This is from the newsletter from Oct 15, 2024 from Jessica Snow
Last week, and for the next few weeks, we are tuning into the elements of the natural world in order to help us cope with (and possibly thrive through) the challenging era we are living in.
Last week we attended to the element of earth. This week, we are working with fire.
To be honest, the world feels extra fiery these days; so I wasn’t looking forward to working with the element of fire. I wasn’t sure there would be any “good” time to call in the essence of fire. It was bringing up a lot of war-energy for me and I wasn’t sure where and when I wanted to guide us into communion with this element.
However, once I started tuning into fire, especially as a transmuter in the guise of sunlight, candle light, warmth and power; I remembered there are conscious, skillful ways to connect with this essential elemental.
Sometimes we need to fight fire with fire. But, maybe not in the way we first think.
I’m about to touch on “politics” now, if you are feeling tender and need to skip, just jump your eyes down to the horses silhouetted in the sun below. If you can handle some deep thoughts, please keep reading; this is the most fiery my public writing ever gets…
As I write this, mid-October 2024, we all know by the way our hearts’ ache, that fire (in weaponized form) is a major component of war. The genocide in Gaza is over a year old. Many more than half of the people who have been killed are women and children. The atrocities of war have been livestreamed and co-opted for profit by corporations and politicians. Every time there is an explosion in Gaza, the whole world pays on the ecological level, a financial level and the spiritual/emotional level. Everyone I know wants the U.S. to enact an arms embargo, get all hostages returned home, be a force for peace and stop the madness. There are also warring hot-zones in Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. No one I know wants more war in the world and yet, lately, there is a hopelessness creeping into even my typically optimistic heart.
If no one wants war, and the world powers keep wars going for their particular benefit - look at the record-shattering profits of companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Gruman, etc. and their connection to your favorite investment group (Blackrock, Vanguard) and politicians - it feels like we’ll never have the power to get what most people want – which is peace.
It really makes a person, even a person who has a lot of privilege like me, wonder how will we ever get the powers that be to follow the will of the people?
The answer to this question cannot be arrived at if we deny ourselves the ability to consciously work with the element of fire and all the power it holds.
Also, here in mid-October 2024, we in the U.S. have an election coming up that asks us to choose between a quick jump into brazen fascism (that is saying the quiet part out loud with Project 2025 - a document straight out of a Margaret Atwood novel), or supporting the current administration who is currently sending money and weapons to far-away places to enact proxy wars while doing obscenely little to protect the rights of women despite its woman presidential nominee.
Additionally, we the people have been unwitting, sitting ducks for the bot-driven political technology/information wars** that have completely destroyed any sense of a shared reality (while consistently profiting technology corporations, nefarious shadowy political entities and media corporations).
Complement that fact with the truth that presidential elections in the U.S. are essentially a puppet show to distract us from the corporate oligarchy, distract us from good we might actually band together to accomplish and capture our attention and terror for corporate profits. Again, how will we ever get the powers that be to serve the common good?
There is no way without tapping into the essence of fire.
Which brings us to the beautiful blue-green planet that gives us everything we know. I know the earth will remain long after humans are gone, but we do seem to have a weird kind of death wish going for our ability to enjoy a planet habitable to life as we know it. Every time a bomb goes off, that hurts the natural systems of earth. Every time we split a people from their ancestral land, the earth pays. Instead of giving them human names (Helene, Milton), every hurricane should be named BP, Exxon, Chevron and Shell; these expensive, catastrophic disasters are caused directly by corporate greed, so we should call them by their right names.
Which brings me to the aspect of the fire element I want to redirect our attention towards… passion.
Right now, it feels like we are jack-o-lanterns, but the candle flame inside us has sputtered and gone out. This is the hopelessness that points us each day towards distraction, dissociation, and despair; even the most imaginative of us unable to picture how to create peace and plenty for all.
We need to stoke our own inner fires right now, so we can do what needs to be done AND… bring warmth and light to those around us.
Which brings me to the great and generous sun. For all the praise I lavish on earth for nourishing us, nothing would grow here without sunlight. For all the praise I give to water for how it cleans us until we are clear, sunlight is a mighty transformer of energy as well. For all the praise I give to air, for metaphorically representing what and how we think, sunshine and sunrises give us the spark of hope that is often necessary to generate new ideas and visions for the future.
Just like all the elements, fire energy can be called on in service of destruction or creation.
There are many ways, big and small, we can connect safely to the element of fire.
- Fire allows us to cook a meal for someone.
- Fire lets us do candle magic.
- Fire inspires our creativity and helps us passionately say what is worth saying.
- Fire brings us back to gather around the hearth.
- Fire in our belly shows us what we might create next or what we are now willing to stand up for.
Just like last week, when we were focused on earth, maybe even reading the names of some of the fire-themed meditations in the image above will stoke your imagination of your best way into a deeper relationship with the element of fire. Or, maybe inspire you to meditate and come into true connection with the wisdom and power of fire’s elemental energies.
Like I said at the beginning of this post - I was initially concerned about how to weave the element of fire into our consciousness skillfully in this overly-firery era, but then I meditated with the fire element and it said, “Say your piece, use the flame atop your own candle wick to light another, which will light another and so on. Capitalize on fire energy to get done what must be done and say what must be said. Finally, transform all of that work into dedicating the week into one where you stoke the fires to bring warmth, light and transformation to all who you come into contact with - including yourself!”
That’s some very good advice.
And, just like last week, I am not asking you to connect with the element of fire as I have, or endeavor to receive a similar message to the one that came to me. I am asking you to tune into this elemental power and find out how best to wield it for yourself and all that you love in the days and weeks to come.
Read the full post here: peace please! - Jessica Snow's PARALLEL SOCIETY