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As I sat in the airplane, returning from my
celebration of Makahiki and the firewalk leader/instructor training that
followed, I pondered all the events I’d witnessed and participated in. There
was board breaking, fire eating, some business with a needle; bending iron
rebar and breaking arrows by placing them in the hollow of the throat and
pressing forward with full commitment, and finally the firewalk. All these activities lack a certain degree
of common sensibility, all of them fall outside what for most is normal
reality and all of them inspire some degree of anxiety, fear or sheer terror.
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They
are challenges, opportunities to transcend one’s perceived limitations and
step into a new way of being, a deeper level of self definition. None of this may seem important in a world
increasingly consumed by war and unrest, and yet these are precisely the
times when meeting our personal challenges become the most transformative.
The events that unfold around us, when reduced to their ultimate core, seem
to spring from a well fed by only two deep underground springs: love or
fear. Some mixture of these primordial
building blocks can be seen in all of our behaviors, in all of our reaction
patterns and even in the events catapulting the course of human history in
one direction or another. Human history may be too large a concept to take
personal responsibility for and yet is not the history of humanity simply the
collective cornucopia containing all of our individual choices? Sometimes our choices come down to
something absolutely basic: to walk forward or to step aside, to face our
fears or be faced down by them. This does not imply, in any way, that
everyone at a firewalk should walk; rather, it applies to those who feel called
to press forward against their reluctance and step off the edge of their
comfort zone into the dangerous unknown. |
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The fire roared fifteen feet into the sky.
Sparks streamed heavenward with an aliveness that reminded me of fairies
dancing. In time the flames gave way to coals glowing red hot beneath their
slight blanketing of ash. The moment of truth arrived. There is a certain
science and psychology to why a person can step on hot coals and not be
burned horribly; but moreover, there is mystery and miracle, a touch of the
Divine that carries one to safety on the other side of the coals. Still, fire calls forth an instinctive
terror. Fire burns. We all know it in our deepest cellular
memory. We have all shared the experience of being burned. It’s just plain
scary to stand before the fire pit and know you have to either walk or stand
aside, either exercise your faith or apologize later for its lack when one
felt the call and ignored it. |
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A mother and her 12 year old daughter –
both beautiful, wonderful women – came to our celebration. Neither had ever
walked on fire before. You could see
their emotions running high and almost hear the rapid beating of their
hearts. Everyone present supported
them as they worked up their courage and their energy. The mother walked. Her
relationship to her own divinity deepened instantly. Her daughter really
wanted to walk. She pumped her arms and marched around the yard. She
approached the fire and hit the wall of her own fear. She stopped. “I can’t
do it!” She cried. Around the yard she went again, again she marched up to
the edge and stepped aside. Again she
cried, “I can’t do it.” Yet she didn’t give up. She tried several more times,
still unable to push through her fear of the fire. Her mother came to her and
said, “You can do it. I’ll walk with you and we’ll do it
together.” |
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In the
small space of this Morning Moment there is no way to adequately describe the
emotions that surge through your body when you stand before the firewalk and
feel its heat upon your face. |
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So
together they marched around the yard; together they built up their courage
and their energy and their determination. Then they walked, arm in arm,
across the hot coals and were not burned. I felt profoundly moved. We all
did. The daughter, in a rush of excitement and joy, ran around and walked
across the fire two or three more times. Everyone present felt the same rush
of emotion. We all witnessed the bond
between mother and daughter deepening and their love for each other
overflow. The fire is a profound and sacred teacher. Thank you for spending this morning moment
with me. May each of us, when we step up to our own personal firewalk, when
fear and anxiety pumps into our bloodstream and ice into our stomach, in that
moment may we remember the divinity that lies within, may we remember our
limitlessness and walk forward across the hot coals of our fear and into the
rush of emotion and love that lies on the other side. Aloha, Peace and Wellness, Holman |
