The Day I Almost Started on Fire

I started taking a meditation class last September, once a week for an hour an a half.  Right before the quarantine started, we went on a break for the teacher to go to Bali; however, plans change quickly when a mysterious virus enters your life and now we were able to continue online and keep our meditations going.  

During our classes, we had a few full moon ceremonies where we took a piece of paper and wrote down our intentions of things we wanted to let go of.  We took the paper, rolled it up, and then blew our essence and intentions into it.  Once we were ready, we lit the paper on fire, put it in sand and moved the smoke around us.  Other than feeling like I had no idea what to do in a group of people who seemed to know exactly what to do, it was a very powerful and moving class. 

Enter at home new moon ceremony.  

The first online meditation was around a new moon, meaning this time we were going to write down intentions that we wanted to bring into our life and conduct the same similar ceremony.   I gathered my gear, my yoga mat, a piece of paper, a pen, my Glassybabys, a lighter, and a shell to put the paper in and closed myself in my closet with dreams of meditation class being recreated.  

We sat, we breathed, we wrote down the things we wanted to draw into our lives during this time, and then we rolled it up and took a deep breath and blew into the paper.  I have no idea what I blew into my paper, but I must have had fire within because I lit my paper on fire and it instantly was engulfed into flames.  There I was in the closet, with the door closed, holding a burning piece of paper.  I could feel the flames getting hot and tried to put it in the shell.  It fell out and I quickly picked it up and realized that I was in the closet, by myself with strict instructions to the others not to bother me, holding a flaming piece of paper surrounded by highly flammable clothes.  I didn't know if I should drop it on the yoga mat or try to blow it out.  I envisioned trying to blow it out and igniting the flames more or blowing the flame onto my clothes.  

With no other option other than to light myself on fire, I took in a deep breath and blew it as hard as I could.  Ashes flew around the closet and into the blanket I was wrapped in, but the fire was extinguished.  Forget the meditation at that point.  My heart was racing with the realization I almost burned the house down and included myself in that.  

My lessons for next time are... don't use such a big paper, don't blow the energy of fire into my paper before I light it, and have water with me to extinguish the flames... cause I am still lighting the fire.