Fire

Fire

Of all the elements, Fire has always been the one I understood least.

Earth felt familiar beneath my feet and in the forests, hills, stones, and soil that have always drawn me. Water revealed itself through rain, rivers, springs, lakes, and the sea. Spirit emerged through connection, awareness, wonder, and those fleeting moments when the boundary between myself and the wider world seemed to become thinner.
Fire was different.

When I thought of Fire, I thought of anger. Aggression. Conflict. Destruction. I imagined wild flames consuming everything in their path, hot tempers, impulsive actions, and uncontrolled force. Compared to the grounding nature of Earth, the reflective flow of Water, and the connective nature of Spirit, Fire felt somehow distant. It seemed to belong to other people.

Yet some of the moments when I have felt most alive have always carried a distinctly fiery quality.

Standing upon the South Downs in driving rain while powerful winds sweep across the landscape. The rain stings exposed skin. The wind pushes against every step. The horizon vanishes behind sheets of grey cloud. There is nowhere to hide from the weather and nowhere else to be. The mind cannot drift into tomorrow's worries or yesterday's regrets. Every sensation becomes immediate. Every breath becomes noticeable. Every step demands attention.

At other times it is the complete opposite.

Sitting quietly within a woodland glade on a warm summer afternoon. Sunlight filters through the canopy and settles upon bare skin. Bees move lazily among flowers. The scent of earth rises from the forest floor. The warmth seems to soak deeper than flesh, reaching into something harder to define. There is a vitality present in such moments that is difficult to explain. Not excitement. Not adrenaline. Something quieter than that. A sense of being nourished by the simple act of existing within the world.
For years I struggled to understand why both experiences felt so important.

One was wild and intense.

The other calm and peaceful.

Yet both left me with the same feeling.

Alive.

What does it actually mean to feel alive?

The answer I keep returning to is surprisingly simple.

To feel alive is to participate. To participate in the world rather than merely observe it.

To step beyond the role of spectator and become part of the experience itself. Every moment contains the possibility of learning something, building something, understanding something, or becoming something. Every place visited, every challenge faced, every success and every failure contributes to who we become. Life is not simply the passage of time. Life is participation.

Once I began looking at Fire through that lens, I started seeing it everywhere.
I found it in the first barefoot step onto warm earth after removing my shoes. There is always a moment when the sole of the foot touches soil, grass, stone, or sand and something changes. The ground is no longer an abstract surface viewed from a distance. It becomes immediate and tangible. The body reconnects with the world beneath it.

I found it in naturism too. For many people nakedness is simply the absence of clothing. For me it has always been something more. The worries, expectations, and small performances of everyday life seem to loosen their grip. There is a freedom in allowing myself to simply be. Not a different person. Not an improved version of myself. Just myself.

Neither experience is dramatic, yet both create transformation. One state becomes another. One perspective gives way to another. One version of ourselves begins to make way for the next.

Fire, I realised, is not merely the element of flame.

It is the element of transformation. Yet transformation is not always comfortable.

This was perhaps the next lesson Fire taught me. Some transformations arrive because we seek them. Others arrive whether we want them or not.

Friendships end - relationships end - jobs change - people leave.

Sometimes we discover that people we trusted were never who we believed them to be. Sometimes paths we expected to follow disappear beneath our feet. Sometimes life forces us to release things we desperately wanted to keep. At the time such experiences often feel destructive.

Perhaps they are. Yet destruction is only part of the story.

A forest fire consumes. It blackens the landscape and leaves behind ash and silence. Yet the story does not end there. Nutrients return to the soil. Space opens for new growth. Dormant seeds germinate. Life begins again.

The destruction is real. So is the renewal.

The same is often true within our own lives.

Fire burns away that which no longer serves.

Old assumptions - old fears - old identities - old expectations.

The process can be painful. Sometimes heartbreakingly so. Yet growth often emerges from precisely those moments we would never have chosen for ourselves. Looking back, many of the experiences that shaped me most were not comfortable at all. They were challenges, losses, disappointments, and endings that forced me to become somebody different from who I had been before.

This is one reason why Snake has become such an important symbol for me.
The snake sheds its skin not because the old skin was wrong, but because it has become too small. Growth demands change. Transformation requires release. Looking back across my own life, I can see many moments where old versions of myself had to be shed in much the same way. Beliefs were questioned. Assumptions were challenged. New experiences revealed possibilities that had previously been invisible.

Growth demanded transformation.

