| |
Sample Stories
Dancing With the Fire
Michael Sky
It began raining early in the morning of Memorial Day that year, and the rain kept up through most of the day. My wife Penny and I were living with two friends in a suburban neighborhood in Concord, just west of Boston. We planned to have the firewalk on our front lawn.
We called the local fire department and told them we were having a holiday cookout with a Hawaiian luau-style wood fire. I began to see the rain as a plus, as it would keep our neighbors indoors. I went to the supermarket and bought a case of charcoal lighter, should I need it to keep the fire going.
For the rest of the day we all just sat around the house, shut in by the rain, and quietly freaked out. Someone would stare into a book for ten minutes without registering a word. Or someone would put water on to boil and then stand empty-headed before the tea cabinet trying to remember why. We paced a lot, moving from one room to another with no discernable purpose. And we managed some courageous gallows humor, which sometimes worked a giggling release and other times only served to deepen the gloom.
Our good friend Jonathon just happened to show up that afternoon, in town for the holiday. Jonathon is an engineer and the most logical, rational, linear, left-brain I have ever known. When I told him our plans for the evening, he at first became excited, for he only heard the part about my demonstrating the walk. As I slowly made it clear to him that everyone might walk on fire, his eyes bugged out and he started looking for the exit.
I asked if he would like to serve as fire-tender, staying outside and keeping the fire going for us while we were inside preparing to walk. He gladly said yes, happy that he could take part and witness the walk without feeling compelled to do something so utterly inconceivable.
Evening finally arrived, as did my friends. Once again, I found myself sitting in a roomful of people waiting to have root canals without anesthesia. However, this time there was no one present (myself included) who really knew that it would all work out.
Fear feeds on fear. If you look to your old friend for reassurance and instead see fear in his eyes, you will tend to feel frightened, which he will spot in your eyes, further frightening him, which further frightens you, which further frightens him . . . and so it went.
By this time I had come to understand two basic facts about people that almost always hold true at the start of a firewalk. First, we feel disinclined to intentionally move in the direction of pain, unless we have clear social approval, as, for instance, in the case of athletes or dancers. While we might understand and even applaud the marathon runner's contorted features and occasional shin splints, we consider it quite stupid to intentionally step on a fire and then suffer injury.
Second, we have a deep, cellular, instinctive relationship to fire and its burning nature: virtually every life-form on this planet knows better than to move in the direction of fire, so again, anyone foolish enough to even consider such a practice surely deserves any resulting pain.
Yet my friends and I had our reasons, strong enough to carry us forward in the presence of our doubts and fears, for there we were. Despite a rather clumsy and halting presentation on my part, the evening progressed and our moment with the fire approached. I told them to take a little break while I went outside to see how the fire had managed in the rain.
I found Jonathon keeping his lonely vigil, umbrella overhead, and I took a rake and poked clinically through the fire, attempting to determine whether we had enough coals to do the walk. I felt suddenly blasted with the heat (the fire had done quite well in the rain), with the fire's electric, glowing, orange burst of energy, and my stomach seized up with the outlandishness and undeniable danger of our enterprise. I took a deep breath, put on a happy face, and went slowly back inside, attempting to emanate all-knowing reassurance. My friends later said that I was white with terror.
And so, we proceeded out to the fire.
The rain had lightened to a soft and cooling presence, and a wonderful blessing and balance for our undertaking. We formed a circle, holding hands, except for Jonathon, who stood dry and sensible beneath his umbrella.
The singing began. I took the rake and began spreading the coals: all this earth is sacred, every step we take, all this life is sacred, every step we take. As the fiery carpet first spread out before them, I heard a tangible group gasp. Nothing I had said could have prepared them for the intensity of the heat, for the explosion of sparks and smoke, for the solid red-orange sheet of pulsing embers.
Minds boggled, bodies trembled, and our singing grew louder, viscerally driven.
I stood before the coals, my entire life summed up in the profound thought: "Either it works, or it doesn't, here goes . . . ." I walked across, no problem! I was then stunned to see one friend following immediately after, and then another, and another.
Whereas the walks during my training had all progressed slowly, half of our group had walked in the first thirty seconds. Whether they had an extreme desire to walk on fire, or an extreme desire to be finished with walking on fire, they were all smiling, and in the space of a minute we had shifted from unthinking terror to exhilarating joy.
I looked over to Penny, who had not yet walked and who was visibly shaking. I had had a dream just before returning home in which Penny had stepped forward and burst into flames. I was hoping that wouldn't happen. For her part, she had always steadfastly maintained that firewalking was not her sort of thing at all, and that if her husband hadn't had the temerity to land one in her own front yard she might have forever remained among the blissfully uninitiated. But there it was, and walk she did, smiling brightly all the way into my waiting arms.
We had by then reached the magical shift that most fire walks achieve: the fire had become friendly and inviting, the singing inspired, and the group intensely bonded, with a strong sense that anything was possible.
As if to affirm it all and top it with a final encore, Jonathon stepped up
to the fire, umbrella still raised overhead, and strolled across the coals with
wonderful aplomb, the perfect ending to an unforgettable dance. We were well on
our way to an adventure that, years later, continues to provide a wealth of such
moments.
-
TOP
- |
|
