Before us, the fire was already shining. After us, it will not be extinguished. In us, it illuminates. May your inner fire keep you with power and help you with all its strength! This is the sincere wish of the two authors, from both converging points of view and from both complementary approaches.
Alain Aillet
Before man measured time, before he counted his days and named his fears, fire already inhabited the surface of the Earth. He had neither dwelling nor purpose, he came from heaven in the thunder of lightning and from the heart of the world in the blood of the mountains.
He walked freely, without witness and without memory. The fire announced nothing, promised nothing, but transformed. And the Earth, touched by him, learned that all form is transient and that lasting is not to remain intact.
When the fire entered the forest, the trees cried out with their sap, the beasts fled and the night came day. But the fire did not remain, it passed away. And behind him the black earth became richer, the dormant seeds opened and life, more humble and stronger, returned.
Thus the Earth knew that destruction is not always an enemy, and that what consumes can also prepare. Man, seeing this, was initially afraid. Because the fire looked too much like him: unstable, voracious, luminous, capable of warming and capable of killing.
He fled the fire like one flees a mirror. But the cold, the night, and hunger brought him back to himself. Then the man approached, his hands trembling and his gaze lowered. He did not know if he was coming to meet a god or a beast without a master. The fire accepted the man, but without submitting.
He let himself go, but demanded to be fed. He offered his warmth, but claimed vigilance. And the fire told man, without mouth and without tongue:
I am not your good.
I am not your enemy.
I am what lives from what you give
and who dies of what you forget.
Thus began the fragile alliance between the flame and the hand. Thanks to the fire, the night lost its empire. The raw flesh became food, the stone split, the metal bent and the circle of men tightened. But even greater was what the fire made in the silence. It invited the bodies to come closer, and the words to be born.
The man was no longer alone in the face of the immense world. Around the fire, the elders spoke and the children listened. The dead were named, the absent were mourned, and promises were whispered in the dance of flames.
Then the fire received a new name: it was called home. For it became the invisible center where lives are tied up and solitudes dissolve. As long as the fire burned in the middle of the circle, the outside world could well be cruel.
The wind howled, the beasts prowled, and the night stretched its shadows. But man knew: as long as the flame lived, something resisted. Fire did not protect from misfortune, but it prevented despair from reigning alone.
Over time, man wanted more numerous and more powerful fires. He forged, he built, he illuminated the darkness as if he wanted to abolish it. And the fire, multiplied, ceased to be looked upon. Because what one believes to master, one stops honoring.
Then the fire was forgotten in its nature. He was no longer watched over, nor listened to anymore, but he was asked to obey without offering a presence. And the fire, deprived of sight, became wandering again. He found forests too full, lands too dry, and works too certain to last. Then he entered. The men called it catastrophe, while the Earth called it correction.
Because the fire did not come out of hatred, but from imbalance. What had not burned for too long could no longer breathe. And what refused the end prevented the beginning. When the flames died out, the men saw the void and thought they had lost everything. But the Earth looked at the ashes and read a promise in them. For the ashes are not death, they are the dissolved memory of what was. And in this black silence, life was already preparing its return. Some seeds only obey fire. They sleep in hardness until the burn calls them.
So it is also with man. There are truths that open only after the test, and rebirths that require passage through loss.
There are three things that cannot stay hidden for long: the sun, the moon and the truth.
Do not fear me to the point of abolishing myself,
neither loves me to the point of chaining myself.
I am the test of your balance.
I reveal what you feed
and what you neglect.
If you wake me up, I’ll warm you up.
If you ignore me, I overwhelm you.
And man gradually understood that fire required neither worship nor dominion from him, but presence, for the fire is faithful to him who remains. He responds to the attentive gaze and strays away from hurried hands.
In the morning of a new world, the man leaned over a ember. It was small, almost invisible, but still warm. And he knew then that the world does not hold by the great fires,
but by the modest fires that are maintained every day.
Thus ends one of the Stories of Fire. It does not speak of flames, but of transformation, does not preach fear but vigilance.
Because fire teaches from the beginning:
Nothing lasts without being consumed a little.
Nothing is reborn without ash.
And what enlightens always requires
that we offer him time.
And the man, if he still listens,
can learn to burn without getting lost.
Xavier Séguin
They are called magnetizers, healers, bonesetters or fire cutters. They don’t all live in a cabin at the bottom of the Berry, you can also find them in the city: they are everywhere. This talent fell on me I don’t know why. But I know how to use it and do not deprive myself of it!
