Inner Alchemy - Fire Teachings

For many moons 🌙, I have worked with the shadow. I have gone deep into the dark, watery caverns of my mind and unconscious.

There, I ask questions. I enter intricate spirals of psychoanalysis. I call it fractal healing. I go into deep self inquiry. I do my own inner triage work.

Most of the time I’m in a bath…. 

Here I ask, “What’s going on Angela? What’s happening right now?”

Here, I begin what I call Elemental Connection. This is primary aspect of my work and everything that I do encompasses this.

Connect to the Earth and ground. Connect to the air element and breathe deeply.

Draw in all your tendrils and come home into your personal domain. Get in your body! Go within and see what the fire is illuminating. 

This is learning Somatic Nervous System Regulation as the basis of embodiment. Embodiment is not really a spiritual concept. It is the capacity to stay present in your physical form while sensation moves through you.

It lets your “triggers” become your teacher. It’s the capacity to feel activation in the body without collapsing, exploding, dissociating, or bypassing.

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In 2021, in a corporate setting, a district manager once told me that my asking questions made me look “not smart” to my peers. Her projection was horrifying to me. It took me many moons to unwind it. I spiraled through the madness of that statement, questioning myself and doubting my brilliance. But it became deep and necessary medicine. What I now realize is this, I am a master at asking questions! Inquiry is not weakness. Inquiry is intelligence. It is essential. As a mentor, I now listen deeply and gracefully invite others into deeper inquiry as well. ✨

I have explored my many blind spots. I have come to know my unconscious patterning and the darker corners of my inner landscape. There is real wisdom in this work. Along the way, I have been given fire teachings 🔥. I know the invitation of fire, and I honor it deeply.

We were never meant to live surrounded by darkness. Some of us are meant to be lighthouses, carriers of the sacred flame. Magi of the light!

I have been shown the importance of allowing the fire to illuminate that which truly matters. What you care about. What you love. What you refuse to abandon. This is now something I teach my clients. Fire can be used as a torch, and a navigation tool or device. 

In 2022, I began working with the Labyrinth at night. One evening I was all by myself, and an owl and I shared a moment under the moon. I realized I was working in the darkness, alone. It was an awe inspiring moment for me because as a child, I was afraid of the dark.

Working with the darkness is often about tuning into your inner child and holding her hand. It is about lighting a candle 🕯️ and holding space for yourself. It is about being honest with what you see and what is coming up. It is about leaning into deep listening instead of rushing to extinguish the fire through bypassing, denying, or even lying to yourself. Many of us have been taught to dismiss our frustration, agitation, irritation, impatience, and even anger by saying, “It’s OK, it’s OK. It’s fine, it’s fine.” Or perhaps the greatest bypassing line of all time, “It is what it is.”

I have come to recognize that the fire element often shows up in my life as irritation, agitation, infuriation, frustration, impatience, and even anger to bring illumination to something that needs to be looked at 🔥.

In our culture, many people struggle with deep anger but have no tools for how to work with it. They are told that it is something that still needs healing and are almost shamed for being angry. When in reality, there are many things to be angry about. Has anyone ever asked, why are you angry? Let’s talk about it. 

Being triggered does not mean you are immature or unhealed. In fact, it can mean the opposite. Being triggered means your fire element is working to show you something that is out of balance in your life. Triggers are your inner fire showing you something that needs your attention.

The question is, will you look? Can you be honest with yourself? Can you learn to be with the refiner’s fire?

I no longer see triggers as something bad. I see them as signals. When something activates in me, it means something matters. When you feel irritated, something you value is being touched. When you feel infuriated, perhaps a boundary has been crossed. If you did not care, you would not give a damn. If it did not matter to you, there would be no sensation of agitation or fury within you. This is an important truth to grasp.

Your inner fire is deeply sacred 🔥.

It is not something to diminish. It is something to work with. 

I see this as a depth of truth, when working with the fire, that is vitally important with friends, family, and clients. When your fire arises, the work is learning not to pathologize it or shut it down, but to stop, look and listen. There is often something sacred underneath it. A truth. A need. A value. A line that protects what is precious.

Because no one has taught us this, we are now learning to teach our inner child and reassure her that we are safe, we are valuable, we are worthy. We are learning not to self betray, self sabotage, or self doubt.

The invitation of fire is to allow it to illuminate what matters to us. When fire is not attended to, it rages. It can get out of control. We see this with wildfires. When we suppress our fire, it smolders. It gets stuffed down. It is stored in the body, which can create disease. But when we honor our inner fire and learn to work with it and contain it, we bring it to a sacred hearth 🕯️. We bring it to the mantle of our inner domain, and this changes everything. The hearth is a place that fosters love, peace, and security.

I now understand the refiner’s fire as intricate, sacred inner work that explores the psyche of the heart and mind ✨.

Fire restructures. It can annihilate. In many cases, it generates power, reorganizes, and yes, destroys. It reframes what we have misunderstood. It burns away distortion and clarifies truth. When we stop fearing our fire and begin tending it consciously, we move from reaction to refinement. We begin to see the divine spark within the very places we once condemned.

When honored, fire does not consume.

It consecrates 🔥.

It illuminates.

It warms.

It creates boundaries. 

Everything becomes medicine when you are willing to sit at the hearth and be with it, within yourself.

So instead of pretending the fire does not exist or shaming it, tend the flame, consider it holy work. Because it is! 

My dearest Charity, sister priestess and beloved owl sister, calls me Vesta.

The Vestals were the keepers of the sacred hearth and tended the fire of the temple 🕯️.

May we each learn to consecrate ourselves to the eternal fire within 🔥✨.

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Stay tuned for this teaching in my upcoming book “Inner Alchemy Healing: An Elemental Guide to the Energetics of Alchemy & Self-Renewal”

by: Angela Jeanne Rose Heart