10 Degrees Of Fire: The Loss of Fire

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 10 Days of 42

10 Degrees of Fire

Is Death about the loss of fire?  

How can I wait 32 more days without?  

I did not utter the wicked words, the wicked truth

that there is another 42 days to come. 

there are 42 and 42 without fire.  

Imagine yourself without warmth, food...light

for fire use to be the center, the everything.  

Yet there is a strange mysterious ember that outwits 

time and space.  

Our true separation between us and the rest 

is about fire. 

Our ability to use fire to cook, to heat the house, 

to build a center, to surround the fire in song, in prayer, 

solitude, in ceremony, in sorrow, and in healing.  The fire 

that burns in the center represents the soul that shines 

in the center of our humanness.  How did we get fire?  

From the gods or the Raven? 

I miss the flame that holds the universe in a small 

glow in the dark.  I miss the cold darkness approaching, 

and the fire parring the endless emptiness that wants 

to devour our souls.  It is the fire that keeps us evolving, 

it pushes away that void, and reminds us of the heat, the immenseness of 

being.  We are the campfire, soft, quiet and full of flames ready 

to consume the all too encompassing night. 




The Raven

Long ago, near the beginning of the world. Gray Eagle was the guardian of the sun and moon and stars, of fresh water and fire. Gray Eagle hated people so much that he kept things hidden. People lived in darkness, without fire and without fresh water. ~~~ Gray Eagle had a beautiful daughter and Raven fell in love with her. At that time Raven was a handsome young man. He changed himself into a snow-white bird. And as a snow-white bird he pleased Gray Eagle's daughter. She invited him to her father's lodge. When Raven saw the sun and the moon and the stars and fresh water hanging on the sides of Eagle's lodge, he knew what he must do. He waited for his chance to seize them when no one was watching. He stole all of them and a brand of fire also. He flew out of the lodge through the smoke hole.
As soon as Raven was outside, he hung the sun up in the sky. It made so much light that he was able to fly far out to an island in the middle of the ocean. When the sun set, he fastened the moon up in the sky and hung the stars around in different places. By this new light he kept on flying, carrying with him fresh water and the brand of fire he had stolen.
He flew back over land. When he reached the right place, he dropped all the water he had stolen. It fell to the ground and there became the source of all fresh-water streams and lakes in the world.
Then Raven flew on, holding the fire brand in his bill. The smoke from the firebrand blew back over his white feathers and made them black. When his bill began to burn, he had to drop the firebrand. It struck the rocks and went into the rocks. That is why, if you strike two stones together, fire will drop out.
Raven's feather's never became white again after they were blackened by the smoke from the firebrand. That is why the Raven is now a black bird.

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