A Quarterly Newspaper By & For Friends Of Sacred Fire

A Quarterly Newspaper By & For Friends Of Sacred Fire

Grandfather Fire’s Guidance on the Tibetan New Year

The Year of the Yang Water Tiger, which began February 4, 2022

Grandfather Fire gives an annual audience in Tepoztlán, Mexico at the time of the Tibetan New Year.  In this audience, he teaches on the flavor of the coming year and how to engage it in the most beneficial way. Now that we are half-way into the Year of the Tiger, we can see how the energy of the Tiger has been working in our lives and use this guidance to make the most of the rest of the year.

“There are always times for quiet reflection or quiet contemplation and to imagine plans. But this is not the year energy that favors that. To move and to face strong challenges will be successful.” —Grandfather Fire, February 2022

 Yang is only Yang because of its dynamic opposition to Yin. Where Yin is feminine, still, wet and dark, Yang is the essence of masculine, heat, dry, and adventure.

 Water is creative. Water permeates and looks for opportunities. For example, water can come through your roof through the smallest opening. It can move around obstacles. It has the flavor of the emotion of concern that sometimes becomes fear. But its creativity and its possibility are unquestioned. As Water interacts with Wood and Earth, it brings forth possibilities.

When you combine the flavor of Yang and Water, it has to do with water in movement, like a river or the movement of water in clouds.

Tiger has a natural relationship with the element Wood, which has a push to it. This year is tied to the Mountain because of the complex relationship between the elements—Yang, Water and the natural wood of Tiger. The combination of all those elements is like a tall tree growing. 

Tiger, with its ambition and its power, accomplishes a great deal. It’s intelligent in the way of hunting and discovering opportunities. Even though Tiger is more solitary than some other animals, it accomplishes a lot. Tiger can confront very strong difficulties and succeed. So, in situations that require waiting for more coordination from others, it can see opportunities and manifest success. Unlike the previous Ox year, individual actions are paramount in a Tiger year.

Finding My Spiritual Home

By Shawn Bennett

As a young person I was very curious about the world. My parents teased me about my talking and incessant questions, as I would often walk up to total strangers, especially older people, and start very lively conversations. The deepest questioning I had, a longing really, emerged by middle school. At that point I was peppering my father about God, Jesus and how far away were the stars? By high school, if I had an open topic paper to write, why not keep it simple and write a philosophical argument about the existence of God. I probably had no idea how the paper would start or where it would end. I didn’t really care, I just had to know what I could touch, or would never touch, but could count on with my whole being!

By high school and college, I would get into heated philosophical arguments with other students, and looked to the classic American and Greek writers to help me figure this thing out. I think my frustration with others during these debates arose, not because I thought their arguments were poor, but because I had begun to suspect a Spiritual nature did exist. I just didn’t have the experience or connection to understand the ground I was standing on.  I had also started to develop a keen interest in Eastern religious writings as well as Native American teachings.  I wanted to live my spirituality from my Heart!  I didn’t think my connection or practice would arise from church on Sundays.  But I was stumped.

In my second of several returns to college, I signed up for a small ‘cult’ class at UCONN that students took for reasons I didn’t know—maybe it was an easy A for a certain elective strand. But not me. It was Kenneth Ring’s course on the Near-Death Experience. If I could just get a little glimpse of the other side of this life, then maybe, who knows?

What I did not know is that the live testimonials in the room, with the professor who had made his life studying this phenomenon, would change my life. It wasn’t very scientific, and it probably had little to do with Mr. Ring’s interest in studying these people and the changes in their lives, after surviving a clinical death. But something subtle and slow took place from the inside of my awareness and understanding. What changed for me was that I found something I believed to be real in their experiences, and that was it. Afterward, I felt no need to argue about the existence of God or a Spiritual realm. I was on my way, but to where?

