Light a Fire!
Weekly Reading Topic for August 3, 2019: Light a Fire!
Well, good morning, love!
I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:
What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?
The answer was: “Light a fire!”
Shivers and shakes, and maybe a flicker of hope … what follows is your Weekly Reading.
Weekly Reading │ Light a Fire!
Q: What do you mean, “light a fire!?”
A: A: Woo. Hoo. Hoo! Oh, now, get ready for this, because it’s a wild ride.
Light a fire! [exclamation point included!] is our focus this weekend, because it’s time to burn something down to ash. Yup, it’s time to let a brushfire roar.
Now, we’ve been having major brushfires on Maui for the past month, so this image is directly coming to me from my environment, but it is definitely what is up for ALL of us.
Fires can be cozy and warm and contained, like those in my grandfather’s fireplace in Vermont: bright, cheery, warm, safe.
And fires can be crazy and hot and unbound, like those that have raced across the dry brush of our central valley, threatening to burn up everything in their path.
Fire is not to be trifled with.
And yet, it is definitely there to be USED. Even when we are not in control.
A month ago we had a major brushfire, and the fields of old sugarcane in the central valley on our island turned to ash. And you know what’s there now? Grass. Probably sugarcane (a grass, by the way) that is thriving on the new minerals and nutrition released by the fire and soaking into the soil. I see acres and acres of black dirt, spiked with green growing life.
“Light a fire!” is something to play with at this, the height of the summer months in the northern hemisphere. If you can’t imagine a part of your life burning to the ground, ask yourself why? What is it that you can’t imagine burning away? What is it that you would reach for, if fire threatened? What is your must-save item(s)?
Ask yourself now, because right now, the fires are burning, and they could easily move from safe-and-contained to wild-and-sprawling.
You will want to know what it is that you want to bring with you into the new life that is pushing up, relentlessly, right under our feet.
For each of us, the fire will be different.
It might be a wake-up call at home, a realization that our marriage is finished, even though we are still sleeping in the same bed, turning off the same light, drinking the same coffee.
It might be that our dismal attitude about life is over, that we finally wake up to the glory of ourselves, to the reality that We Are OK.
It might be that we lose someone we love. Or a home we love. A job. A limb.
Or it might just be that we can’t pretend to ourselves, anymore, that we are anyone other than Who We Really Are.
Whatever it is, figure it out and Light a fire! Why?
Because when YOU light the fire, you are in charge. Yes!
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When brushfires, forest fires, prairie fires rage, the firefighters START fires to contain them. They put a circle around special structures, or a break in front of neighborhoods, and literally START a fire to burn away the fuel. That way, when the wildfire arrives, it has nothing to cling to and dies.
We can do the same in our life. Imagine losing your most precious, and live it in your mind. Go through the grief process, mourn, feel the pain of the loss. And let it be “true” in your mind. That “lights a fire” and creates a safety strip of burnt charred earth in your own experience. Later, when a wildfire that is outside of your control threatens, you will know that you have ALREADY IMAGINED THIS.
And you will feel safer. Not necessarily better, but safer. More prepared.
You can watch the fire burn, just outside your safe zone, and watch it creep closer, and know that you have prepared yourself.
How do you do this?
Look in the eyes of your beloved and allow yourself, just for a moment, to think of them as passed.
Look at your home and think, just for a moment, if this were all burning, where is what is most precious? How would I take it with me? Is there anything here that is so precious I couldn’t leave without it?
Look at your job, and just think, for just a second, about being laid off. Could you handle it? Would you feel hatred? Resentment? Or relief?
Look at your body and imagine, just for a moment, that you are dying. Would you be OK with leaving, right now?
This practice is called Memento Mori, “remember you must die” and it’s a surefire way to happiness. In fact, thinking of death five times a day nearly guarantees a fulfilling life!
It’s true!
When we light a fire to our own life, we don’t just value it more, cherish it more, and live it harder. We also pay more attention, and notice the green shoots of new life that pop up out of the ashes, no matter how hard the vegetation burned or how hot the land became.
So, light a fire, as a preventative, as a celebration, as a surefire protection policy.
It’s lovely to dance in the heat and the light, to feel ourselves flickering and flamelike as the fire. We are only here for a short moment, even when we live too one hundred. At the end of our lives, no matter how short or how long, we will look back and see the green shoots of our love, and the black ash of our fire, and be glad.
Be glad, this weekend, and may the blessing of fire ash rain on your life.
I am always here to serve in any way I can.
Much Love to You,
Molly
PS: Want to understand the way fire cleanses our world and the kind of mental toughness we need right now? I know no better book to read than Norm Maclean’s Young Men and Fire … or the song that encapsulates that story perfectly, Cold Missouri Waters.
PPS: If you haven’t encountered the concept of memento mori before, this is a good short explanation.
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