Engaging the Elements: FIRE

March 30, 2021 0 Comments

Engaging the Elements: FIRE

Action  /  Passion  /  Power  /  Strength  /  Courage

by Sara Timms / Art by Steven Stroud from Firestarter

 

Since the dawn of humanity when the divine double agent Prometheus angered the Gods by giving humanity the gift of fire, this element has been perceived as being as dangerous, powerful, and as hypnotic as the Devil’s own silver tongue. Fire was domesticated about one million years ago, and we’ve been learning to harness it responsibly ever since. 

It destroys, yes. It creates, yes? Well, it creates warmth, light, power, and propulsion via it’s living act of combustion. One could say that what fire does to a flammable earth element is equal to what humans do to the air element. In order to live we must destroy one element by turning it into another element. Our breathing process turns oxygen into carbon dioxide, and the burning process of a candle transforms the wax into heat, gas, and particle matter as smoke when the burning flame is active, or alive. Heat is required for most chemistry, and the old alchemical process’, so one could surmise that “the Gods” were truly upset with Prometheus for giving us the ability to transform matter according to our own human wills. 

We humans contain the fire element in our Chakra System. The Sacral Chakra near the belly button is the color orange, and associated with the fire element and the creative process. This is our alchemical oven, our creative vision powerhouse. The place in our body that we process whatever raw material life has presented us with, and remodel it into our dreams and visions. This is one way that we begin to change the physical world around us- for we are great creators when we embrace our own alchemical powerhouse. 

Historical Lore

• Beltane or May Day is a sacred Pagan Festival in which ceremonial fires are burned on the Summer Solstice as representatives of the Sun’s Fire. People would dance around them and even jump through them to absorb the Fire’s protective energy. 
• The Hearth Fire has been seen for many ages as the center of power in a household. It’s where the women traditionally gathered to create healing teas and tinctures, and to cook food for family. Although things have changed greatly, we still gather around fire energy with our families..ie electricity, TV, oven, etc. 
• Fire has been used to ignite botanical smudges, sacred tobaccos, and ritual candles for thousands of years in various cultures across the globe. 
• Various indigenous cultures have utilized fire dances, as well as fire walking to commune with the spirit world, and transmute the environment of a ceremonial space from profane to sacred. 
• Symbolically fire is equated with passion, desire and growth! 
• Firestarter! Are you all too young for that? It’s an 80’s Movie starring Drew Barrymore who plays a little girl that can start fire via Pyrokinesis which is the ability to create and control fire with one’s mind. 
• Here is some more on Fire from our “History of Fire & Flame in Religion, Magick, and Ceremony”

“Fire and candle worship are ubiquitous in world religions, both ancient and modern. In the fifth century BCE, the Athenians would hold a procession to the sanctuary of the goddess Artemis Mounichia, and offer her round cakes with a candle in the middle- which some have hypothesized is the origin of the birthday cake tradition. The Mounichia festival occurred on the 16th of the spring month Mounichion, during the full moon.”

 

How to Understand and Use Fire in Our Practice

To understand how we can use the elements in our everyday practice, we can examine how the element exists in our reality or perception. Fire is hot, spreads quickly, it destroys while giving way to rebirth (think: wildflowers that bloom after a forest fire), it is strong and forceful, etc. In these ways we can utilize the  concept of “Fire” into our practice. For example, to find where you might need to activate the element of Fire in your body or mind, try to feel where the element is strongest or weakest in your body, and relocate it if necessary. For instance if you feel the fire of anger in your mind, you are not in the proper state to manifest positive growth, so try moving the element to where you feel it is lacking, or deal and heal! Deal with negative emotions and their elemental incarnations before practicing magic, ALWAYS! Otherwise you are creating your reality from the subconscious/past/karma. When you have balanced your elements or emotions, try to feel the element again in your body, this time thinking about what that particular part of your body does. For example, your feet help move you forward and stand tall; the heart works with circulation and timing/rhythm, expanding love, the throat is for the voice and self expression, thus manifestation. In your magick, put these ingredients to work. Carefully managed Fire in your throat means that you can use fire to increase your self expression and manifestation in the world right now. Fire in your belly or Sacral Chakra serves to robustly burn away your frustrations or anger and turn it into creative fuel. Fire in the feet or legs can mean igniting balance and strength, and even grounding. Carefully observe where the element lives and is lacking, and use that concept of abundance/ lack to your magickal advantage.

