tears from my face as my friend and I declared that we had made one of the largest underwires in existence. One of our other friends also participated in this exercise and we drove home that night with two bent pieces of rebar-the goddesses underwires.
After we completed the rebar bending exercise, we took a short break and then walked down to the fire, which had since burned to coals. We removed our shoes and stood barefoot in the cool night, the dew icy on our soles and the wet mud between our toes. The coals were raked out and drummers set up a rhythm. We chanted some lovely songs. The smell of wood smoke and spring, fresh grass and flowers, and the clear starry sky above us added to the atmosphere. As we sang, I stared at the coals and wondered if I could really walk across the short path that had been created. There is a trick to walking across hot coals, and that is to walk at the right speed. Do not walk to quickly or too slowly, but walk as you would if you were set on doing a task. Running with put too much weight on one area of your foot and increase the chance of burns, and hesitating gives the coals more time to burn your feet. I took my time in deciding, weighing my intent against my fear.
One of the most powerful ideas that our facilitator spoke of was "coming home" from trauma. Trauma is something that upsets everything within our lives: our sense of self, our health, our focus, our beliefs. If you consider that home is not a fixed point in time or place, but rather as a place of peace within the center of our universe. It is not what was, but what is. Home is a place that changes and grows with us; it is the people who love us and whom we love; and sometimes it is a compassionate and empathetic stranger with whom we share a bond even if just for a moment. As I looked around the people surrounding the fire, I thought of the earlier parts of the evening, of the things that had brought me to this place on this night with these people.
I took a deep breath and envisioned my eleven year old self on the other side of the coals. I closed my eyes and breathed, "It is time to come home." My heart hammering in my chest I walked across the coals into the arms of one of my tribe accepting and releasing the ghost of a lost little girl. I walked around the circle, hugs abounding, and was welcomed home by this tribe. I would walk across those coals four more times. Three by myself, and once with our facilitator. The second time I walked I pictured myself now as an adult living a life that I love, accepting and welcoming the woman I have become. Once I walked for the world, because we could all use some miraculous change in our lives. Once I walked for all those with autoimmune disorders. Each time I walked my heart pounded in my chest. I could feel the coals kiss my feet with their heat. Yet at the end of the night I had no burns, only a few mildly tender spots which were gone by morning.
I have not miraculously healed overnight (and I did not expect to), but I am more at peace with myself and my body. The bad days are fewer and the pain is less frustrating and not as all encompassing. I brought home two physical reminders of my accomplishments and the overall empowering and amazing experience of that night: the arrow I broke and some charcoal from the fire. I let my friend keep the goddess' underwire since I have way to small an apartment for it. I set the arrow pieces and charcoal on my alter. They are a reminder of my own strength; a reminder that I can move past my fear, past my pain, and that the rewards of doing so can be great. Finally they are a reminder that I am home. I cannot thank my friends enough for this experience. It is one I will treasure. I can see why they have participated in multiple firewalks. I plan on doing it again if I have the chance. Such events are always different each time, and there is always room for a bit of change.
For those who are interested, you can find out more about firewalking here.
Back at the beginning of May one of my friends gave me a tremendous gift. She paid my participation fee for a firewalking session. Firewalking is a spiritual/healing journey based on various religious and cultural traditions. Two of my friends have gone to several of the firewalking events held by this facilitator and each time found the experience to be a powerful and healing one. I have been fascinated by the experience since my friends first described it. There is no way I would have been able to justify the fee, particularly at the end of the semester when my funds were running low. So I am very thankful for my friends gift, which came at a perfect time.
Fire is an element of change and transition. Many focus on the consumptive or destructive power of fire, but such destruction is not necessarily bad. Forest fires lead to new growth. The mythical phoenix is reborn from its own ashes.
Firewalking focuses particularly on this cycle. It is a communal event, and is made more powerful because of its communal nature. The participants arrived in the evening a few hours before dusk. Some of us knew each other well (like my group of friends who traveled there together), some recognized each other from previous walks, and others were complete strangers. Some were there with a specific goal and others out of curiosity. For that one night we were a tribe, supporting each other on this journey.
We spent some time getting to know each other, and then walked down to where the fire would be. There we each took some wood and focused on imbuing that wood with our intent, our purpose for being there that night. The intent could be something you wanted to move away from or change, or it could be something you wanted to encourage, a passion you wanted to grow. For me my main intent was to let go of childhood events and old beliefs, to accept that I was no longer the little girl who tried to commit suicide because she wanted the pain and confusion to end. Twenty years have passed since that first attempt. So I thought of my eleven year old self, my teenage self and my young adult self. I thought of my mother, her mental illness, rage and lies. I thought of the poison she had injected into my soul with her words and actions. I focused all of these things on the wood that I stacked. After all of us had placed our wood for the fire, the facilitator asked us to think about those thoughts and doubts which had bubbled up like oil during this process, those things that might be holding us back. Then she passed around a large container of vegetable oil. Each participant was invited to think of these doubts, or to name them aloud as we poured oil over the wood. I poured all the lies my mother had told me onto the wood. Those lies had enflamed my self-doubts for decades. Now they could encourage flames of a different sort. Next we worked together in groups and lit the fire using rolled newspapers and remnants of oil. Once the fire was merrily blazing we walked back up to the main facility (a lovely yurt) and proceeded with other exercises meant to help us on our night's journey.