I didn’t know at the time, but my life was going to move quickly from being a full-time student to being a full-time employee, husband and father in a few short years. It would not be until much later; more than ten years in fact, and after my divorce was final, that I would pick up my quest again.

The hardest things that I dealt with was carrying around feelings of anxiety, loneliness and self-contempt

In the late 90’s,  truly began to seek out my Spiritual Home, a place to be myself and connect with others outside of the usual venues of work and recreation. For a moment I thought I had found what I was looking for at a ‘Wisdom Circle’ in Westerly, RI. A new friend of mine lead a group of like-minded people who came together once a week to share something from their heart, with the rest of the group listening. I began regular drives of over 40 minutes on week night evenings, to be heard, to be around people who were openly acknowledging their spirituality (many of whom were ‘recovering Catholics’). They were wanting to take the next step in their journey of being more human, more authentic.

As I look back on those early days of seeking out my own spiritual path, I think what was missing for me was a way to make real the vague sense that I was living a life that was surrounded by something powerful and benevolent, but I really didn’t know how to relate to it, and I certainly didn’t know how to engage it directly, whatever it was!

I left the small community of friends in RI behind when I enrolled in the Social Work program at Eastern Connecticut State University. During that time, I would discover a woman with a spiritual healing practice. It was the beginning of what would become a lifelong journey into the ‘shamanic’ or indigenous view of the world. She and her partner would also invite me to my first ‘Sacred Fire’ Community Fire where I would find a state of togetherness with others and a connection to the world around me that felt new to me, but somehow familiar. My new friend would also introduce me to one of the community’s elders, a fully initiated shaman in the Huichol tradition, who provided counsel, healing and practices to help me more fully connect with and hear the wisdom present in the spirit of fire.

When I consider the effect of arriving, and being at a Community Fire, what I find striking, is how often I feel the presence and power of Fire

I had long enjoyed attending the Wisdom Circles in RI and was really blown away by how much I could begin to connect to myself and the others more fully, just by virtue of our intention to listen respectfully to each other, and by sitting in togetherness. However, I did not know how much was absent from that form of connecting that I began to discover around the Fire.

The Fire that Refused to Go Out

The Journey of Dedication from Four Umbrellas to a Sacred Mountain

By Chris Griffin

This coming Labor Day weekend, Grandfather Fire will return to offer his wisdom and counsel to the New England fire community, marking his fourth consecutive annual audience in the region. Over the past years, I have enthusiastically played a key role in helping organize and host Fire Speaks events at venues in Harvard, MA, Hancock, NH, and 2022’s upcoming event in Hillsborough, NH.

At our first Fire Speaks in Hancock, NH, something remarkable happened. A young man asked Grandfather earnestly about the mountain that stood a few miles away—Mount Monadnock —a very popular hiking destination. He felt that there was something special about this mountain and asked if it had a special story and what could be done to enter into a caring relationship with it. Grandfather confirmed that Monadnock is indeed a sacred mountain and that it has a sacred story. He said he would tell the story the following year under one condition; those who wanted to hear the story must go through a traditional purification process by participating in a ritual sweat lodge beforehand.

In 2021 we followed through with Grandfather’s instructions. We experienced a powerful weekend-long Fire Speaks event where those who planned to hear the story arrived early for a sweat lodge. We all worked together to build the lodge. The fire for the stones was lit and then each of us dedicated a stone with a prayer as we placed it in the fire. The following evening, after the general audience, all who had taken part in the sweat stayed to hear the sacred story.

Hearing the story [of Monadnock] was truly a blessed gift that was a culmination of a long evolution of my community, which began over 20 years ago.

When I listened to the story of Monadnock, I was taken directly into the dream of this sacred mountain, into a space that was remarkably pure, alive, and vital. It was at once ancient and totally present now. The storyline left me in a state of wonder. I was hearing it for the first time, but felt as if I had heard it many times before. After reflecting upon it, I came to a deeper perspective and understanding of the character of the land on which I live, and I felt at a deep level why I have been called to live in its vicinity.  Hearing the story was truly a blessed gift that was a culmination of a long evolution of my community, which began over 20 years ago.

