It has been said that “life begins when you step out of your comfort zone.” (American author Neale Donald Walsch). I have lately been thinking of this now that things have settled down from the pandemic and we move about within our lives again, getting back to work, shopping, eating out, walking the dog in a crowd, and repeating, etc.

I have been thinking for years about fire walking. From a science perspective, I know that one is unlikely to get burned, as the time of contact with the heat usually prevents this. In addition, embers are not good conductors of heat. With the right form, people survive this experience unburned, yet those who run through the embers change the position of their feet from a flat placed with a flat position and uniform surface area to a foot that is buried a little further in the embers and unevenly into the heat as a result. Sometime these people get burned. Running through the embers instead of walking slowly, taking one’s time, brings up all kinds of parallels to life and living for me as well. Most of the time the feel feel warm to the touch for a while, but do not burn. There is always a bucket of water nearby in case things go awry.

There is a certain sense of victory I imagine that one feels after walking through burning embers. However, I can only imagine that a sense of balance happens as well. How powerful the notion that another reason one doesn’t get burned from walking through hot embers is that when two bodies of different temperatures meet, the hotter body cools down, and the cooler body warms up.

I know that fire walking has been practiced for thousands of years as a spiritual ritual or is connected with some rite of healing, initiation, or faith practice in some cases. For me, the notion of fire walking means that I would step out of my comfort zone for a moment. I means that I would for a moment face the innate fear that we all have of sustaining a burn. We learn as children NOT to touch something hot or to avoid something that might hurt us. Well fire walking might not hurt us, but it instills fear on some basic primitive level somehow. I don’t need the ritual, healing, or initiation aspect of this activity, nor do I want it. I want only to shake it up by doing something out of my comfort zone.

I am toying with putting fire walking on my “bucket” list. It’s not about thrill seeking at all. Why not face my (universal) fear? Why not emerge with a greater perspective life? In my opinion, only something good can come out of it.

While I may not be able to walk on water (THAT is something ENTIRELY differentl), I CAN walk on fire. There is something about balancing the need to read quietly with a cup of herbal tea in a tiny cabin in the woods with a great view of nature that I have with pushing myself out of my comfort zone to walk on fire.  Maybe it is about Yin and Yang, after all, and finding the balance within life.

“…Filled with awesome expectation
This girl’s a fascination
And nothing in her way will keep her from her destination
‘Cause she’s fire walking, she’s fire walking…”

“She’s Fire Walking” by Tim McMorris