Fire is the symbol for energy and fire people have it in abundance.
The ancient cultures came to the realization that we are fire. The energy of the sun is processed in our earth, and broken down as stored energy in our systems. It is this energy that makes life possible.
The Mayas called it “Kin” and they said the storing center was in our navel, in what we call “solar plexus”, Latin, for center of the sun. Japanese masters called it “Ki”, just one letter away, even though Mayas and Japanese are in opposite sides of the earth.
There is a morning exercise to bring balance into our fire.
It consists of facing the rising sun, bend our knees, take a deep breath, and release all of our energy with our palms towards the sun. We do this four times.
After words, we receive the fresh light of the sun inhaling and moving our hands by our side from head to toes. We do this procedure four times as well.
Now, we take the energy from the sun and move towards the four directions, each one taking a deep breath and releasing it with our extended arms and our feet extended.
Having completed the salute to the four directions, we stand, facing the sun, take its energy, and put our hands in our solar plexus. Then we take another breath, and place our hands in our heart. Take another breath; place our hands on our throat. Take another breath; place our hands in our closed eyes. Take another breath and place our hands in our forehead. Take another breath, and place our hands in our head-crown. Take our next breath, and move our hands over our heads all the way down to our toes.
We close our sun-work by taking energy from the sun with our breath, placing both of our hands over our heart and saying, “light”; take another breath, place our hands over our heart and say, “peace”; another one, and say, “love”; another one and say, “health”; another one and say, “prosperity”. With our closing breath, we take our hands to our heart, and when we release our breath, we extend our hands and say, “to all my relations.” This is the time, when we send our best self to our loved ones, a feeling that can stay with us all through the day. We are connected in a conscious, positive way, and the best of our energies flows to our relations.
Fire people are morning people. Their energy rises early in the morning, and their mind kicks in as they open their eyes. Their challenge is that the mind reaches focus only when their body is at peace. Physical activities, like the exercise described above, can set the body in harmony, which will allow the mind to focus on the tasks at hand.
Activity is the royal road for balance for fire people who are very sensitive to energy.
Sugar is gasoline for fire people. If one craves something sweet, then use local honey, which aside from being healthier and having a calming effect in the body, it also boosts our system against allergies.
In the tradition of indigenous healing among the Mexican community known as “curanderismo” we are told of three herbs that bring balance to fire people.
These herbs, prepared as tea, are:
Spearmint, chamomile, and anise star.
The combination of these herbs –taken every morning on an empty stomach- was called “three miracles” because of its ability to have a positive effect in our three main centers: body, heart and mind.
Martial arts seemed to have been designed with fire people in mind. Behaviors that get children in trouble in regular school –intense energy, screaming and fighting- are standard practices in the schools of martial arts. Fire people then find a place where their energy can be channeled, and then they function perfectly in the other place: they can be very peaceful in one, because they release their combative energy in another one: is just a matter of finding the right place and the right time. And wonders happen when we synchronize the flow of our energy with the activities that the world demands from us every day.
In Curanderismo we are told that a balanced fire becomes flame, while an unbalanced fire becomes wild-fire, something quickly apparent to anyone who has dealt with a fire-child.
If you are fire, you cannot choose to be another element: you will remain fire. But what is within your power is to choose to be either wild-fire or a flame. Elements are neither good nor bad in and of themselves. And the element of fire has its place. For once, energy is contagious, the positive one being called “good medicine” in Indian Country, and the negative, “bad medicine.” Just think of the energetic resonance that you get when you are with people you like: energy rises. If you were to be in coma, in a hospital and they were to enter your room, chances are, you would feel their energy and your links to this world would be strengthened. On the other hand, you can also feel your energy being drained or being negatively affected when you are in the energetic field of a person you dislike. A way to neutralize negative energy is by raising your left hand and silently saying, “Poison.”
In the other hand, when you are being given positive energy, make a motion with your right hand towards you and silently say, “Welcome”. If we are only on guard against negative energy, but don’t accept positive energy, we will not find neither rest nor renewal. A balanced stance towards positive and negative energy is the proper way to advance in the path of rising energy represented by two tigers guarding the entrance of the Shoaling Temple, in China, the center for mastery over energy. “Show me the tiger and I will show you the dragon” says an old Chinese maxim. What it means is that, if we master the tiger energies in our being –anger and fear- then we will be able to use and transform fire –like the dragon- without getting burned. We will burn-up, without burning out, the main challenge of our working life.
We are told that Bodhidharma, the founder the martial arts, was a monk who traveled through the forests and observed the animals in great detail. He noticed the way they would master their peculiar skills. There was no effort, just neutrality in their motion: the precise action would spontaneously emerge with grace and power. Visualizing the element of fire, Bodhidharma internalized these motions, fire giving him the element by which he could take on any form. Transformation is the main domain of fire people.
The high voltage of fire people can make them a challenge to be around others. Not all light-bulbs are set up to channel the same electrical discharge, therefore, fire people tend to act as our sun, with several planets in its orbit, but rarely with another sun around.
In mystical terms in the Christian tradition, John the Baptist represents water, and Jesus represents the power of fire. That is why John says, “I baptize you with water, but the one that comes after me will baptize you with fire.” And later we read in “acts of the apostles” that after his death, when the apostles were in hiding, during the day of Pentecost, fire came from above and they were baptized with it. From that moment on, they became fearless.
