A few secrets I found in Fire

I’ve always been most active mid to late day and I think that may have brought me to appreciate fire.

I enjoy bonfires and the beauty of dancing flames but there’s nothing like reading (safely) by a fire!

I wasn’t raised with a clear understanding or enforcement of religion/spirituality so I’ve just been figuring it out over time.

Fire is kinda magical. Most spiritual ideologies agree and give fire a power.

I’m not native, but there was a time I lived on a North Dakota reservation. (this is a weird story, but details in another post).

My birth-giver would ‘disappear’ for a while, and my 5-year-old brain would convince me I was Ray Chapman Andrews*. I’d go on mostly dangerous “missions” and ran across wise natives who taught me, fire is cleansing.

Ray Chapman Andrews was the inspiration for Indian Jones. He was an American explorer who discovered a significant number of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals. His adventures motivated me and I aspired to be like him.

My parents’ ‘stellar’ parenting skills gave me ample unsupervised time to experiment and learn about fire.

In my defense; fireworks are pretty cool, I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about life, and there were no adults to stop me – So….

It would take me decades to fully appreciate this knowledge.

(Disclaimer; never ever leave a child alone with incendiary. Honestly, just don’t leave children to their own devices, they’re not really good at staying out of trouble. On that note; it is never smart to leave a 5-year-old in charge of 3 younger children – they may earn a Darwin award).

Over time, I developed the idea that a bonfire was a way to ‘clear my mind’.

I also spend A LOT of money on fireworks around summer and keep them to shoot them off for minor achievements

I would write wishes and special communications on a piece of paper and throw it in the fire. It’s really fun if you’re into that sort of thing.

I also collected *A TON* of cool fire pictures

As time progressed, I noticed a deeper respect for fire.

I felt a psychological release when I made my bonfires. I started letting go of some of my hoarded papers (that all writers have) to the fires I created.

The letters I threw into the fire became more heartfelt. I felt safe with the secrets I threw into the fire.

My enthusiasm slowly grew to questions and then well wishes.

The whole time I took pictures.

Fire is just so free – so beautiful – and one day I’ll have more to say that doesn’t make me seem like a witch or a pyro