Many community fires originated in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as Annie King shared in the last issue of the Fire Gazette. One of the first such fires was lit in Groton, MA.  I was invited to one of these early fires, hosted by my plant spirit medicine healer. That first fire was small. I remember four of us attended and stood around the fire in the rain, using our umbrellas to shield the fire and keep it from going out.

Over the months and years that followed, more and more people showed up at the fire hearth in Groton.  Over time we dug a fire pit and lined it with soapstone bricks. We purchased a tipi to hold fires in challenging weather, so there was no further need for umbrellas!

The international community around Sacred Fire also expanded in those years. I became aware of the different paths and projects initiated by Grandfather Fire. These included: apprentices and initiated shamans (mara’akate) in the Huichol tradition; a medicine path of working with weather spirits in the Nahua tradition; and a group working to restore a tradition of connection to the Great Goddess with roots in ancient Egypt.  My mind was blown and my heart burst wide open when I attended a special fire on a sacred mountain in Vermont, whose purpose was to “wake up” the dormant mountain. I learned and experienced firsthand that work with such sacred places in the natural world had great depth and potential for transformation and healing.

At one point in the early days of our fire, we had over 75 people show up for a community fire! The initial buzz eventually settled down and a regular group coalesced around monthly fire gatherings. We experienced remarkable excitement, enthusiasm and joy through sharing the sacred space around the fire, in which we could learn to be authentically ourselves. Slowly, as we got to know each other more deeply, it began to feel ‘safe to be unsafe’ with each other.  We experienced the friction and conflict that can arise in any closely knit group of people.  Despite the sparks, the community was extremely dedicated to the fires and to each other, and it birthed deep, life-long friendships and launched people upon various spiritual paths.

There were a lot of changes over the course of the next ten years of our fire hamlet, which at the time was called the “Groton Hamlet.”  The initial firekeeper, who brought so much enthusiasm and leadership charisma, left her role, and a new firekeeper stepped forth.

When a Firekeeper is called to a path of service to community, they take on a lifelong commitment.  Walking away from such a commitment can leave a large hole in the lives of a community and bring up emotional challenges for all involved. Over the years, this community saw two Firekeepers leave their commitment, and a third step back, due to health concerns. In this time, the fire moved around Massachusetts from Groton to Westford, then to Pepperell and finally to Concord. The hamlet had many names over those years. The changes naturally created uncertainty and challenge for all of us. Feelings of abandonment surfaced when each firekeeper walked away from his or her commitments to the fire and to the people they served. I felt this acutely. With the grounding of the community continually shifting, it was challenging to remain steadfast and committed, as I wasn’t sure what shared ground we were standing on.

Despite the confusion and emotions that were stirred in me, my commitment to the fire remained. Yet, without a solid center to the community, more people continued to drift away.

Erecting the tipi at the 2021 Fire Speaks event

By 2018, a small and committed group continued to show up and sit around the fire each month. The once large group of people who originally gathered in Groton was now much smaller and without a firekeeper. Two firekeepers, a couple from New York, drove monthly from New York to Concord so we could continue to have monthly fires. In our ponderings about how to invite people and grow our community, we decided to invite Grandfather Fire for a visit. We invited him to come the following year and he accepted!

Blessings of the Bald Giant

By Alison Arnold

It all started when…

…the state of Georgia and the surrounding regions experienced an extended drought. The fields and forests were dry, the lakes and rivers ran low, and the governor held a prayer vigil on the capitol steps asking for rain.

A woman who lived outside Atlanta was learning to build relationship with the weather beings. Working with her teacher in Mexico, a question came to her and she asked, “What can I do to help my people during this time when the land where I live is experiencing an extreme drought?” Don Lucio, a teacher in the Nahua tradition, guided his student, Sherry Boatright, to a volcano in her region, explaining this was a special weather mountain and would help bring the rains that were needed.

