Designing Your Own Fire Rituals

Fire rituals are superb tools for personal transformation, but fire should be handled with great care and understanding of its volatility. Rituals for change, ceremonies invoking the warrior spirit, and rites for ardent passion all are rites associated with fire. Fire gives courage and sparks ideas. Rituals with candle magic are a daily fire ritual you can do to create positive changes in your life.

Rites using firepower could include those for creativity, love and lust, courage, ambition, mysticism, purgation and cleansing, and closure.

Fire Deities

Shiva is the Hindu lord of life. He performs a ritual dance within the circle of flames.

Brigid is an excellent example of how an old pagan goddess was adopted by Christianity. The Celtic tradition’s great triple goddess was known as Brigantia in England, Brigindu in southern France, and Bride in Scotland. According to legend, Saint Brigid was a druid’s daughter, and was baptized by Saint Patrick. Her name means “bright one” and she tended the undying fire of the sun. Her song of invocation, as befitting a fire goddess, is “Brigid, excellent woman, sudden flame, may the bright fiery sun take us to the lasting kingdom.”

Durga, the oldest and fiercest form of the Hindu goddess aspect Devi, sprang into being from the flames in the mouths of the gods. Even though born from them, she was stronger than them all and was given weapons and a lion with which to battle the demon Mahiso. Seizing the demon by the hair, she freed the world from his evil so others could live there. She also rules the intellectual realm.

Pele, daughter of the Haumea, is the volcano goddess of fire and earth in Hawaii who first learned how to make fire. Luisah Teish tells of a personal encounter with her at a volcano in Maui in her book Jump Up. Many Pele stories involve the goddess appearing as an old woman who asks for a cigarette, then lights it with her magic. 

Wishing Time: Brazilian Candomble Ritual

            

The Brazilian Candomble religion is now intertwined with Yoruban spirituality introduced to the New World via the slave trade. Yoruban spirituality offers many answers to personal problems and is a popular system of aid for people in trouble. The Yoruban entities are ready to lend a hand with broken hearts, illnesses, divorce, work woes, insomnia, betrayal, infertility, politics, luck—anything that concerns the human heart.

In Brazil, Candomble has adherents in every walk of life, not just the poor and downtrodden. Candomble is a “fiery” faith: candles and beach bonfires are very much a part of it. You will find shrines with brightly burning candles in the finest homes in Rio. Street shrines are a delightful aspect of the Brazilian culture. An extremely popular and powerful image is that of Xango, the storm god of lightning and thunder. Rich and poor alike have problems, and the spirits are there to help all. The beautiful beaches that run along the entire coast of Brazil are popular places for rituals and offerings. It is not uncommon to find candles glowing by the sea. This must be very pleasing indeed to their beloved mermaid goddess, Yemoja.

These accommodating spirits are called orixas. Whether public, as in the middle of a street, or privately in one’s home, these offerings are all designed to attract and please the orixas when you need a favor. These offerings to the spirits are called despachos.

We all have times in our lives when we need help. Are you having difficulty with a coworker or your boss? Do you keep getting the flu all the time? Are you trying to quit smoking and can’t seem to kick the habit? Do you need more money? Are you looking for love? Ask the orixas!

The following is a list of orixas and their correspondences:

• Esu’s color is black. Esu has the power to bring messages, likes offerings of candy and toys, and is associated with the number three
• Ogum’s color is green, and helps with getting jobs. Ogum’s number is seven and he has a preference for cigars
• and rum. 
• Oia-Iansa favors white, the number five, and is a protector. Eggplant is her preferred offering.
• Orunmila is in charge of all divination, prefers yellow and sweets, and favors the number sixteen. Offer yams and coca nuts.
• Oxala like white, the number eight, and brings peace. White cotton and white coconuts are the gifts to offer.
• Oxum favors yellow and is the divinity for love and marriage. Present Oxum with sweet honey and sweet cakes.
• Sonponno is the ruler of health and is connected with the color tan and the number seventeen. Corn and beans should be at Sonponno’s shrine.
• Yemoja is the divinity who aids with fertility issues. Lucky number seven and bright blue are Yemoja’s domain, and offerings should be sugar cane and the syrup made from it.
• Xando is the power and passion divinity and his color is bright red. With both four and six as totem numbers, he should be gifted with fruit. Bananas and red apples are best. 

Fire Making

Here is a ritual that requires diligence and patience. Fire making by rubbing sticks together is very difficult and time consuming, but the few folks I know who have accomplished it have certainly felt transformed.

