Fire

Connecting to Fire through Meditative Art

Art and Fire are very close friends. The classical artist character is a real “Fire creature,” always dramatic, loud and noticeable, dazzled by inspiration and attracting the surrounding. Such a “Fire creature,” can keep everyone around then entertained, but so very often, they may just burn themselves out. 

It is important to learn to keep our Fire burning without letting it hurt us, without burning away. We can learn to do so through developing personal responsibility and making sure to play with Fire with awareness; enjoying its glamour, while not getting lost in its fast, dangerous and unexpected flickering flames.

When the fire in our heart is burning for the Divine it helps us rise high and stay effectively focused, instead of just consuming our life force. Devotional fire can fill our world with light and warmth, like nothing else can. It gives meaning to all other passions and excitements. The love for the Divine, for truth, is true love, for it cannot lead us to attachment and pain.

 

Connecting to creative passion

We can connect to passionate Fire in many creative ways because creativity and inspiration are manifestations of pure Fire. We can choose any form of expression that we are sincerely passionate about. The essence of Fire is particularly experienced within the fields of performance arts, such as acting, playing music, dancing, singing, circus performances, and more. If you have never tried acting, it is definitely a direct way to experience Fire and its theatrical expressive temper. To stand on the stage, all eyes at you, to spread your hands to the sides and hold your head high, raise your voice and speak with confidence, will surely help kindle the fire within.

We can also nurture Fire by contacting to it in its physical sense. This can include cooking, bon-fires, lighting candles, burners, oil lamps or incenses.

In ancient time, a part of a woman’s traditional duty was to tend to the house fire and its need. She was to make sure a fire was always kept lit. Woman priestess would tend to a sacred fire that was kept in temples, shrines or holy places. In many tribal cultures, a young girl would be responsible to tend her family or father’s fire. When she would reach maturity and become a wife, she would then go to tend her own family and man’s fire.

Worldwide, the ancient custom of keeping an ever-burning fire was kept; the fire was regarded as holy and a living symbol of Divine light and present. Tending to a holy fire was the devoted duty of monks or nuns that dedicated their life to the search for God and to service. The mission of keeping the fire lit was never neglected. Neglecting the holy fire was considered a sin, an expression of neglecting the Divine and the holy fire within.

 

Feeding the inner fire and our personal duty to ourselves

 It is our own duty and obligation to keep our inner Fire ever burning, even in these modern times. We are the guardians of our light and power, and we must stay alert not to let it be extinct. 

If you discover that you had forgotten to tend your fire and that it has been blown away, resurrect yourself! Hurry and reawaken, with all force and faith, light it until it is strong and steady once again. It may be that we just simply don’t remember how to turn it back on. Starting to do something new that had been a long lost dream is a good way to get started. Let us not forget this great responsibility we have towards the Divine and ourselves, to remember and keep the flames alive.

From “True Feminity”,  by: Mochita Har-Lev

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