Community Sacred Fire and Questing - History, context, purpose

Fire is at the heart of all life, human culture, growth and transformation since the dawn of time. It is connected to life in countless ways, without it life would not exist. There is the fire of our sun and the hearth fires that have always warmed us. We have the inner fire of our visions and dreams. Working with fire is a universal cross cultural principle found in every time and place through history.

I have learnt these traditions come from powerful lineages of the indigenous peoples of North America.

I want to acknowledge with the deepest thanks those people who have carried the wisdom and knowledge to this time and place, through huge adversity and challenge so that we can have access to the possibility to use these ways of being to heal and come back into a coherent relationship with Life.

I believe that even the most thoughtful amongst us modern Western people cannot fully comprehend the extent of how colonisation has affected our minds, hearts, bodies and connection to spirit. It is woven into threads so deep in our cultural practices, legal systems and unconscious belief systems. Being well intentioned is no protection from this bias.

I acknowledge that we are using traditions learnt from people who suffer and suffered extreme de humanisation by Western people in countless ways.

In picking up these tools to try to right our own minds, we can better join the work of all of humanity to address the wrongs and remember our interrelationship and responsibility towards Life. I acknowledge this. I seek to hold these ways in the best way I can with the greatest respect and gratitude for those who have shared with us that we might heal, learn and grow.

For all our relations. Mitakue Oyasin.

Fire is inherently Sacred and in the way that I have been taught, this means connected.

So when we connect with it we are connected to all that it is connected to and all that it provides for life. With fire we can activate archetypal memories and layers of connectivity helping us find our own answers to our deepest questions. Sitting with fire and reflecting with it can be like sitting with a deep listening mentor, awakening knowledge and clear vision.

In many indigenous cultures it is said that fire is the source of all knowledge. If we are seeking self discovery coming into direct relationship and communication with the elements of nature that are in themselves deeply connected will really support us.

Sacred fires have always been used to create ceremonial containers to support connection and transformation, enhancing connection on many levels.

The interactive relationship between ourselves and fire has developed over thousands of years and is multi layered. Tending our relationship to fire in healthy ways feels relevant to our lives today, where disconnection is so common and unbalanced ways of relating to the power of fire cause so much devastation to our inner and outer ecology.

“The wisdom it offers can be swift and profound and it is understood that it holds the doorway to all knowledge intended for human beings. What we do with that knowledge is of great importance at this time” (Sal Gencarelle)

A Fire ceremony can take many forms and can be activated for many purposes.

Our event is dedicated to regenerating healthy culture and remembering peace as a reality in ourselves and in our world.

We can deeply enquire how we can participate in Life in a way that is really helpful, remember departed loved ones, support the movement of what was disconnective for them and reconnect with the gifts they have to share with us.

We can ask questions and seek clarity, vision, purpose and truth, remember our relationship and our belonging with the elements, strengthen our ropes of connection to ourselves and our community, take time to be present with our real feelings, be in healing and share stories. We can sit with a really clear intention with the fire and allow it’s energy to help us move what is in the way of embodying that on every level of our being, heart, mind, body, connection to spirit. Whether we are fully conscious of what might block us or not, in the right ceremonial format and with the right mindset and willingness to embrace healing, much can move.

There are two fire ceremonies that are on offer at our camp and they run at the same time so participants choose which one they will do. There is the overnight community sacred fire and there is a short form personal quest with fire as the altar undertaken over 24 hours.

There are many ways and formats to quest that help us to seek our vision, alignment with life and personal activation. Questing with fire is particularly helpful for understanding how to tend life and the knowledge of the processes of life. This can support us anchor our understanding of our responsibilities as humans to support life to flourish in healthy ways. Historically fire quests where often an adolescent rite of passage to support understanding of responsibility.

These purification and fire ceremonies and quests are activated to support the interconnected web of creation. They are not just self serving experiences undertaken for the experience, to have a good time or for personal or individual growth.

Ceremonies and quests have always been about the greater context of life and are about the individual coming into relationship with the whole of life, recognising their own relationships to the collective and orientating towards their own part in being in service to that whole.

When a person approaches a ceremony or quest with this level of understanding and openness it adds a potency to their experience that is not available if the purpose is solely for self. Personal openness and willingness to be in state of wanting to give to this experience of life opens access to a great level of connectivity.

We place this understanding that ceremony is for something bigger than personal aggrandisement at the forefront of our offerings. In the modern context of acquisition and hierarchical power structures we have lost the cultural patterns that help bring out peoples gifts and orientate them towards service to the whole of creation. We seek to create spaces in which cultural healing and individual healing potential can combine to place ceremony firmly in the context of supporting all of life with its myriad connections, seen, unseen, human, ancestral and way into the future.

We acknowledge that ceremony can bring what is needed to move for health and happiness to be integrated up to the surface. This can be messy, challenging and sometimes painful. But so is living with stuckness, grief and trauma and actively addressing it often moves energy in powerful and wonderful ways.

Healthy movement and connection can feel amazing, bring insights, a sense of homecoming or a reframing of orientation to ones life. Real healing involves things that feel far from easy arising so that they can be tended for living in healing to be a reality. We make sure that ongoing support is available through making accessible one to one mentoring and regular connection experiences beyond the ceremony itself.

The purpose of all ceremony lies beyond the ceremony itself. It is to find and experience internal connections and insights that can be integrated back into daily life to be able to be in Life and be in service to creation in richer ways. By following the precision and refinement of the execution of the ceremony it is possible to access a place of personal reconnection and remembering that lies beyond the form.