Confessions of a Firestarter

As a child, I loved the sound of a match scratching the brown sandpapery strip along the side of the matchbox. I loved the moment of waiting, a mix of anticipation and apprehension, and the hesitation before it burst into flame.

I was curious, and I lit things on fire to see what would happen. I experimented with different chemicals in my chemistry set to make gunpowder, firecrackers, and different colored fires. They don’t make chemistry sets like that anymore!

At Girl Scout camp, I learned how to collect wood and kindling, to build and start fires. The act of creating fire felt primal and basic. Gazing into the fire, especially as it started to alight, evoked in me a sense of wonderment and mystery. Who made that happen? Yes, I’d collected the wood, set up the structure so that air flow was efficient, and twigs would ignite. But who or what actually made fire happen? What gave birth to the spark that transformed threads of wood into fire?

I loved sitting around the fire in a community of girls and women–telling stories, singing, sharing secrets, cooking dinner, and roasting marshmallows. This connection, in the darkness of night, was a state of grace that connected me to something bigger than myself. I felt incredibly free—that I could just BE who I was.

There was a bittersweet quality to all this that pricked my heart. Looking at old photographs of myself, I see it in my eyes. Fires died out and were finished. They ran out of fuel, or were extinguished with water or dirt. Even from night to night, from moment to moment, the camp fire was never the same. It was my first conscious awareness of impermanence, and the intertwined relationship between joy and grief.

Always starting something.
I was the oldest of 3, each of us 10 months apart. I was called all kinds of “bossy”—a ringleader, instigator, initiator, and a troublemaker. I was all over the place with crazy schemes. Most of the time, I was just shooting in the dark, and either something would meet its mark, or it wouldn’t.

1.
My father brought home a baby duck that he’d found by the roadside, and we were trying to figure out what to feed it. There was no Internet back then, and we didn’t know anyone with ducks. But I had seen a television commercial for Gaines dog food showing baby ducks walking around a pile of kibble, pecking away at it, and came to the logical conclusion that ducks ate kibble. I assured my father of this with the authority of a 7-year-old, and he believed me! Unfortunately, kibble did not agree with Downey the duck.

2.
I persuaded my sisters to help me draw a magnificent 360° mural of kingdom with beautiful princesses, dragons and a countryside with rolling hills—on the freshly painted white walls in the garage. I was wholeheartedly certain that my parents would absolutely love it, and my sisters believed me! When my parents got home, it did not go over well. “Just wait till it’s finished!” I implored them. But the drawings were painted over the following weekend.

3.
I exhorted my ultra-conservative parents to let me enroll at Antioch College, a progressive, alternative school with a work/study program in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I wanted to be an artist, but they weren’t going for that. I told them that I’d study architecture, and I wanted to believe it myself. It didn’t turn out as expected, though. I lost interest in architecture, and decided to major in English literature and Fine Art.

With the $800 I’d earned modeling for art classes, I bought a used VW van and drove across the country to California. I arrived in Los Angeles with $50 left. Today, I’d be called homeless, but I didn’t think of myself that way, even though I slept in my van, parked overnight in a sketchy, gang-infested beach parking lot close to the bathrooms. Soon enough, I managed to talk my way into a job as a cook at The Feed Bin, a restaurant in Santa Monica where nothing on the menu cost more that 99 cents. It was perfect, because I knew I wouldn’t go hungry.

After a while, I was able to afford an apartment in Santa Monica. Still, I wanted more for myself. I answered a newspaper ad for a job teaching art, and found myself sitting at a big conference room table, being interviewed for a teaching job by 8 representatives of the Santa Monica School District. They asked me questions like “How would you teach a child the difference between blue and green?” I was so taken aback by the question that my face turned bright red. I’m pretty sure I gave some lame philosophical answer—“why are we to decide what is green or blue?”—but even so, I managed to get two jobs out of it: one teaching art in an after-school program, and another teaching ceramics classes at Stoner Park, for the LA Department of Parks and Recreation.

4
My sister lived in front of railroad tracks, and every few months, early in the morning, a cargo train would come thundering through. Her daughter, Michelle, woke up terrified and screaming from the racket. Once, when I was visiting, I was staying in the room next to hers, and I awoke to the loud rumble of the train. Without thinking, I rushed into Michelle’s room, picked her up out of her bed, and ran outside to the back yard with her. We could see the top of the train over the fence as it barreled past. I howled at the train. “Go away, you old, dirty train! Get away from here!” Michelle joined in, and there we were, both screaming at the train. After it passed, I squeezed her little body. “Well done!” We went back inside and fell asleep in my bed. My sister told me afterwards that Michelle never woke up afraid of the train.

