It's All Fire...

My friend and I were back drumming with a roomful of Shamans last night. We have done this before, I wrote about the experience here and here. Last night was similar but different. Same drum, same room, same musicians, and many of the same Shamans. The ritual too was the same, but I "journeyed" to a much different and much stranger place.

I am a long-time meditator and creative visualizer, so as soon as we sat down and started drumming, I closed my eyes and the images just washed over me.  How to summarize my experience? 

I observed an origin story, the origin of the Universe. Turns out it all started with a large campfire. A shadow group of beings danced around the flames. As the intensity of music of the Shaman circle increased my vision began to morph, the beings around the campfire jumped into the flames and they became flames too. And those flames created everything in the Universe. As the flames rose higher and higher, they transformed into blazing stars and cooled into planets and moons.

I had this insight: Everything is Fire. Everything in the Universe is fire. All the things of the Universe are just different forms of  fire in various states of coolness. Hah! That seemed like a new, revolutionary idea but it's not so new or revolutionary. Let's check in with Science: The Origin of the Universe and Earth.  

My inward journey continued. After everything in the Universe was created by the fire, the shadowy beings somehow extracted themselves out of the flames, laid down on the ground around the campfire, and pulled heavy blankets over themselves. The Earth cracked open up below them.  The shadowy beings looked down into the molten core at the center of the Earth. Yes, more fire. A raging cauldron of molten rock and flame. Of course.

Everything is fire and fire transformed. Freaky. When the Shamans were done doing their thing,  drumming, dancing, screaming, worshiping at an altar of rocks and trinkets, when the room became eerily silent, I opened my eyes. I was totally drained, and a little bit in awe of what I had just experienced. How to explain it all, even to myself? I tried telling a few folks about my experience. It seemed sort of futile. Even this morning, I can't really convey all that I witnessed and experienced. And can't explain how the journey seemed to cleanse and transform my total being.

It was completely transformative. What to do with what I saw, how do I incorporate into my day to day? Is it even necessary? Maybe nothing is expected of me. I was there. I saw. I experienced. It is all still alive in my being this morning. The Human thing seems so tiny and insignificant in the face of the fire. Fire, baby. It's all fire.