“What can I do to help my people during this time when the land where I live is experiencing an extreme drought?”

Weather workers and those who seek traditional spiritual paths are familiar with sacred places – places that provide guidance and connection with the beings of the land, sky, and spirit world. Although she had lived in Georgia her entire life, Sherry had no clue of a sacred weather mountain in her region much less a volcano. With the support of her weather shaman Don David Wiley, they proceeded to explore and discover the enormous dome of a mountain rising from the land into the sky. After making a special offering, they received confirmation that this was the place.

This mountain, influential to the weather in the southeast region of the U.S, once engaged by the three indigenous peoples of the region, fell to sleep upon the removal of these people from their land. How this mountain came to be is told in a sacred story. This story, told round the fire after special preparations, tells how this mountain came to be and how it got its name “Bald Giant.” This mountain is also known as Stone Mountain and by its Cherokee name, Tsantawu.

With Grandfather Fire’s initial and continued guidance, a ceremony re-emerged to ask for and give thanks for beneficial rains. For 21 years this ceremony and sacred work, involving a spring ritual and a fall harvest, has grown into a community of individuals on the Ritual Team and Support Team that come and work together to take care of the many details needed to make the ritual successful.

This mountain, influential to the weather in the southeast region of the U.S., once engaged by the three indigenous peoples of the region, fell to sleep upon the removal of these people from their land.

The ritual has many aspects to it including seven days of preparation by the Ritual Team, also known as “Walkers.” The Support Team comes and sets up camp, which involves hanging tarps, setting up a kitchen, moving wood and setting fires, to name a few of the preparation tasks. All these tasks are done with the purpose of supporting the “Walkers” as we chant and walk around the Bald Giant seven times, for approximately 35 miles. Once this ritual is complete, everyone makes the journey up the mountain to lay offerings of beans, squash, corn, and the meat from their village. We offer our gratitude for the abundance in our lives and petition for beneficial rains for the growing season. Returning to camp, the shared work together is celebrated with a feast, laughter, hot showers, hugs, and coffee!

It all started for me…

…one year when I got involved as part of the Support Team. We were sitting around the fire and doing the many things needed to be done in camp. At one point I looked around at the group of people, whom I had barely met and knew nothing about, and felt a very strong rush of recognition that said, “These are my people, I belong here.”

It was hard for me to understand this at the time, although I had been longing to find a place within a group of people that I could work with and learn from. It took me by surprise, and felt right. Fifteen years later, I’m on the Ritual team, have become an initiated Dugantu (rain caller) and serve on Council. This work has become an integral part of my life. Daily, I give prayers of gratitude for what this work has meant to me, my life and to the people around me.

Never before in my life, have I ever been pushed so hard on a physical level where fasting and strenuous activity together created so much emotional stress and resulted in pure joy and blessings.

There have been many challenges for me throughout this time. Seeking what I want in my life, following a calling, and all the learning and growth that comes with this, stretches me and creates many moments similar to riding the whitewater of a river – or, better yet, hiking a steep incline of a mountain. Sometimes the hiking is fast and furious and sometimes slow with each and every arduous and punishing step.

Beyond the Comfort Zone

by Linda Azar

“Everything… to achieve something great… requires sacrifice now for something great in the future.” Grandfather Fire

I held for a long time the belief that to live a good life was about creating a life that was comfortable, where fear or hardship didn’t exist. I resisted anything that challenged or impinged on my comfort zone. Over time and through experience I started to recognize that my need for comfort was creating a small, purposeless life.

Something in my life, that I would call Divinely orchestrated, created an opening for me to take on a challenge that my little, quiet heart’s voice was telling me to accept. It turned out to be very challenging, and I pitched a fit, struggling most of the way through, wanting just to return to my comfort cave and be done with it. But I persisted, persevered, and saw it through. And when it was all over, the rewards were immense.