The elements are the ingredients in your magical cauldron! The art of High Magick utilizes the elements like a Hedgewitch utilizes herbs and plant ingredients. Like plants have different properties depending on the season they are picked, and where they’re at in their growth cycle, and what part of the plant is used, the elements have different useful properties depending on where they are at in your energy body. Sometime you may think of fire and feel it in your heart, or perhaps you’re angry and you feel it in your gut. Take a moment to meditatively tune into your body and try and see or feel the element. If you cannot sense a burning warmth anywhere in your body, you may be deficient in that element, so visualizing the element and therefore “placing” it in your body will be helpful. Fire is the most helpful in the Sacral Chakra, the Solar Plexus as our radiant inner sun, and also in our Heart as the beauteous splendor of illuminated Christ Consciousness. 

The alchemical Dragon breathes fire, heating the contents of the crucible to remove impurities.

 

Ritualistic Inspirations

General Disclaimer: Always proceed with great caution with the elements! To avoid mishaps, and creating elemental disasters, contain your magic within a protective circle of salt, or energetically sealed with an astral circle drawn with an athame. I recommend adding to your ritual “For the good of all and with harm to none”. Remember that life and magick are a creative process. The elements have general correspondences (example: fire=creative, water=emotion, earth=foundation, air=mental world) but will always be expressing themself through your body in different ways depending on your growth, and life circumstances. Utilize these changing tools! 

• Fire gaze! Let your mind go, let your vision blur, and stare into a flame until you see or perceive a message! What better way than to do this with our Fire Candle? Black pepper, tobacco, all spice, and cedarwood are blended together to ignite transformation, positivity, and passion. This candle will also heighten any aspects of the three fire signs in your chart: Sagittarius, Aries, and Leo.
• Immerse yourself in the element. Clear your mind and allow the spirit of the element to enter and activate within you by staring into the flame. This literally sends a visual signal to the back of your brain through your eyesight, essentially burning it into your mind and placing the element into your waking consciousness. You may also place your palms near the flame to feel the warmth, adding another sensual activation to your body’s experience of fire. Also of note, the palm of the hand is equated with the Hebrew letter Kaph, and is symbolically said to enable the latent power of the spiritual world into the physical world. The spiritual element of fire burns away what is not aligned with your highest and purest self. I have learned for instance that when I feel alone, but do not actually want company, adding fire to my environment immediately eclipses any feeling of being alone, and I may then concentrate on whatever I am working on. So, I use the fire element to exalt the emotional currents in my heart from yearning, into elemental stasis, as psycho-spiritual balance is required to create harmonious currents of reality via one’s magical practice.

• Free write thoughts and experience of the element during or after Immersion. Conclude what this element does for you personally. Does it flow, solidify, transmute, stabilize you? Whatever it does in you at the given moment determines how you can apply it to your magical practice. For instance, if fire calms you, then you can use the fire element in ritual to calm a chaotic or explosive situation in your life. If you’re doing a ritual for sudden money for instance, you may use fire to calm the magical current so money flows in without interrupting the overall flow of your life. If fire burns you, then you may use fire in your rituals to push things to the point of combustion and transformation. When something is burned it turns into something else, ie wood into ash. 

 

 

 

 Need material inspiration to work with Fire? Shop our favorites below!

 

Fire Element Candle to enhance all rituals focused on Fire:

Carnelian to invigorate the root and sacral chakras:

Black Cauldron for containing the flame that releases intentions:

Can't find what you need? Shop all things in our Fire collection!

 

 

 

 

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Read more on astrology, horoscopes, occultism, magick & ritual on our blog, Esoteric Insights!

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