Embercombe Diaries - Part 2

Part 2

EMPOWERMENT

Making the Fire

 Continuing from the post about "VULNERABILITY"

I went up to him, the only firekeeper that I know. A unique human in the way he holds space. I watched him tending fires day and night gracefully, poetically, and with heart. 

“Teach me how to make a fire” I requested with all my naivety and sincerity. His soft gaze rested on my eyes for a few seconds and a gentle smile appeared on his face.

“That would be my honour” he responded. 

He called me one day and said it was time. As I was rushing around collecting bits and pieces for the fire, he said “Let us sit down, first” he said. “We get into the practicalities but at the centre of a fire sits intention. That’s what makes a fire sacred. So tell me about your intention. Who/What would you like to dedicate your fire to?”

Before I even opened my mouth a voice inside me jumped out and screamed “To my womanhood!!” and upon hearing this all my woman parts cheered.

“To my womanhood” I repeated passionately. “This fire is to the women in my family and all the other women in this and other lifetimes who suffered because of their femininity, their bleed, and virginity.” 

It felt so right to name those nameless and honour their existence by my first ever fire. And a pledge came to life there and then from my heart. It was closely linked to my womanhood. 

After the ceremony, I went back to the hearth where my sacred fire was gently diminishing. The embers were glowing in the dark like the jewels of the city. I kneeled down and grabbed a handful of ashes from it and put it inside a matchbox and tied it up with a red ribbon*. Those ashes were going to come with me wherever I went and I would scatter them when I fulfilled my pledge and my heart told me it was the place. 

As I set off for my travels to listen to my calling and seek for my truth, (or self-inquiry?) those ashes came with me. On this pilgrimage each country I visited and each landscape I saw I curiously checked in with my heart to see if it was the place and the time. None of those places felt right and I didn’t feel ready until I met Sierra Nevada in Colombia. Mi Madre Nevada. 

                     

I waited until my last day. That morning I woke up at dawn and climbed up the highest peak I could get to in silence with my favourite girl Lardon. I said my pledge out loud and scattered the ashes in the witness of Sierra Madre Nevada. 

I was the woman that I longed to be. 

I felt free. 

                                               

“Ode to my womanhood”