Magical Almanac: Practical Magic for Everyday Living - Lauryn Heineman 2018

Finding Light by Monica Crosson
Fire Magic

It was November, and autumn had only just touched the Pacific Northwest, burnishing the landscape with shades of pumpkin, ochre, and brick red. The air was tinged with apple and wood smoke as we prepared ourselves for the pleasures of darker days: candlelight and cozy fires, holiday baking, and s’mores around a crackling fire. I wasn’t worried about the forecast of record-breaking cold and precipitation for our area. I wasn’t concerned about the darkness—spring always comes, and we are filled, once again, with light.

My husband, Steve, had been complaining for weeks about shortness of breath and heart palpitations. One night when I woke up and he no longer could sleep lying down, I insisted he go to the doctor. The next day, to my surprise, he called me not with information concerning what he had thought was a bout with asthma, but that he had been transported by ambulance from the doctor’s office to the hospital. He was in complete heart failure and most likely wouldn’t have survived another twenty-four hours. I had been on him for years about taking better care of himself, so my first reaction was anger.

“This is your fault!” I cried into the phone. “I told you to take better care of yourself, and you didn’t. You’re not twenty years old, Steve!”

“I know,” he spoke softly. “I promise I’ll do better.”

“What are we going to do?” I sobbed.

“Isn’t it you who always says spring will come and we will be filled with light?”

“It feels very far away right now.”

The recovery took weeks and the list of medications was long. I took on more work, keeping in mind it would only be for a couple of months. And as I witnessed the weather predictions come true in the form of heavy snow that made commuting treacherous, I reminded myself that spring would come and there would be light. The snow piled, heavy and deep—one, two, three feet. I white-knuckled it to work and back and made sure Steve kept his appointments. I helped our daughter, Chloe, with her schoolwork, and every evening, I made a thirty-mile round trip to pick up my son Elijah at the bus stop. He used our county’s public transit system to commute to the college he attends.

But I suppose I had been too busy to notice that my oldest son had lost the light behind his beautiful eyes. Demons from his past had returned and gnawed hungrily at his mind. I have never mentioned his bipolar illness in my writing simply because he doesn’t want to be known as “Monica’s bipolar son” but rather as Joshua, writer, artist, musician, and Goddess-loving, really cool guy.

On one horrible evening he could no longer take it, and he slipped into January’s darkness. Unable to locate him and fearing he may harm himself, we called the sheriff, who found him barefoot and shivering along the riverbank several miles from our home. Joshua hadn’t told anyone that he had stopped taking his medication months before. He thought he was okay, failing to realize it was the medication that made him okay. He was checked into a mental health facility near Seattle. When I picked him up several weeks later, we reminded each other that there would be a spring and the light would come back into our lives.

February brought influenza into our home. It was Elijah who worried me the most. The flu triggered his asthma and he struggled to breathe, but he was a trooper. It was finals week, so he sucked on his inhaler and continued his studies. I didn’t think about Steve, back at work, who quietly suffered. His cough lingered, and he complained of severe headaches. Joshua had just been released, and Chloe was struggling with math. I had to go to work, and there was that horrible white stuff that fell insistently. I was starting to wonder if the light would ever return.

As February came to an end, I received a phone call while on my mail route, less than twenty minutes from our house. Steve was crying. “I can’t move my right arm. I think something’s wrong.”

“You’re having a stroke, Steve!” I tried to sound calm, though I was screaming on the inside. “Call an ambulance! I’m coming home.”

I arrived just before the ambulance and found him sitting in his favorite chair. “I’m scared,” he said.

I held his face. “Don’t be afraid. Everything will be fine.”

He tried to smile. “Spring will come. You’ll have your light.”

It was his persistent coughing, a flu by-product, that had triggered his stroke, a doctor told us. If it weren’t for the blood thinners he’d been taking for the heart failure, he’d probably be dead. A couple of weeks after his stroke, with Steve securely under the care of an amazing staff of doctors and therapists in a facility seventy miles north of our home, I finally broke down.

