the fire of the night sky

Good Morning Relatives  

its a beautiful day here in the north country   the snow is so very white and at night when the dogs and I go walking the peacefulness is really hard to beat

so back to the lesson from the man wanting change   and thats not Obama  by the way   the lesson of keeping the fire in front of me  actively  consciously and with thoughtfulness   it is the closest I think I can get to what a Tai Chi master feels in readiness   I am not sure what normal regular human instances this presence is felt  or held   I tried to think of some instances and couldn't quite get it

I know that when I was at Lame Deer  holding the fire and the man there was so angry with himself and wanted to take it out on me I just held the fire  I didn't have any thought towards him  no negative thought and no positive  no rejection and no acceptance  just let him be him and didn't take on his space energy or agenda and didn't want to change it or in any way alter me for him  it was like being in perfect harmony with him actually  and I was steady and just me   it was so clear there in the light of the fire  

so one of the things that I am able to do is remember clearly and I clearly remember that place and although we use memory to practice to train ourselves and to learn we can't ever reproduce a breath  for it will not sustain us to hold a breath or to rebreathe the one we already did    think about this it is very important    we cannot rebreathe or hold a breath and get life  oxygen from it    but we can breathe again     holding is not static it is very dynamic   the mountain pose in Tai Chi is very dynamic very fluid    holding the fire is as fluid as the flame the wood and gasses and the heat and the ash all in transition all at one moment being the fire

so we recall to help us with learning to go again   to learn the principles that guide us along our way like learning to stand to walk to run  when we are running we are not robotically placing our feet and moving our arms  we are flying along and adjusting to terrain and environment ( think of running through the woods, or along a rocky shore, or dodging people on a beach) all the while keeping our goal in our thoughts  

same with holding the fire  

so when i went back to work I consciously remembered and held the fire between me and everyone every instance every conversation  and wow

wow  what a lot I learned about me  what a lot I learned about how and were and when I lost my way along the routes of gossip, or inappropriate energetics, or too much woo-hoo! or depressiveness or negativity or judgment or whatever  the palate of the human encounter is a plethora of emotion and activity just waiting for us to paint up our day

but the fire held me  it kept me centered as long as I kept it in focus  as long as I held it between myself and any and all others it held me also

and it was amazing  just an amazing day

and then

I got sick  lol  really really sick   physically  I woke up christmas eve morning with diarrhea and guts that felt like I ate ground glass     it was amazing    it was like being changed cellularly wooo  what a day  mostly spent in bed sleeping dreaming of really old things being redone  old encounters reworked old places different because I was different   and I got through it   and made it to christmas day made it back to work where the negativity really really wanted me to jump back on board and not hold the fire  it was tough relatives  heavy   heavy   heavy  and by the end of my shift last night I was exhausted  

this am  I am again better  I am rested and will again today work to put in place the habit the mindset the joy the doing of the sacred fire between myself and any and all    

if you don't know what a sacred fire is   what it feels like and how it feels to hold it  it is worth it to find out    I think I will try and teach that this year  

I'm worth it  your worth it and the change man is worth it  as is the lake the bears the falcons the hauls the beautiful jays the fish and the crawlers and the spiders and all things  the trees especially   we are all worth remembering this way and recreating it until we have it

and then relatives I believe we can fly

love love love and fire
mary