Firewalking

This past week-end I did something I have only seen others do, never once thinking that I myself would like to do it.

Last Saturday evening as my family visited friends at their cottage and went swimming in the ocean, I went to Bellingham to meet up with shamanic friends and to firewalk with my friend Kat Naslas with her partner Thea Alex who is a trained Sundoor firewalk instructor and amazing woman all around!

The setting was beautiful and set in an old Quarry that some of the locals bought as it was to be filled with chemicals and poisons that were no longer wanted. The quarry has since filled with water and many healing ceremonies have taken place to help heal the land that was raped and opened for commerce. It is now  home to many fish and a beautiful swimming place in the summer.

The day was hot and we gathered at dusk to meet and see the sun go down. Together we all had a hand in building the fire and gathered in a long line up and passed the logs one by one down the line offering up words in intention for each piece of wood. Peace, gratitude, courage, and joy were some of the words we said as each log was lovingly set in place.

Offerings and thanks was made to the tree whose life we took to use in our ceremony and one by one we all lit long tubes of paper and stuck then into the pyre to set it alight!

Songs were sung and more offerings were made to the tree and now to grandfather fire.

As we sat in circle we were told stories and taught new songs, we celebrated each other and the precious life we are each given.

And slowly, slowly the sun went down and the fire settled into a deeper glow.

Soon very soon we were preparing ourselves to walk on this fire, to set our intent and learning how to raise our energy in a way that would allow us to walk on hot coals releasing blockages and old patterns, offering them to the fire and allowing them to be transmuted.

There was much singing and celebrating but most of all there was support. Most of us were strangers, but we all worked together to support each individual in releasing or walking towards a new way of living, thinking or being.

And then the coals were raked and prepared….

I was filled with longing, excitement and fear and promptly decided that there was no way I was going to go first!!

But then the drummers started up and began their wild primal drumming and I have to admit that this sound began to move us into another space and helped us to begin the task of letting go.

I called in my guides and helping spirits, I asked them to support me, and after several others walked on those coals, I finally plucked up the courage from somewhere deep within, somewhere fueled by my desire to have some of this fear transmuted and I went for it!

I will not pretend that the coals do not feel hot, they do, and walking over them for the first time is terrifying and exhilarating and worth it!  So worth it in fact that I went again and again!

Laughing and squealing and hooting and supporting and celebrating each person who walked over those coals we all went until we were all laughing and singing and after what seemed like such a short time but was really hours, we were all spent.

We got quiet and people began to walk slower and slower over the coals, and soon we were holding space in a different way mostly a quiet way, and then we started to share our intent, calling out what we were asking the fire to do for us, the healing we wanted or who we were walking for and these words were echoed back to us by the group reaffirming the intent.

Somewhere around midnight I looked up into the sky and noticed for the first time the vastness of the sky, the stars and huge looming moon, it was stunning and beautiful.

Finally when I looked back down I saw that the women were raking the coals once more and what slowly appeared was this:

Thank you Kat, and Thea it was a transformational night, and my feet have been warm ever since!

Nikiah and Kat glowing after the firewalk.