But it wasn’t Steve’s stroke, or his heart failure, or the flu, or Joshua’s bipolar illness, or working six days a week to make ends meet, that brought me to my knees. It was the snow that was the last straw. Last year I was taking pictures of daffodils and tying raspberries in March, for crying out loud. That night in 2017 we experienced an unprecedented March snowstorm. I screamed to the Goddess in the direction I knew the Moon would be rising: “I can’t take anymore! Please give me strength. I don’t want to lose my light.”

Just then, the snow lightened and clouds shifted, revealing pinpricks of light that speckled the small opening—they were stars. And for that moment it was enough. I knew I was strong enough and that the light would come.

The Element of Fire

I like to think of the element of fire as that inner light that fuels our soul. It is the flames of courage and determination that get us through life’s pitfalls. It is that spark of creativity that inspires artists to produce great works or the mom of three to sew the perfect costume for a school play.

To work with fire’s transformative power, you only have to stand in the light. Raise your hands to the Sun and absorb its healing rays, gaze into the flickering flames of a candle in a darkened room, or dance around a crackling fire on a moonlit night. Fire is masculine and its magick is energetic, transformative, and purifying. Its direction is south and its time is noon. Fire’s colors are red and orange.

People born under the Sun signs of Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius are all ruled by the element of fire. These people are your visionaries and adventure seekers. They are self-motivated and natural leaders. But, like with any flame, too much fuel can cause these radiate signs to burn out of control—passion can turn to compulsion, and adventurous spontaneity can quickly become recklessness.

Harnessing Fire

Fire, unlike the other elements, does not exist in a natural state, but is born through a chemical reaction requiring air, heat, and fuel. For fire to maintain its power, it must consume, and its hunger can be ravenous. I sometimes wonder what the fear and awe of witnessing fire’s destructive powers in action was like for early humans and how quickly were they able to harness its power. It is thought that when humankind finally learned to control fire, true evolution began. Archeologists found what is thought to be the oldest evidence of man harnessing fire at a one-million-year-old campfire site within a cave in Northern Cape in South Africa. Charred fragments were identified to contain twigs, bone, and plant ash, and fractured stone and sediment at the site was an indication that the site was used repeatedly.

The importance of harnessing fire is apparent throughout mythology and folklore: For the Greeks, it was Prometheus who stole fire from Mount Olympus for mankind to survive. For the Cherokee, Grandmother Spider snuck into the land of light using her web to secure fire and keep it in a jar. In Maori mythology, it is the hero Maui who tricked the fire goddess Mahuika to obtain the secrets of fire.

In harnessing the magickal aspects of fire, we can utilize its transformative powers in spells to garner strength and confidence for empowerment and freedom. We can use it for purification and to ritually destroy bad habits.

Gods and Goddesses of Fire

Brigid: This Celtic triple goddess ruled over the hearth, poetry, and childbirth. Daughter of the Dagda, she was born at sunrise with rays of fire that beamed from her head. Her holy temple was at Kildare, where a perpetual flame was tended by nineteen virgins. This beloved goddess was turned saint with the coming of Christianity. Use Brigid in magick for hearth and home, clarity, creativity, transformation, and fertility.

Vesta: Vesta was the Roman goddess of the hearth, home, fire, and state. Her brother, Jupiter, granted her request of eternal virginity upon his ascension to Mount Olympus. Her temple was at the Forum Romanum, where priestesses known as the Vestal Virgins kept her eternal flame lit. Call upon Vesta for legal matters, strength, hearth and home, healing, and change.

Frigg: This Norse goddess of the hearth, home, childbirth, marriage, and destiny spun the clouds of fate upon a spinning wheel representing female wisdom. She was known as Bertha or Holda. Her sacred animal was the goose and later became the inspiration for Mother Goose. Use Frigg in magick for parenting, wisdom, fate, hearth and home, and childbirth.

Lugh: A Celtic solar god who was inventor of the arts, patron of commerce, and hero to the Tuatha Dé Danann for securing the secrets of ploughing and planting, Lugh is associated with Lughnasadh (meaning the “assembly of Lugh” in Irish) for inaugurating the day as an assembly in memory of his foster mother, Tailtiu, who died from exhaustion while clearing forest land for planting. Call upon Lugh for legal matters, courage, strength, art, and athleticism.