In the view of the ancient Mexicans, both elements, water and fire, were the symbols for spiritual transformation, what they called, and “burning water”.
And the use of fire in a sacred ritual was implemented by Zarathustra, in Persia, and his view of “Aura-Mazda”, the lord of light fought the forces of darkness.
Fire is ageless. It is constantly being generated by transforming matter. Yet, it has a particular point of ignition. From that moment on, the flame appears, dances, and expands upwards. It seeks the high places, as if it cannot stay down on the earth for long. Perhaps it was this quality that gave birth to conceptions around the world that fire was the essence of divine life returning to its source. Then our soul was a kind of fire, a fire that it’s never extinguished. And that is what Moses encounters when he climbs the Sinai, the shining bush that speaks to him, and tells him, “I AM who I AM.”
That is the voice of eternity, the voice that is now in the domain of timelessness. And that is why John the apostle, writes, “In the beginning was the word.” It is this voice that he is talking about, and that is why Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” And it is he who speaks with the voice of fire, the voice of the present moment, the timeless being.
And that is why he went to the desert: to see everything he was not, burned completely, and his eternal nature overcomes the power of him who is the lord of time and the world of form. Every great Avatar has had to the confront the world of illusion with the fire of the invisible spirit.
The same symbolism was used in the Toltec story of the serpent and the Eagle, by which we find the eagle instructing the serpent to go to the highest place on earth and jump to the sun. The serpent who follows this path, reaches the pyramid, and jumps, finds that wings emerge from within (just like our lungs pulled air at the time of our birth) and the serpent becomes the plumed serpent, and eventually a bird that reaches the sun: it becomes the “sun bird” with everything worldly burning in the sun, and then the bird descending back to the world to help others realize their true nature and reach the sun, the fire, the light, our source.
Now, just like we have seen the good earth, the good water, the good air, there also the good fire.
The good fire consists of a rising of energy that is uplifting, and everywhere. It is the one in all, the sublime love by which all stars are moved. It is there in the experience of oneness of all of those who go beyond the ego. Just like Rumi who experienced this state said, “Enough words, I want burning, burning, and burning!” And he was set aflame. Some avatars followed this path of realization: the one of passionate love, the volcanic irruption of the spirit, the formless expression of being without holding anything back. These are beings that are the reversal of an atomic explosion: in them, all life is fused together, finds their beginning, their middle and their fulfillment, it is instantaneous, everywhere and total.
And yet, when that fire is not balanced, it becomes “wild-fire” and it is the destroyer of worlds. That is why, in the Hindu tradition, it was represented by the dual nature of Shiva, who on one side is the “destroyer” and on the other one, is the “transformer.” The fire, out of balance, represents the destroyer.
Now, when individuals are infused by rising energy –the kundalini rising of the Hindu yogis- and the ego is not disciplined enough, the ego becomes inflated with the rising fire, and what you have is not “illumination”, but fire intoxication of the ego: the personal ego being taken for god: a personal idolatry, that turns the individual demonic. That was the predicament of the Lucifer, the fallen angel, who, decided to take the place of God, and became malignant, that same angel who had been the most perfect and beautiful of them all.
This also represents the inability of letting go of one’s self. Just like the mature person, not being able to depart from his or her youth. You can see their fear creeping up, festering, and taking over their consciousness. Then they become like Dorian Dray, that character of Oscar Wild’s novel, who, due to his enormous attachment to his youthful beauty, infuses one of his paintings with the power to absorb the passage of time of his life, while he became immune to it, and the longer he goes on with this predicament, the most cruel and damaging he becomes to the world. That is what happens when one is unwilling to accept life with all its limitations and petrifies any aspect of one’s passing ego. Thus, our glorified ego becomes our personal demon, that is, us as God, or the bases of extreme narcissism. And this is the kind of energetic illness that predates on those who are in the public spot light, with the projection of many other minds and energies on them as they are on stage or the public eye. These are the stars that end up believing that they are it. And the higher they go, the stronger they are going to hit the grown. That is why Lao Tze tells us, that we do well when we remain low and close to the ground, without bringing much attention to ourselves, and without taking ourselves to seriously or as if we are it. And that is why there were some particular forms of meditation for people in the public eye, to become mindful of all of their imperfections, so that they stayed honest and humbled, without the fire of personal grandiosity. And if they had experiences of rising energy in their consciousness –as they are common for fire people- they did not become self-absorbed, but saw them as some kind of temptation. If they give in to the temptation of self aggrandizement, they became the mad-buddhas, individuals who had the illness of an undigested spiritual experience. Spirit can cause a sort of illness to the unprepared ego personality. And that fire, just like the air before it, can become toxic if there is no proper outlet. And nothing is as dangerous as implosive fire.
When a person is infected with “toxic fire” –that is, fire intoxication- they need to spend sometime in secluded places, away from others, and in nature, particularly on high places, on the mountains. Here, the cold –even better, the winter- provides them with the ideal opportunity to release their excess of energetic heat and become empty to receive self transcending fire. But first they must release the excessive fire. This can be done too by certain positions, songs, and ceremonies, including the use of sweat-lodges and ice melted creeks.
With good fire, one is burning up in balance; with toxic fire one is flaring up, overly imposing, overbearing and with no sense of timing or patience.
Balance, in fire, as well as with every other element, is the key factor for harmony, well being, and community making.
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