I caught a glimpse of how rich and meaningful my life could be. If I could just find ways to be comfortable while doing it! I thought to myself ‘If I’m not comfortable, I must be doing it wrong, or should I even be doing it?’

It’s not about being comfortable. It’s about sacrificing my need for comfort if I want to live a life that’s worth living.

I continued to take on more and more heart-calling challenges, but I still threw my little interior temper tantrums every step of the way. So when I heard Grandfather speak these words, “Everything… to achieve something great… requires sacrifice now for something great in the future,” something in me clicked. It’s not about being comfortable. It’s about sacrificing my need for comfort if I want to live a life worth living. A life that is far more rewarding, joyful, and connected than I could have ever imagined, and one to which staying attached to comfort would never take me.

One of these challenges that I decided to take on was to be the event coordinator for the annual Asheville Fire Speaks event. In an open-hearted, heart-inspired moment, I volunteered myself to be in this role indefinitely. The challenges of taking on that role soon rose up. I’m actually a pretty introverted person, and suddenly here I was needing to lead multiple teams of people in order to have a successful event where 100 plus people attend. So many people counting on me to create a well-organized, joyful, heart-centered event, to set the stage for hearts to be opened to hearing Grandfather’s words.

It would have been much easier to ignore that voice that said, “Volunteer! It’ll be fun!” After all, there are people in our community who are more skilled, more extroverted, and much more capable than I. It would be easier to be led than to lead, to be on a team, or to just simply attend the event and not volunteer for anything!

It would have been much easier to ignore that voice that said, “Volunteer! It’ll be fun!”

In the midst of the final month leading up to the event, the requirement of time, energy and focus challenged the part of me that just wanted to have my free time to do something mindless, to not have this pressure, to not have to be accountable to so many people. There were many stressful, long nights of last-minute planning and organizing, checking that all the details were lining up, and making sure to allow for some flexibility, as I’ve learned things never go quite exactly as planned.

The moment everyone gave their offerings and we all settled into our seats, I too started to settle and looked around at all the people gathered there from near and far for this special opportunity. I was still ‘working’ but I began to really see the results of my sacrifices.

Sticking In

By Erin Everett

“A spiritual path is like a narrow path through the wilderness where there are countless choices and decisions to make. The path represents the fruitful way through the trappings of the mind. It is meant to guide one through those [ego] presences that feel compulsive and strong at times.” —Grandfather Fire, May 2021

The ever-burning votive candle on my altar maintained a steady flame as my grief welled up. I was reeling from some bad news.

I had received one of those group emails from someone I cared about who was part of my spiritual tradition. Like my husband, Adam, and me, she had been initiated years prior into an ancient and complex, simple and demanding lineage of people entrusted with the unique gift of working with weather.

Her letter bore the news: when faced with a lifetime of commitment to something mysterious, she decided the path that chose her and initiated her…is not for her.

That January morning, I remember the snow was falling, a thick blanket of appropriate and alive winter weather, feeding our land, nourishing it into becoming the abundant, lush place it is. I could feel the seeds of creative potential sleeping in the ground, dreaming of spring. The snow brought a great sense of satisfaction that all was right with the world, even amidst the unpredictable changes of life in 2022.

…when faced with a lifetime of commitment to something mysterious, she decided the path that chose her and initiated her…is not for her.

Erin Everett and her husband, Adam Laufer

Her email was a conversation-starter. At breakfast, Adam and I discussed this challenging and rewarding path of our tradition, which specializes in working with weather.

This type of announcement is a rare occurrence, fortunately. But I’ve been through it before. When people leave our path, it can feel like a shake-up, like a rip in the tapestry of our work. I can see it in the eyes of some of my compadres and comadres in our tradition: “What am I doing all this for, anyway?” Of course, their minds might become confused: “What is a good human path, anyway?”

