Walking the Fire Labyrinth

At the beginning of the evening in the soft blue light a number of lights emerged. By now, three hours later, the sky was crowded with strong planetary lights and starry cloud clusters. This sky must have been so familiar to our ancestors, who would have looked upwards as much outwards at each other and downwards at the earth. I felt comforted by the change in the night sky and started to feel more at ease on this journey which, twisting and turning, seemed to carry on outside the boundaries of time. I did not try to work out a logic to where I had been or where I was going, just concentrating on each step. At last we reached the exit where we returned to the campfire or went our separate ways into the darkness.

I returned to the campfire to ponder and communicate with fire in another form and felt that something had altered within me forever. Was it a release? The start of something? A birthing of a divine child of promise? A seed so deeply planted in darkness? Or the liberation of a part of me held in darkness for years? I did not know, do not yet know; I am unable to articulate, choose or shape the words for such a fragile, subtle sense of something but it is there and I now trust will emerge at the right time.

The next morning, unable to sleep well in a another’s house, I rise early and after tea and toast and sharing reflections with my friend, decide to walk into town. It's not far, just 10 minutes away and as I walk in the Sunday morning silence, become aware that I am going to meet myself from eight years back. Carolyn Myss says we weave our spirits into places, times, events. Eight years ago I visited the town with my then partner. I can see myself at that time on the motel verandah sharing a wine and do not like what I see; I am unhappy, judgmental, deluded, very wounded, making bargains with life and myself about how things should be, how I must be. Within, I yearn for the spiritual, to live for spirit! To give up the workaholism and worldly success but I do not believe that I am worthy of that life. The fire was the gift from the goddess who said "I have heard your deepest wish and will take away every distraction so that there is nothing in your life but spirit!"

Later in a meditation, I become aware that the fire was liberation, not limitation. In spite of all the hardship, difficulty, and struggle since that event were I to be given the choice of which path, this time would choose the fire experience which gave me back to myself in a rich, full, hard, and challenging life.

Walking back to the house on that Sunday after my latest fire experience I feel held between two histories, ancestral and personal, and somehow sense that fire –either ritual or accidental- contains the capacity to heal even the deepest and oldest wounds.

Katoomba, Blue Mountains Australia - July 4th 2005

About this Contributor: Kate McManus is a Reiki Master and flower essence practitioner. Kate's home burnt down three years prior to writing this article about her fire labyrinth walk. July 4th 2005