Sharifa Oppenheimer

View Original

What is Good Fire in Inner Landscapes?

#8 As the world burns, in so many ways, let us explore good fire. What can we do, in our own lives, to help? Allow all the lies and hatred society promotes to be consumed by the fire of Love and burn to fertilizing white ash. Here are a few more lines about fire that you will find in Wild Graces, from the poem "A History of Fire." Order here:
https://bookshop.org/books/a-litany-of-wild-graces-meditations-on-sacred-ecology/9781954744622

Initiation

Seared, scorched, scoured
charred to ash,
her house of self
is burned to the ground.

She is incense for the gods:
grassland soil, elm roots
fields of wheat
bees in clover:
sweet, pungent
tart, earthen.

Elements harvested
through her twenty years
now lit by holy fire
burn hot, concentrated
a single point of scarlet
till what remains is
fragrant white ash.

This is what Mirabai Starr, Author, Teacher and Translator of the Great Mystics says about Wild Graces: "Astonishing! I have never beheld anything like this collection of songs to the wild earth! I want everyone I know to drink deeply and be transfigured by the sacred wonderment shining from these beautifully written poems."

Photo @susan_wilkinson