When we had arrived that night, each participant drew a name tag out of a bag. While the name area was blank, each tag did have a phrase written at the bottom. All the phrases began with "I am" and ended with a powerful descriptor like "divine," "safe," "held," or "beautiful." I knew before I went to the event that I wanted to focus on health issues both mental and physical. Appropriately, I drew the "I am healthy" name tag. One of the first exercises we did once the fire was lit was to go around and reintroduce ourselves using our descriptors. Each time I said "I am healthy" I grinned a little wider. We did a few exercises in pairs were we got to know people we hadn't known before. We got a blank piece of paper and were told to depict our ideal lives with words or pictures. This was something for ourselves to keep and look at later, and so we did not have to worry about sharing.
These exercises were voluntary. We were often reminded that we did not have participate if we did not want to and that watching was just fine (this went for firewalking as well, it was a very self-directed sort of night). In a way all of the exercises were about awareness of the self, of our bodies and spirits and the things that they can accomplish when working together. There was also a large focus on surpassing fear and hesitation and acting with intent and purpose. When we hesitate due to our fears is often when we or those we love get hurt, as was nicely illustrated by one of the exercises I participated in. The two main exercises before firewalking were: breaking an arrow (blunt-tipped) placed against the hollow of your throat by stepping towards the person bracing it; and bending a piece of steel rebar (also placed against the hollow of your throat by working in coordination with another (who held the rebar in the same way) and walking towards each other. The second was by far the hardest for me since I've worked with rebar before and know how hard it is to bend. My intent in participating in these exercises was to move past the pain that has been plaguing me for so long (physical and mental) and encourage a belief that my body was not my enemy. I was very frightened by the rebar because I knew it would hurt, but determined to move through that pain. The first try I hesitated and this caused both me and my friend who I was partnering with some pain. Everyone was very supportive and encouraging. My friend and I stepped back and decided to try again. With everyone's help I acknowledged that it was hard to let go of the pain, which had held on for so long. Our facilitator asked me what I wanted to replace that pain with, and I struggled to think of an answer. When pain has been present for so long it is hard to imagine life without it. Many of our temporary tribe suggest love as a replacement, but I often feel that I do not know what love is. It is one of those definitions that I find tricky and particularly sticky. So I knew that it would not be a good fit. Instead I thought of the small joys that I had found over the years, that contented feeling of happiness found in those wonderful, quiet moments of life (enjoying time with friends, finishing a complex problem, seeing a magical bit of beauty during a walk). I imagine replacing all the pain I felt (the emotional pain of old traumas, and the physical pain of my fibromyalgia) with that contented happiness and together my friend and I walked towards each other bending a long piece of steel rebar between us. We met in the middle in a wondrous hug and laughed with relief at our accomplishment. I wiped the tears from my face as my friend and I declared that we had made one of the largest underwires in existence. One of our other friends also participated in this exercise and we drove home that night with two bent pieces of rebar-the goddesses underwires.
After we completed the rebar bending exercise, we took a short break and then walked down to the fire, which had since burned to coals. We removed our shoes and stood barefoot in the cool night, the dew icy on our soles and the wet mud between our toes. The coals were raked out and drummers set up a rhythm. We chanted some lovely songs. The smell of wood smoke and spring, fresh grass and flowers, and the clear starry sky above us added to the atmosphere. As we sang, I stared at the coals and wondered if I could really walk across the short path that had been created. There is a trick to walking across hot coals, and that is to walk at the right speed. Do not walk to quickly or too slowly, but walk as you would if you were set on doing a task. Running with put too much weight on one area of your foot and increase the chance of burns, and hesitating gives the coals more time to burn your feet. I took my time in deciding, weighing my intent against my fear.
One of the most powerful ideas that our facilitator spoke of was "coming home" from trauma. Trauma is something that upsets everything within our lives: our sense of self, our health, our focus, our beliefs. If you consider that home is not a fixed point in time or place, but rather as a place of peace within the center of our universe. It is not what was, but what is. Home is a place that changes and grows with us; it is the people who love us and whom we love; and sometimes it is a compassionate and empathetic stranger with whom we share a bond even if just for a moment. As I looked around the people surrounding the fire, I thought of the earlier parts of the evening, of the things that had brought me to this place on this night with these people.
I took a deep breath and envisioned my eleven year old self on the other side of the coals. I closed my eyes and breathed, "It is time to come home." My heart hammering in my chest I walked across the coals into the arms of one of my tribe accepting and releasing the ghost of a lost little girl. I walked around the circle, hugs abounding, and was welcomed home by this tribe. I would walk across those coals four more times. Three by myself, and once with our facilitator. The second time I walked I pictured myself now as an adult living a life that I love, accepting and welcoming the woman I have become. Once I walked for the world, because we could all use some miraculous change in our lives. Once I walked for all those with autoimmune disorders. Each time I walked my heart pounded in my chest. I could feel the coals kiss my feet with their heat. Yet at the end of the night I had no burns, only a few mildly tender spots which were gone by morning.
I have not miraculously healed overnight (and I did not expect to), but I am more at peace with myself and my body. The bad days are fewer and the pain is less frustrating and not as all encompassing. I brought home two physical reminders of my accomplishments and the overall empowering and amazing experience of that night: the arrow I broke and some charcoal from the fire. I let my friend keep the goddess' underwire since I have way to small an apartment for it. I set the arrow pieces and charcoal on my alter. They are a reminder of my own strength; a reminder that I can move past my fear, past my pain, and that the rewards of doing so can be great. Finally they are a reminder that I am home. I cannot thank my friends enough for this experience. It is one I will treasure. I can see why they have participated in multiple firewalks. I plan on doing it again if I have the chance. Such events are always different each time, and there is always room for a bit of change.
For those who are interested, you can find out more about firewalking here.
