Fire Ceremony                                                                 

Fall Song by Mary Oliver

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries – roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay – how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

Once upon a time humans lived in tune with the seasons, the cycles of our beloved Earth.  Our imperiled Mother is calling us to do so again.

This Fire Ceremony is an invitation to participate in our own “unmattering”.  To blow into a stick that which calls to be released, to be transformed so that we, too, can “shift from one bright vision to another”.

We will provide soup and bread to nourish us before we gather around a fire to meditate on what needs to to be released so that we can move forward.  Ask the fire to take away habits and addictions that block us from our higher purpose.  Ask for forgiveness or grant forgiveness.  Pray for release from a physical or emotional issue.  Let go of stories that replay in our heads to make space for new stories of our own creation.  Whatever calls for release, blow it into a stick and feed the fire for transformation.  Then gather the light of that transformation to bless your body, heart and mind.

Elizabeth, John and David