The Fire Phase

Fire is a dynamic, enlivening energy. It is also a transformative energy. It embodies warmth, light, vitality. Consider the agile flame of a candle or a fire burning brightly in the hearth. Summer is the season of Fire, a time of growth and abundance, and red is its color. The living body has a preponderance of Fire, moving as four channels — two yin meridians, the Heart and Pericardium, and two yang channels, the Small Intestine and Triple Warmer.

 The neutral (sometimes called the 'positive') emotion of Fire is typically called 'joy.' Not to confuse joy with happiness, I prefer to think of it more as zeal for living, or what the French call joie de vivre. It is the abundant overspilling spirit of the Heart, reaching out to life. Other synergic states of the Fire phase include happiness, self-confidence, and compassion.

The Heart houses the Shen (`Spirit,' or, perhaps more accurately, 'Consciousness'). Shen is that brightness and sparkle one sees so clearly in the eyes of a happy and healthy child. In the eyes of someone whose life has been hard or dissolute, there is often the discoloration of the sclera and a dimming of the eyes, almost as if the light within is fading away. In Chinese Medicine, psychological disorders are often understood to be disturbances of the Shen.

  

The extreme emotions of Fire are over-joy or over-excitation, and shock/fright. These are stressors to the Heart. Change is stressful. Whether it is a negative stress such as the heartbreaking end of a love relationship, or a positive stress such as winning the big lottery, events, situations, and feelings which require a significant readjustment to take place exert stress and strain on the Heart. The Heart is vulnerable to emotional extremes.
In excess or hyperactivity, the distressed emotional states   of Fire include hypertension, elation, restlessness, nervousness, anxiety, and hysteria. Deficient or hypoactive distress states include sadness, discouragement, self-doubt, despair, emptiness, hopelessness, and depression.

Laughter is the sound of the Fire element, and laughter generally is beneficial to the Heart. Inappropriate laughter, or the complete absence of laughter, may signal Fire imbalance. The healing sound for the Heart is `Havvwww,' with the mouth wide open. The healing sound for the Triple Warmer, another Fire channel in the body, is `Heeeee.'

 

Taken from article in Massage & Bodywork Magazine (Dec/Jan 2003) by Barry Kapke, Director of the Bodhiwork Institute in Petaluma California and founder of Insight Bodywork.  www.bodhiwork.org

QUESTIONS: FIRE AND YOU

 

By answering these questions you can savor your relationship to fire. Relax for a moment by a flame—a candle or sunlight would be fine. Enjoy the blaze, thank it for its presence, and invite it to shed light on the friendship you share. Consider these questions one by one, and ad­dress the answers to the fire itself. Feel free to laugh or cry. Say what is in your heart. Contradict yourself if you like. Honest answers are right answers.

 

1. When was the last time you had a really good laugh?

2. How do you feel in hot weather? Cold weather?

3. Do you go "hot and cold" about people? About things?

4. How do you feel about hot food? Hot music?

5. Do you wear red clothes? Would you buy a red car? Live in a red house?

6. How do you feel about summer?

7. What or who do you feerpassionate about?

8. What do you do for fun?

9. When have you felt heartbroken?

10. When have you felt disheartened?

11. When have you felt out of control?

12. When have you tried to control others?

13. Does your work bring you joy?

14. Does your family life bring you joy?

15. When have you felt vulnerable and unprotected?

16. How do you feel at parties?

17. Have you heard any good jokes lately?

18. How is your sex life?

19. What do you do wholeheartedly? Halfheartedly?

20. Do you enjoy being with people?

21. How important is friendship to you?

22. Do you perspire? Easily? With difficulty?

23. Do you have any circulatory problems?

24. How do you feel about being in the sun? Sunny weather? Cloudy weather?

25. When have you dreamed of fire or explosions?

26. Do you like burnt or bitter things like coffee or burnt toast?

27. What do you feel bitter about?

28. Do you feel loved by your partner? Family? Friends? Associates?

29. When have you felt that you would never love again?

30. When have you felt your heart overflowing with love?

After writing down or thinking about your answers, what ques­tions created the most feeling response in you? What questions were difficult or easy to answer? Can you see where your fire, your passion for life, is strong or where it may be weak? Address the flame or sun once again and ask it for understanding to perceive where the passion, the fire of your life, is almost gone, dying away, or where it's at the edge of wanting to blaze forth. Ask the fire inside of you how and where you can burn more intensely and joyfully. Finally, sit quietly and allow yourself to feel both the joy and the heartache about what you see in your fire. These feelings will bring you closer to body heat, mind spark and heart passion: your fire.

Excerpt from Plant Spirit Medicine by Eliot Cowan   www.bluedeer.org/psm.html

 click here to be taken to the other Element pages   WOOD    EARTH   METAL    WATER