It strikes me that this path — and paths like these — are not for everyone. Sometimes the flame of devotion goes out or is snuffed out. And that’s okay. People leaving a tradition that is so demanding have their reasons.

Like the flame gracing my altar, a life of spirit is many-layered: powerful, beneficial, potentially dangerous, and ultimately delicate. It saves my life. It burns away my blindness. It blows my theories. After it throws me out to the periphery, it calls me back, stretching me, demanding more than I thought I had. Sometimes, it’s right at the edge of too much to handle.

On this path to the center, I’m dry wood. Taken down to my bones, I get burned. Ignited and humbled, I come alive in a new way. Piece by piece I’m thrown in. Preoccupied by the dramas of transformation, I can be unaware of the warmth and light emerging. In my burning away, mysteriously, I become much more than I thought. As my companions and I “stick in” with dedication, more spirit comes through us, bright, warm and beneficial.

Perhaps this is why my spiritual tradition, like many, has fire at its core. The ever-burning votive candle on my altar affirms my longing, my commitment, my striving, my prayer: “May spirit operate at the heart of who I am and what I’m becoming.”

As my companions and I “stick in” with dedication, more spirit comes through us, bright, warm and beneficial.

After reading my departing friend’s email, my husband and I were reminiscing about our first journey to Mexico in April 2003. He asked me, “Did you know what you were getting into?”

Feature Article
Firekeeping at Casa Xi in Tepoztlán, MX

By Ana Cortés

The Story

Our Tepoztlán village Sacred Fire hearth is an incredibly blessed hamlet in the heart of Mexico, although also complex and challenging.

Erica Cohen, Jaime Vélez and I are three Firekeepers doing our job in an ancestral indigenous land, a sacred valley surrounded by sacred mountain deities that hold and protect the town.

But what makes it extraordinary is that it is located on the sacred land of Casa Xiuhtecuhtli (pronounced shee-uh-teh-COOT-ley), The House of the God of Fire.  It is also the home to the local and international lineage of Nahua traditional weatherworkers and the mara’akate, and is the house and office of Don David Wiley (the guardian and elder of the two traditions that the property hosts).

Each tradition has a temple. The Popocatépetl volcano once sent a message to the weatherworkers with a strong eruption of smoke: he wanted to have a decent temple at Casa Xiuhtecuhtli. So they built a wonderful Mayoría Temple, that recently was adorned with amazing murals full of deities related to the Weather Beings. The night that the murals were finished, it rained so hard that the whole town was flooded in a way many of us had never seen before.

A blessing over the grounds of Casa Xiuhtecuhtli

Grandfather explained later that it was due to the high level of excitement of the Weather Beings celebrating: it had been many many years (meaning, pretty much, since the conquest of Mexico) that the Gods weren’t publicly adorning a Nahua Temple.

The Temple accompanies our gatherings and events, as part of the landscape, and when we’re having a full moon fire, to contemplate it from inside the Tuki, with its candle always lit and many of the Gods represented, is a very special gift for us.

The Huichol ceremonial temple across from the Mayoría, called the Tuki, is a much more sober building of adobe walls and thatched roof, with a hardened dirt floor and three doors marking the north, east, and south directions, but also a doorless wall representing the west. The Tuki is a microcosm that not only marks sacred directions, but also the wet and the dry season, the masculine and the feminine, and other sacred aspects of the world.

When the Tuki was built and opened, an elder native Mexican Huichol shaman, Tsaurirrikame don José Sandoval, came all the way from his village in the northwestern mountains of Mexico, to bring the blessing of his people to this one and only Tuki built by non-Huichol people outside their land.  But he also came to ask permission from the mountain Gods in the Valley, to be able to hold Huichol ceremonies at a Huichol temple in a Nahua ancestral land.