Ra: Ra was an Egyptian Sun god who brought the Sun as he traveled across the sky in his chariot. His importance to the people

of Egypt is no surprise. Without the power and energy of the Sun, their crops would not grow. He was depicted sometimes as a falcon but always with a solar disk above his head. Eventually, pharaohs came to be seen as embodiments of this solar deity, gaining absolute power. Invoke Ra for strength, passion, success, and energy.

Ask the Flames

Have you ever gazed into the dying embers of a fire and seen shapes or symbols? What images come to mind when you stare at the flickering of the flame? What ghostly shapes appear in the smoke that rises with sweetly scented herbs? Pyromancy is a form of divination using fire. It is thought to go back to a time when sacrificial fires were used to interpret omens and prophecies that lay hidden within the coals or rose with the smoke.

Good or bad fortune for the coming year could be established by many factors, including the clarity of the smoke or the scent or sound it made when certain herbs or minerals were cast into the flames. Sometimes, it was the consumption of an object itself that was used to divine the future. When an object was tossed into the fire and was consumed quickly and easily, it was a good omen. On the contrary, if a flame suddenly died, this foretold of ominous consequences.

Visual projections were considered as well. What images lie hidden in the flames? A talented seer not only could see the images that told of change or possible disappointment, but, as if the flames spoke to them, they were able to read beyond the symbols through the voice of intuition.

If you would like to give pyromancy a try, here are a few things to consider:

Safety First: If you’re doing this outside, make sure to create a proper fire pit. If you are making one for the first time, remember to pick a spot away from trees and shrubbery. Dig a hole that is approximately two feet deep and four feet wide, and keep the leftover soil nearby. In case the fire gets out of control, it can be used to smother the flames. Line your pit with stone or brick. When you are done with the fire, use a bucket of water to drown out the coals.

Choose Wood Type: It really doesn’t matter what kind of wood your fire is made of, but consider adding one or more of the nine sacred woods: birch, oak, hazel, rowan, hawthorn, willow, fir, apple, or vine.

Watch for Symbols: Add herbs, twigs, nuts, or leaves (laurel leaves are traditional), ask your question, and then divine using either your own interpretation of the images you see in the flames. You can also look at the color of the flames: bright red flames can indicate courage, deep red corresponds to your desire, orange flames may indicate the incentive to keep trying, and yellow flames may correspond to a lightening of spirit.

The smoke may also hold meaning: smoke that rises straight up is a positive sign. Smoke that hangs low around your fire is unfavorable. If the smoke is touching the earth, a new direction should be taken.

Interpret the Coals: Another way to practice pyromancy is to ask a question into the fire. Wait for the fire to die down and look for images in the coals that might answer your question.

Candle Revelation Spell

For this spell, we will use the flickering flame of a candle (which is lampadomancy, a form of pyromancy) to reveal an answer to a question:

You will need:

1 white tealight

Juice of 1 lemon squeezed into a small cup

Bamboo skewer or sharp stick to write with

2 or 3 slips of paper

Bowl

Set up your candle on a table that is free of clutter. You will be working with the flame and don’t want to accidentally catch yesterday’s mail on fire. You will invoke the salamanders, fire elementals that inhabit flame, to guide you with this spell, so as you light your candle, ask the elemental, in your own way, to join you.

Now with a question clear in your head, take the skewer or sharp stick and use it like a pen by dunking it into the lemon juice and writing possible solutions to your questions on each slip of paper. Simple answers are best (the lemon juice will be invisible). Now place the slips of paper in the bowl. Close your eyes and focus on the question. As you draw a paper, say,

Salamander of the dancing flame,

What is it that I have to gain?

Reveal the answer for me to see.

In the name of spark, ember, and flame, so mote it be.

Take the paper you have chosen and, holding it with both hands, begin to pass it closely over the candle flame (not too close—you don’t want to catch it on fire). The heat will react with the lemon juice, clearly revealing your answer.

____

By utilizing the element of fire, I have learned that when life is at its darkest, we find the light—those little pinpricks of inner strength we never knew existed. Fire teaches us to forge on and reminds us to be adventurous and creative with our lives.

Another lesson, which was hard for me to learn because I pride myself for my strength, is that it’s okay to fall apart at times. This is how we grow and develop that inner light and become better able to pass it on to those whose own light may have dimmed.