One of Grandfather Fire’s teachings that comes back to me again and again is about doubt. I was at a Grandfather Fire Speaks event in 2017. He was answering someone else’s question, but what he said felt like he was talking directly to me.
I had a pen and notepad and this is what I heard him say:
“What is doubt? Doubt is a conclusion framed as a question.”
With those few words, I could suddenly see myself in a mirror. My questions like, “Should I…?” “Could I…?” “Will I…” actually had a different agenda than I ever imagined. I opened my heart with curiosity.
Then he said, “When your disposition is to know and to desire certainty, say to yourself: my mind is always going to be nervous about a great endeavor that challenges me to grow and learn and open.”
“It’s like when one is going to approach a very special mountain, a sacred being that can help you—it will produce a great challenge of one’s assessment of one’s capacity.’Can I do the fasting? Can my body endure the approach of that great being?'”
“To be successful, you have to really surrender and say, ‘If you want me to walk this walk, then I know you will give me what I need—you’ll help me more beyond my resources. You’ll come and lift me up.'”
“That’s the process of healing. Realizing you’re a spiritual being looking for a human experience, not a human looking for a spiritual experience.”
“The way you’re indoctrinated in this culture is to believe in your limitations. Paradoxically–and this world is a paradox, not a chronological regularity—you must begin to doubt your doubts.”
Grandfather said the antidote was to open myself to feel the world. (At this point, I was sure his answer was for me.) That if I could quiet my mind to hear the great Divine expressions around me, I would hear the different voices and possibilities and feel new ways to move with my concerns.
Doubting my doubts has become a path to “heart confidence,” a way to spot my fears and face them so I can ask for the help I need.
Sharon Brown has been initiated as a weather worker, or quiatlzques, in a Nahua tradition from Central Mexico. She serves her community in Olympia, Washington as a Firekeeper and supports outreach and marketing for Sacred Fire.