Fire was present in every one of those moments.

Yet Fire is not only the force that changes us. It is also the force that encourages us to create.

The more I reflected upon Fire, the more I realised that it appears whenever something hidden becomes visible.

Writing my book is perhaps the clearest example. I never planned to become a writer. In truth, I felt compelled to write. Experiences, reflections, questions, and ideas seemed to demand expression. Through writing they became clearer, deeper, and more tangible. What existed only within my own thoughts could now be shared with others.
The same is true of this blog. Writing does not simply communicate an idea. It transforms it. Thoughts connect. Meanings deepen. Intuitions become understanding. Something that existed only within becomes real enough to share with the world.
The same pattern appears throughout my life.

The sanctuary began as an idea and became a place. Music begins as feeling and becomes sound. Masks, staffs, tattoos, painted nails, antlers, and countless other expressions all share the same underlying impulse. They begin as something invisible. An idea. A feeling. A symbol. A truth.

Fire transforms them into something tangible.

Perhaps there is a small element of saying "look at me" within all acts of expression.
Yet I think that phrase is often misunderstood. There is a profound difference between seeking attention and refusing to hide. One seeks validation. The other seeks authenticity.

The older I become, the less interested I am in concealing aspects of myself simply because they do not fit comfortably within somebody else's expectations. Whether through writing, spirituality, tattoos, painted nails, naturism, barefoot walking, music, creativity, or the antlers I sometimes wear, the underlying impulse remains the same.

This is who I am.

Expression requires courage because visibility creates vulnerability. The moment something remains hidden it cannot be judged. The moment it becomes visible it can.
Fire therefore becomes not only the element of transformation and creation, but also the element of courage.

The courage to change - the courage to create - the courage to express - the courage to be seen.

There is another side to Fire that took me even longer to recognise.

The stag spends much of the year moving quietly through woodland and meadow. Yet during the rut something ancient awakens. Energy rises. Vitality rises. Life insists upon itself. The stag becomes a living expression of desire, intensity, and participation in the cycle of existence.

I recognise something of that within myself.

Not merely sexual energy, though that is certainly part of it, but something broader. A desire to find connection. A desire to find a partner with whom to share life's journey. A desire to find tribe and belonging. A longing to find those people with whom we can truly be ourselves.

Like flame, these desires rise and fall.

Sometimes they burn brightly - sometimes they settle into embers.

Yet they remain part of what it means to be alive. Life continually reaches outward.
It seeks connection, growth and experience. Perhaps that too is Fire.

Even teaching has begun to reveal itself to me through this lens. At its best, teaching is not the transfer of information from one mind to another. It is the lighting of a flame. Curiosity awakens. Understanding grows. A spark becomes a fire within somebody else. This feels deeply connected to my affinity with Thoth, the teacher and keeper of knowledge. The goal is not to dictate another person's path but to illuminate possibilities and allow them to walk it themselves.

Like all elements, Fire possesses a shadow. A flame that warms can also consume. The desire to create can become obsession. The pursuit of excellence can become perfectionism. I encounter this regularly through my work with systems, spreadsheets, automation, and data. Computers do not tolerate almost correct. A misplaced formula or small error can cause an entire system to fail. Precision matters.

Yet the habits developed in one area of life can spill into others. The desire to improve can become the inability to let go. The pursuit of excellence can smother the joy of creation itself.

Fire teaches another lesson here. Not every flame should be fed endlessly. Sometimes a project must be released. Growth requires accepting that something is complete.

Wisdom lies not in adding more fuel, but in allowing the fire to settle into glowing embers.

Looking back now, I no longer see Fire as the element of anger and destruction that I once imagined. I see it in storms and sunlight. I see it in the first barefoot step upon the earth. I see it in the freedom of nakedness. I see it in the snake shedding its skin and the stag answering ancient instincts. I see it in creativity, learning, teaching, longing, courage, and growth. I see it whenever an idea becomes reality.

Whenever an experience changes us - whenever something hidden is given form - whenever life demands participation.

For a long time Fire felt distant because I expected it to appear only as flame.
Instead I found it in vitality, transformation, creation, desire, challenge, authenticity, and renewal.

Fire is the force that encourages us to participate fully in life. The force that transforms thought into action, inspiration into creation, and experience into wisdom. The force that burns away what no longer serves and illuminates what remains. And perhaps, more than anything else, it is the spark that reminds us that we are not here merely to observe life from a distance.

We are here to live it.