Features | Around the Fire

The Path to Firekeeping

Posted by Around the Fire Editor | Feb 24, 2019 | Event Landing Page, Export, February 2019, Firekeeper Love Letters |

Are you looking for great purpose, meaning and transformation in your life, while producing spiritual connection, community and help for others? Would you like to see conflict and polarity in people’s lives changed to heart and dialogue? If so, we invite you to explore stepping into the role of Sacred Fire Firekeeper.

In premodern cultures around the world, people recognized the otherworldly effect of sitting with Fire and its influence to open people in a way not easily understood. Beyond heat and light, the presence of Fire was revered for the way that it could produce emotional, mental and spiritual health for communities and individuals, when facilitated by someone who could see and work with Fire’s special gift. This ability, held by those in the role known as “firekeeper,” was cultivated and passed on through generations to particular people. Firekeepers would then be a common presence at gatherings, council and ceremony. Nowadays, this skill, which has been lost in our society, is being reintroduced with the help of Grandfather Fire, and through his relationship to traditions that are still familiar with this spiritual endowment given for humanity’s benefit.

The Difficulty of Being Human

Posted by Around the Fire Editor | Jan 20, 2019 | Export, January 2019, Poems |

By Keith Baughman

Healing has at its core an aspect of accepting yourself. Acceptance at this level is layered and complex. Many weeks ago a phrase skipped across my thoughts: the difficulty of being human. Not only does it invert and energize the identifier of “human being,” it also undermines the deeply embedded notion in me that life should be easy and I’m just doing it wrong. As I continue to look through the lens of this phrase, my path to self-acceptance becomes clearer, and I begin to see that human difficulty is part of the natural order. It’s how we’re made, and we’re made this way for a reason.

Writing poetry is the mode or field where these internal conversations often get their first articulation. The difficulty of being human spilled onto a journal page one day without much to suggest its timely relevant weight. But as the days passed, and as I continued to journal, this phrase preoccupied my thoughts and ways of seeing the world within and around me. The following poem is an articulation of the permission, purpose and support this phrase has offered to my struggle to heal and accept myself.

Women and Men in a World of Growing Conflict

Posted by Sherry Boatright | Dec 12, 2018 | December 2018, Edit for later use |

by Sherry Boatright, Sacred Fire Carrollton, Georgia (USA)

Over the last two years, I’ve been glued to online news media. It has become altogether a questionable habit as I find myself moving from one unsettling story to the next. I’m working to get a grip. The upside, though, is that I’ve also discovered great writers and compelling studies about what’s going on in the world, from climate change to local and global politics, from women’s and men’s issues to health and family life.

Take kids for instance. Years ago, Carol Gilligan showed that girls up until age 9 or 10 are confident and expressive of their feelings. But as they move into adolescence, they begin to hide their feelings for fear of not fitting in.

Now my newsfeed tells me that boys are also born with a great talent for emotional openness, but that in adolescence they begin developing their manhood and differentiate themselves from girls.

The Gift of Grief: Honoring Loss, Opening to Peace

Posted by Prema Sheerin | Nov 6, 2018 | Edit for later use, November 2018, Wisdom of Emotions |

by Prema Sheerin, Sacred Fire Asheville, North Carolina

A well-tended garden has a balance of the essential elements: fire, earth, water, air and growth. In this, the fourth in a series of five articles, traditional healer Prema Sheerin continues to reveal the vital energies and gifts of each of the ‘elemental emotions’ that, similarly, are meant to provide for a healthy ecosystem in every human being. These elemental emotions are happiness, fear, anger, sympathy and grief. This article addresses grief, which is traditionally associated with the season of autumn.

As we enter the season of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, we feel the poignancy of the fading light, the waning warmth and brilliance of summer. It is a good time to explore the emotion of grief, the energy that supports us in letting go and navigating the many losses and transitions of life. Like the rain that comes to cool the heat of summer, grief provides the nourishing moisture that allows us to process and heal the losses we inevitably encounter.

Are GPS and Air Conditioning the Zenith of Human Achievement?

Posted by Jen Collins | Oct 2, 2018 | Export, September 2018 |

by Jen Collins, Sacred Fire New Freedom, PA

Yes, of course they are! That is my first answer. GPS can get me anywhere. It’s a modern day miracle. It has successfully navigated me all through Scotland, and to new doctors’ offices, restaurants, stores…you get the picture.

If I then close up my car windows on the way to all these new places and turn on my air conditioning…well, it makes me feel like I really am doing something. I’ve got direction (ha-ha!), climate control, sound reduction, and time to myself. I’m all self-contained in my little metal box with a cozy chair, a tasty beverage and an audio experience of my choosing.

ATF Section: Features

The Path to Firekeeping

The Difficulty of Being Human

Women and Men in a World of Growing Conflict

The Gift of Grief: Honoring Loss, Opening to Peace

Are GPS and Air Conditioning the Zenith of Human Achievement?

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