For that, a Tuki Fiesta was organized, and he needed to hold a ceremony inside the Tuki and around the fire, to sing and communicate with the local Gods through his singing.  But he said he was asked to make it short since the community attending the ceremony was not used to long rituals like the indigenous Huichol people, so he promised to be brief.  But it took him all night long. When he finished, he declared the Gods had given their permission, and he apologized to the people remaining saying that when he asked them for that permission, the local deities started to talk, and who was he to stop them from talking!

That happened in 2006, and shortly after, around that time, Jaime, Erica, and I were initiated as firekeepers by Grandfather Fire.  At that time, we were holding fires at Shambhalacalli, a Shambhala Buddhist Center in Tepoztlán. Our initiation took place inside the Tuki (as all the new candidates still do at the end of a training week that takes place at Casa Xiuhtecuhtli every 2 years), but it only became our hearth in 2014. It was a relief after wandering around from one place to the other at different homes in the village for several years. Then the property was bought by the Sacred Fire Temple with donations from the weatherworkers and mara’akate groups, who continue to financially support the property.

The hearth inside the Tuki

The Blessings and The Heart

We are in debt to these medicine groups for generously allowing us to hold our fires and events. In return, our local fire community has a special hosting role to support their international events (mainly the weatherworker’s ceremonies, and the ritual Fiestas of the Mara’akate), as well as others. We firekeepers support the visitor’s stay in Mexico and bring in the local community to participate in the events. The local community is a glue that helps to give life to Casa Xi, and thus, links the events to the sacred energy of the land. This represents extra hard work for us firekeepers, but it’s an inexpensive cost for the benefits that our community receives, and it’s also an honor, and a pleasure.

We also help host an annual international event that we also take part in: The Prosperity Ritual. Groups that work with the Sacred Fire come to Tepoztlán for the spring planting, and then again in the fall to harvest the milpa (corn field). In between these two ritual events, members of our fire community cultivate and care for the crop.

The local community is a glue that helps to give life to Casa Xi, and thus, links the events to the sacred energy of the land.

During The Prosperity Ritual, we ask for abundance in our work as well as prosperity for the attendees. This ritual is especially interesting, since Grandfather has stressed the importance of the living relationship between humans and corn and the special blessings that this crop brings to humanity, and… could we call it a coincidence that it takes place in the region where corn was originally born? This might explain why Grandfather instructed us to tell the Nahua Sacred Story of the Corn in the night after the planting of the seed.

There used to be elaborate local rituals around the milpa in Tepoztlán, and it seems like Grandfather would like to bring some of that energy back to life, like the promise to bring back a ritual to celebrate the traditional local Día de Los Elotes (Day of the Fresh Corn) on September 28th. We can’t wait!

Another special blessing is to have two annual Fire Speaks events:

The first is a Protection Ritual Audience in December, where we use drums and special traditional masks to call the defending spirits of the four directions from the local mountains that protect the Valley. This Ritual was granted to us by Grandfather to keep away the violence. It’s a pre-Hispanic ritual that Grandfather brought back to life. Up until now, over the last ten years we’ve been doing it, the rampant violence in the region and in the country has stayed away from Tepoztlán. Up until now, Grandfather Fire always arrives to grant an audience after the ritual.

The second special Grandfather Audience is the Tibetan New Year Audience, where he shares with us about the energies of the year and how to flow with them. We make efforts to share his words with the international community so that everyone can benefit from them, with the support of Sacred Fire outreach staff.

The Challenges and the Mind

Firekeeping in Casa Xi is complex in that we are three Firekeepers – think of it as an arranged international marriage of three: one Colombian, one American, and one Mexican! We, now and for always, work in a bilingual way to be responsive to the various international guests we host at Casa Xi.

There is further complexity in keeping our particular Firekeeping manda (spiritual obligation), given by Grandfather, for us to firmly establish our community fires in this location. We are firekeeping in a place that involves many people, including foreign groups and elders who interact with this sacred space intermittently throughout the year. We all have a huge responsibility to keep Casa Xi supported, protected and secure.

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