I was inspired by the teachings of the incredible ritual designer, Luisah Teish, who told me she keeps a candle burning in her fireplace at all times to approach Maui’s Magic Fire in another way. On the next full moon, gather a group and build a bonfire on the beach or a beautiful fire in a safety-certified fire ring in a park. Ask everyone to bring a glass-encrusted votive candle, preferably one of the seven-day candles you find at grocery stores or metaphysical shops. Begin a round of storytelling with the tale of Maui stealing fire. After you have told the story, light your own candle from the bonfire and say:

Thank you for the fire, Mahuika.

Next, go around the fire and let each participant tell a “fire story.” This can be a personal story of fire, or another myth or legend. After each story, the storyteller lights a personal candle from the fire and gives thanks for the fire that warms us and keeps us alive. 

The Sacred Element of Fire

Fire inspires us as it seems to spring directly from the divine. Early people regarded fire as power, as a destroyer, and a regenerator. The sung invigorates us each day and we feed on his fire for passion, action, and zeal. Fire is the giver of light and warms us all, man, woman, child, and animal. Fire feeds the passions of the human soul. The fire of the sun warms our hearts and illuminates our imaginations.

Fire Rituals

Fire, giver of light, source of illumination and warmth, is a basis for the following rituals.

Maui Magic

Maui was the trickster god of Hawaii for whom the pacific island was named. Hawaiian peoples were given the gift of flame by the fire giantess herself, Mahuika. However, since it had been handed to them as a gift, the people did not know how to start a fire on their own. Maui visited in the night and stamped out all the fires because he was curious to see what would happen. All the islanders were scared to go to the cave and ask Mahuika for more fire, so the trickster took on the task. Once there, however, Maui made more mischief and swindled the not-so-gentle giantess into giving up nine of her ten fingers, the source of her sparks and flames. Once Mahuika figured out the ruse, Maui was incensed and Mahuika chased him with a wall of fire.

In order to escape the inferno of Mahuika’s fire, Maui transformed into a hawk and flew away, using his power as a god to bring on rain to dampen the goddess’s fire. Sadly, the storm brought on flooding and the giantess was drowned. Her last act of generosity to the people of Hawaii was turning her stack of firewood into a forest. Mollified, Maui taught the islanders how to spark fire from the wood.

Designing Your Own Earth Rituals

Drawing on the power of the earth, you can perform ceremonies of immense strength and richness to further your personal and spiritual goals. You can begin new projects, deepen your dreams, and ground yourself in nature. You can plant a magical garden with seeds of change. You can sculpt or carve a wooden or stone goddess for your altar. You can cook a sacred meal to serve after ritual work. You can perform rituals outdoors, celebrating the beauty of our planet, a gift we all share and must preserve.

Other earth elemental rites you can design on your own could include ceremonies for fertility, bodily health and strength, prosperity, property, success, and manifestation.

Earth Deities

In addition to Gaia, there are other gods and goddesses who can represent the element of earth. On your home altar or shrine, they can represent earth in your ritual work.

• The Green Man: the forest god who represents the power and divinity of nature.
• Buddha: He achieved enlightenment under the sacred Bodhi Tree.
• Venus of Willendorf: Her appealing and ample shape represents fertility and the feminine.
• Artemis: The huntress or woman warrior who travels with a pack of devoted dogs.

Walking Meditation

This is the simplest of rituals you can do every day of your life. As you walk, take the time to look and really see what is in your path. For example, my friend Eileen takes a bag with her and picks up every piece of garbage in her path. She does this as an act of love for the earth. During the ten years I have known her, she has probably turned a mountain of garbage into recycled glass, paper, and plastic. Goddess bless! This is one type of walking meditation. This very simple daily ritual honors the earth and helps preserve life for all beings.

Earth Day Ritual: The Sacred Grove

In much the same way that animals, stones, and stars were totemic to early peoples, so were trees. Greco-Roman spirituality had sacred groves, as did the Aborigines in Australia, Hindus in India, Germanic tribes, and the Celts of Europe. To the Celtic Druids, the oak was the major sacred totem tree.

Pliny the Elder pointed out that groves of trees were the first temples.

A wonderful way to celebrate our planet and engender the ideals of preservation and ecological sanctity of our precious resources is to return to the sacred grove. Essential elements necessary for the ritual are colored ribbons and colored markers.

Gather your friends on Earth Day, April 22, and go to a mutually agreed upon park, farm, or forest. Find the largest oak or largest tree with low-hanging branches and circle around it, holding hands while chanting:

We are the wisdom of the stars.
The beauty of this green Gaia.
To the planet that gives us life, we return the gift.
We are one
We are the stars and the stones and the sea.
We are one.

By casting the circle with voice and action, you create a boundary within which magic can take place. One by one, each member of the circle should speak a wish for universal healing, write the wish on a ribbon, and tie the ribbon on the tree. Each flutter of the breeze will speak of your hope and good wishes for our planet. If you are lucky enough to be on the property of a member of your circle, ask if you can leave the ribbons there as the mark of the sacred grove.