Since childhood, there has been a fire burning within me. A large clear fire that launches sparks. It creates emptiness around me. I don’t have an easy character, blame fire.
I lived alone in a small house near Milly-la-Forêt. I was on the phone with my illustrator, we were discussing the details of the comic that I had written. Suddenly I hear footsteps in the kitchen.
-Don’t leave, I hear a noise, I’ll be back.
In fact, it was the cracking of a fire that had caught on the gas. Absorbed in the technical discussion, I had forgotten about the fryer that was setting fire to the hood. After this good start, the whole kitchen was going to burn. Impossible to approach the stove, the heat was unbearable. I quickly informed my illustrator:
-I’ll leave you, there’s fire at my place!
Not the least panic, on the contrary, total calm. A surprising mastery that I always have in case of a hard blow.
It is given to all humans to know themselves and control themselves.
I closed the two doors of the kitchen to circumscribe the incident. Armed with a roll of resistant adhesive, I taped the perimeter of the doors to asphyxiate the fire. Then I called the firefighters. They were there in a few minutes. One of them, helmeted, gloved, in a fireproof suit, opened one of the doors. We heard the pchhhhhhh from his canister and it came out immediately.
–It’s off, he told me. You did well to tape the doors: the fire was dying. Without that, you wouldn’t have found anything anymore.
The fact is that I was doing well. Only the stove and its hood were out of order. And the paintings to redo. That’s all. At no point did I worry. It happened so quickly! The renovation work didn’t take long either.
Ten years later, I was in Erquy where I am still, in my small house on the cape. The house is tiny but the view is immense. The town, the beach, the tip of Hussaie, sculptural, and the bay of Saint-Brieuc. I am a prince cut down like wheat. But prince anyway.
I had gone down to the borough early to do two or three errands, as often. Going back up, discomfort: I see smoke coming out between the slats of the roof! I approach and it’s clear, the fire has caught in the chimney. I don’t even try to enter, I call the firefighters who again arrived in record time.
We made the chain to evacuate what we could save, my comic collection especially, I care a lot about it. When the fire was extinguished under the jets of foam, I could see the big hole in the ceiling of the mini living room, above the hearth. My bed is on the first floor, just above.
-Fortunately, the fire broke out when you were elsewhere, the fire brigade captain makes me. If it had started last night, with your bed just above, you would have been asphyxiated in your sleep and you would have acted like Joan of Arc!
Name of the day! I had a close escape, once again. There again, I had no worries, except for the cost of repairs. Fortunately, I had excellent insurance that came from my parents. Everything was reimbursed for the value of the new one. The operation finally ended with a better life. Who would have believed it?
But all that is nothing compared to what’s coming.
As I was telling my brother of hearts this adventure, Devic whispered to me that my relationship with fire has always been fascinating. What fascinating? What is he talking about?
–Yes, we were boyscouts, remember when you’re removing the fire?
–When I what!?
Yes, I am a firebreaker. Yes, I am a healer, I have always been. Devic and I were both CP, patrol leaders. We were 15 years old.
When a young scout burned himself, he had the choice:
— Whether you go to the mastery at the chefs’ kraal, the steward would put you disinfectant and a band-aid, and say you’re healed …
Or go to the patrol of Marsupilamis and see CP Xavier. He will take over your boob, and there, you will really be healed. No longer a trace, no more pain, as if you hadn’t burned yourself.
Of course, all the scouts preferred to come see me. I took away the fire, I also healed open wounds, same, by passing the hand over the wound and the scout was healed.
But all these healings, I did them with joy, it cost me nothing, it didn’t require any particular effort from me, I was rewarded by the face that pulled the healed one.
His round eyes expressed such wonder, as if in front of a sleight of hand. Except that : no trick …
How could I forgot all this?
But the real star is not me. It’s the inner fire that has always consumed me, and the more it burns me, the more intensely I live. The Fire of Inside, as the Mexican wizards call it. It’s the title of one of Carlos Castaneda’s books.
The wizard Juan Matus, benefactor of Castaneda, embodied the modern version of a very old tradition that he called the ancient Toltec seers.
Although he felt intimately linked to this ancient tradition, he considered himself one of the visionaries of a new cycle. The new women, new visionaries, were the warriors of total freedom.
They possessed such mastery of consciousness, the art of stalking and intention that death did not surprise them as it surprises other mortals, but that they chose the moment and form of their departure from this world.
When the time came, they were consumed by an inner fire and vanished from the surface of the earth, free, as if they had never existed. (source)The Fire From Within, Carlos Castaneda
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