Deborah Lipp

Zsuzsa talked a lot about the meaning of the firewalk being a release from fear. Once you’ve walked on fire you can do anything; that sort of thing. Fear wasn’t on top of my list, though.

Someone asked about what it would mean, how to know what it would mean to them. And I asked, what if I don’t want it to “mean” something? Like, if I want it to live in a place in me beyond words that can condense into “meaning.”

Which is a lot of what I got, in truth, and I think where my deep sobbing came from — that place beyond meaning within.

A lot of what it meant for me was the move past cynicism. I tend to sneer at a lot of things. Which is, hello? I’m a witch! So why make fun of crystals? Why make fun of anything without first giving it a fair hearing? But I do, I do. I sneer and am cynical and think a lot of things that people do are silly. And doesn’t that hold me back? Doesn’t that leech into my magic? Well, certainly a thing I laughed at was firewalking, but now I’m not laughing, and maybe that changes me.

I used to long, long for visible manifestation of magic. Blue light shooting from my athame. Levitation. All that fancy stuff. And at some point I gave up that wish. I got reasonable. Sane. Witchcraft worked without all that Hollywood stuff. But firewalking? Pretty frickin visible.

But a big thing was about releasing trauma related to fire. I realized, after I signed up for this, that I had a major trauma about this. Arthur walked on a Starwood firepit when he was nine years old. He thought it was cool ash, but there were hot coals underneath the ash, and he absolutely trashed his feet. Trashed. Spent the summer in a wheelchair. We were, in fact, investigated by Child Protective Services for possibly abusing him (our doctor told CPS he thought we were forcibly initiating children by making them walk on fire — nice!). So I knew I had that trauma, and I didn’t know how that would play out with this ritual.

But I’d utterly forgotten an earlier trauma. About fifteen years ago, there was an incident involving a person at a festival jumping into a fire. Deranged, drug-and-alcohol addled leap into the fire, pulled back by two people, fought them off, jumped back in. And this was someone I knew fairly well and liked, a stable and gentle person before and after (he ultimately recovered from his burns), not some dingbat crazy person. I was standing no more than six feet from him when it happened, and I gave an eyewitness report to the police. It was, let me say, a bad night. Worse for him than for me. Bad night all around.

And the day after the firewalk, I suddenly remembered that, and was full of feeling. And I though, how did I forget that and not think about it around the hot coals? How did I do that?

Beyond words. Beyond “meaning.” But the meaning is there.

I haven’t seen any movies this week, and, while I could review movies I’ve seen but not reviewed, I’d rather not. I just got back from Wic-Can Fest and talking about movies is just not where I am today.

I want to talk about firewalking.

I cannot say for sure why I signed up for the firewalk. I saw it was offered, and I guess that I wanted to make a chink in my own armor. I am such a cynic, after all. I mean, I’m a witch, and a psychic, and I know this isn’t other people’s definition of cynicism, but within the context of the magical community I am high on the snark side of things, and have great disdain for people I perceive as too credulous. And firewalking? That’s crazy. That’s impossible.

Somewhere in there I thought “But.”

But they’re offering it here. But people here have done it and report being blown away by it. But what have I got to lose (burnt feet!)? But what if I’m wrong? Well, my friend assured me that you don’t have to walk the fire if you attend, so I signed up.

» Read more..