No longer a fire virgin
First off, Happy Lunasa!
Secondly, remember I mentioned Feile Draoichta and how they described fire ceremonies? I decided I was going to do that tonight, along with my family's standard celebrations for the occasion - which is generally just burning meat and recognising that it's .
I decided I was going to do a little fire ceremony to cleanse myself. In case, people don't know/can't remember etc, the idea is to imagine various lines/connections spreading out from you. These are connections of things you want to disassociate yourself from. These are the people, events and circumstances you want to cut all ties from, and cauterise the wound. That's the idea of the fire ceremony. The idea is to move the flame over as many parts of your body as one can, to sever as many ties as one can.
Very little is as actively cleansing as fire. Water is cleansing in a much different way, as is earth (think of animals having dirt baths - it works) and air (think hand-driers in toilets)... but fire really does the job. It leaves little behind.
Being relatively novice at the poi, I probably haven't done all of myself, but I did a lot.
On the other hand it was bloody cool. I did it twice. The first time, it was about 9:30. The first time I did it, it was amazing how short the chains seemed to become! Before, I considered them to be long, until I had two flaming cylinders hanging from my hands on a length of chain. Nevertheless, protected in my hoodie and with aquious cream on the exposed flesh, I performed a lot... horribly conscious that they were on fire and that I was in danger of hitting myself. However, I was well aware when something went awry, and could stop it from doing bad things to me.
Later on, I just felt the itch to do more, so I dunked the poi in oil again, lit from the lamp that we had burning, and played some more. This wasn't so much to cleanse but to try different things. At one point I managed to end up with the poi tangled around my arms, which was not a comfortable situation to be in for any length of time, but I just remained calm and got myself free of them and continued as if nothing had happened.
It was great fun.
I'm gonna be doing that again!
So, I am no longer a fire virgin.
Secondly, remember I mentioned Feile Draoichta and how they described fire ceremonies? I decided I was going to do that tonight, along with my family's standard celebrations for the occasion - which is generally just burning meat and recognising that it's .
I decided I was going to do a little fire ceremony to cleanse myself. In case, people don't know/can't remember etc, the idea is to imagine various lines/connections spreading out from you. These are connections of things you want to disassociate yourself from. These are the people, events and circumstances you want to cut all ties from, and cauterise the wound. That's the idea of the fire ceremony. The idea is to move the flame over as many parts of your body as one can, to sever as many ties as one can.
Very little is as actively cleansing as fire. Water is cleansing in a much different way, as is earth (think of animals having dirt baths - it works) and air (think hand-driers in toilets)... but fire really does the job. It leaves little behind.
Being relatively novice at the poi, I probably haven't done all of myself, but I did a lot.
On the other hand it was bloody cool. I did it twice. The first time, it was about 9:30. The first time I did it, it was amazing how short the chains seemed to become! Before, I considered them to be long, until I had two flaming cylinders hanging from my hands on a length of chain. Nevertheless, protected in my hoodie and with aquious cream on the exposed flesh, I performed a lot... horribly conscious that they were on fire and that I was in danger of hitting myself. However, I was well aware when something went awry, and could stop it from doing bad things to me.
Later on, I just felt the itch to do more, so I dunked the poi in oil again, lit from the lamp that we had burning, and played some more. This wasn't so much to cleanse but to try different things. At one point I managed to end up with the poi tangled around my arms, which was not a comfortable situation to be in for any length of time, but I just remained calm and got myself free of them and continued as if nothing had happened.
It was great fun.
I'm gonna be doing that again!
So, I am no longer a fire virgin.