Too much and never enough.
When I was a child, my parents were constantly admonishing me to sit still, stop asking questions, and stop touching everything. But moving, questioning and touching were how I explored the world, and having to squelch those instincts bled over into shutting off my feelings. I coped by trying to feel less, and wasn’t very successful at it. So, I pretended to feel less.

I made up the story that I opened myself up to ridicule whenever I followed the thread of inspiration. I could not predict or control over how others would react to my “schemes,” and I added the interpretation that I looked like a fool much of the time. My reaction to this was to second guess myself, and shut down my expression.

My not so well-meaning x-husband used to tell me I sucked all the air out of a room, so I tried to make myself invisible. Even for a person with as much energy as me, it was exhausting. My solar plexus lived in a perpetual clench and I think I stopped breathing for years.

I also suffered under the conflicting notion that no matter how “great” I was or what “good” I did, it was never enough. I was living the epitome of a double bind.

Doubting and second guessing myself.
I was in my early twenties when I first I heard from someone I barely knew that something I did had changed her life for the better. I was shocked! And I didn’t believe her.

This played out 35 years later, when I was the newbie in a group of seasoned assistants. I thought we were all working for a common goal, and I looked to them as men and women who were “in the know.” I didn’t have a sense of my own talents. I discounted my own experience, despite the fact that I had been married for 27 years, grew a successful business, built a home, raised a child, and was financially responsible. I looked outside myself for guidance in this new work with which I was involved. I held out my match, thinking they would share their fire, but as far as the two “top” assistants were concerned, that’s not how it worked.

I saw their attitudes as petty and unkind. It rankled my sense of generosity and abundance. Is a roaring fire really going to care if someone holds out their match to be lit? Did they feel they had no “extra” fire to spare?

At first, I attributed it to some kind of dues I had to pay, a form of “spiritual” hazing. But I saw pain inflicted on others, too. I didn’t feel secure enough to show the pain I felt, much less do anything about it.

I thought being a better, “more spiritual” person meant tolerating it. But every time I listened to their gossiping and didn’t walk away, I was a participant in it. Every time I didn’t speak out against their actions, I was complicit in them. Every time I withheld my heartbreak, I was co-signing their mediocrity and colluding with their unconsciousness—as well as mine.

How could I stop second-guessing myself and my role in the group? Did these people really know as much as I thought they did—or as much as they thought they did? What “good” was I doing, anyway, for my teachers and the work that mattered to me? Why did I bother?

It was a vicious cycle, and I was tired of the whole goddamn thing. I was about to give up and walk away. Then, I had an experience that altered my perception, and the trajectory I was on.

The power of an ember.
Our women’s group was exploring the element of fire. During one particular practice, we had been instructed to move as fire. The room was lit only by candlelight; the music was slow and formless.

I moved slowly at first, as a flame flickering and beginning to light. My body hissed and fizzed and crackled gradually in its movements, until it grew into a conflagration that consumed me. The flesh melted off my bones. Weeping, I burned as a lineage of women who were burned alive as “other” or “different.” I burned with tears streaming down my face, until there was nothing left but charred bone and ash and embers.

Deep inside the marrow of my bones, I felt the embers inside the bones of all women, ready to ignite at a moment’s notice. It’s always there. And as I moved this, an inner voice said, “Remember, always remember.”

Something awakened in me after that.

Living from the stories of past wounds, I had limited myself and excused the unacceptable behavior of others. So, I looked at what I was living, which was “I have nothing to offer.” Was that really true? And what effect did that have on my life?

I underestimated myself, so others underestimated me. I minimized the persistence and power of an ember. A tiny ember, quietly burning, maybe all but extinguished, is still infused with a fiery alchemy that can explode into flames at a moment’s notice. The power of a wildfire has decimated hundreds of thousands of acres, started only by an ember.

The truth is, I have been able to make art from some of the most fucked-up things in my life.

Sometimes it’s through a sense of humor. Sometimes it’s through sharing the depths of fucked-up-ed-ness with others. Sometimes it’s just the art of doing simple, even menial, tasks well. And sometimes, it’s through opening up to a state of grace.

