The Medicine of Fire

I’ve realised recently that fire has been a character in my whole life. Not in a dramatic way, more in a quietly persistent, always-there kind of way. A constant witness.

One of my earliest memories is my mum making me throw my dummy into the fire. Proper ceremony. No bargaining, no gentle transition. I remember being deeply outraged and, if I’m honest, also slightly impressed. It was a symbolic act of letting go before I had any idea what symbolism was. Fire marked the moment. Dummy gone. Childhood moving on whether I liked it or not.

As a child, fire showed up as sparklers, that strange thrill of holding something that felt wildly powerful but was apparently safe enough to hand to a five-year-old. A tiny controlled danger, glowing and crackling in my hand, while adults stood nearby pretending this was totally fine.

As teenagers, fire took on a more chaotic role. We’d throw lighters into campfires and wait for them to explode. Cheap entertainment, mild rebellion, and zero long-term planning. The downside was always the same: no lighters left for the awful rocky we were smoking afterwards. Fire has a way of teaching consequences without being preachy.

In adulthood, I spent most of my money on a wood burner for my first home, which felt both irresponsible and completely necessary. I’ve since downgraded to a more humble burner in my yurt, but its role hasn’t changed. It anchors the space. People naturally gather around it. Conversations slow down. Something in the room settles.

More recently, I’ve met fire in a very different way through my work at Ruskin Mill, standing at a forge and feeling that focused, roaring heat. There’s something deeply grounding about watching solid metal become workable, then strong again. Fire there isn’t romantic or mystical. It demands attention, patience, and respect. You can’t rush it and you can’t zone out. If you do, you’ll know about it quickly.

Alongside this, there have been countless festival fires, plant medicine ceremonies, and long nights spent sitting with friends, talking about everything and nothing. Fire has always been the thing we return to when things feel big or unsteady. It gives us a centre.

From a scientific perspective, none of this is particularly surprising. Humans evolved alongside fire. Cooking food changed our digestion and freed up energy for brain development. Fire extended our waking hours, supported social bonding, and increased safety. Even today, watching fire has measurable effects on the body. Studies show that gazing at flames can lower blood pressure, slow heart rate, and shift brainwaves into more relaxed states. In simple terms, fire tells the nervous system that it’s safe to soften.

There are interesting overlaps here with modern red light therapy, which uses warm, low-frequency light to support cellular repair and regulation. Fire emits a similar spectrum. Long before we had clinics and devices, we had hearths. The body doesn’t really care whether the light comes from a carefully branded panel or a well-tended fire, it responds to warmth, rhythm, and glow.

This is where ritual comes in, not as something magical or performative, but as something practical. Fire rituals aren’t about bypassing real life or outsourcing responsibility to the universe. They work because they give our nervous systems and our minds something concrete to orient around. When you consciously place something into the fire, a thought, a word, a piece of paper, you are making an internal decision visible. Fire becomes a witness, not a solution.

Fire also teaches discernment. It can nourish or destroy depending on how it’s tended. Too little, and it goes out. Too much, and it burns everything down. This applies just as much to our internal fire, our anger, creativity, desire, and drive. Many of us have learned to suppress these qualities to stay acceptable, or to let them run unchecked and call it passion. Neither approach is particularly sustainable.

When tended well, fire galvanises us. It provides momentum, clarity, and the courage to act on what we already know is true. It doesn’t whisper, but it also doesn’t shout without reason. It asks for presence.

Fire has always been about people for me. Community. Witnessing. Sitting together long enough for something honest to emerge without forcing it. There’s a reason so many meaningful conversations happen around fires. We relax, our defences soften, and we remember how to listen.

Now, my relationship with fire feels different. More conscious. Less accidental. When I look back, all those encounters with fire, the dummy in the hearth, the sparklers, the chaos of teenage campfires, the forge, the long nights by festival flames, feel like initiations I didn’t recognise at the time. Fire was teaching me long before I knew how to listen. These days, I meet it in communion rather than coincidence. I hold space for groups and individuals with Fire and Sacred Sound, in a way that feels deeply intentional and grounded. We sit together, using fire as an anchor to let go of what’s complete and to call in what’s next, not through force or resolution, but through presence, rhythm, and listening.

This isn’t about spectacle or spirituality as performance. It’s about relationship. About meeting fire consciously, and allowing its steady, regulating presence, alongside sound, to do what it has always done best: hold us while something real shifts.