These questions began to ripple out and take form in my life.

That’s when everything changed—I didn’t even have to try. In fact, I stopped all trying.

Lessons from a fire starter.
When I’m in fire starter mode, what I think of as “me” drops away and something mysterious comes through. Like an energetic download, ideas, plans, words, and actions emerge automatically and spontaneously. I’ve learned that several things have to be in place for this to work well.

I’ve developed the sensitivity to know that something wants to come through. Initially, whatever sensitivity I had sprung from my attempts to make sense out of uncertainty in my childhood. I used my feeling senses to gauge my parents’ moods. Was now the right time to ask? How much can I say? Would I be safe? Later, I learned that if I quieted myself, I could hear over this noise and beyond the story, “No matter what I say or do, I’m fucked.”

I’ve learned to trust myself with what is happening. This wasn’t an issue at first, because I was oblivious, and didn’t know any better. But after a few less-than-ideal outcomes, both my skill and self-trust needed to evolve. These were hurdles I had to overcome so I could act with courage.

I’ve learned to allow whatever is happening and have the courage to express it. If I try to analyze or think too much about it, I get in my own way, and something gets lost in translation.

Sometimes I need to step away and be alone to explore all that I’ve absorbed. Going within has helped me discriminate and make distinctions between what is MY shit and what belongs to others. Trusting, developing and calibrating my inner knowing is a work-in-progress.

I’ve also learned how to modulate my energy when needed. There’s a distinction between changing myself and changing my expression. It isn’t about trying to cram a square peg into a round hole. Sometimes, it is just about relaxing and softening.

My relationship with my daughter is an example of this. How her nervous system is built makes it difficult for her to handle my sometimes fiery energy. She would interpret it as, “I am under attack! My house is going to burn down!” It wasn’t what I was saying–it was the tone, volume, or intensity. That’s what her lizard brain reacted to first, even if her rational mind knew otherwise. What she often needed from me was a modulated expression. With her, I adopted the technique of throwing the nut toward the squirrel, then disappearing behind a tree. The squirrel might pick up the nut and eat it, or it might want nothing to do with my goddamn nut. Move on, regardless.

Relaxation is key. When my body is relaxed, I have access to different and more subtle levels of energy, which I can use more artfully and have fun with.

“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Living from the orientation of wanting MORE, I was perennial dissatisfied with myself. There is always another “more” that arises. It never ends.

In fact, the suffering that came from my most of my struggles in life had to do with “trying.” It meant not making a commitment to action out of fear. It was about not doing wrong, looking like an idiot, getting hurt, or hurting someone else. And trying harder wasn’t the answer, either. I tried that.

So, I made a stand—a claim for myself. I made a choice to trust myself, even though I have made and will continue to make mistakes. I made a commitment to that trust. Another word for this is Faith, which is basically a commitment to trust without the need for validation. And gratitude came in its wake.

Gratitude happens whenever I accept what is. When I’m not trying to change something or someone. I’m actually not trying at all. I am just where I am, grateful.

This isn’t to say that I’m all lah-dee-dah and it’s all coming up rainbows, unicorns and roses. Acceptance doesn’t mean liking or approving of everything. It doesn’t mean not taking action to change things. But action that’s grounded in acceptance is different from action that arises out of resistance and contraction.

It’s possible to accept what is AND want more. Do I want to experience more aliveness, more expansiveness, more capacity, more depth for myself? Yes. I just choose not to be hooked by “more.”

This is unconditional love. It isn’t some task I have to do. It’s more like recognizing that everything, including myself, is allowed to be as it is—obviously!—because here it is! Everything is as it is, and in this moment, it couldn’t be any other way.

As I write this now, it seems so simple. But it isn’t over and done with by any means. I haven’t gotten “there.” It’s something I have to continually feel and be with. Every. Single. Moment.

Recently, I asked myself about an intimate relationship, “If this man never changed, would I still want to be with him?” Paradoxically, the moment I accepted who he was, the answer became clear. I wasn’t interested in trying harder to meet his needs, or in having him try harder to meet mine. Something happens when I stop focusing on what I need or want. When I stop focusing on what the other person needs or wants. I am just giving, and living from this orientation.

Intentionally or not, a fire starter uses itself up to start a fire. A firestarter’s identification as anything just dissolves as fuel into the greater, roaring fire.

Share this post