Brazil - 24 February, 2006

The fire ceremony last night was beyond magnificent, a group, solemn, fierce pagent that gave so many of us the sense we had really burned off karma and opened the space for transformation.

In the afternoon, we had all make 3 dimensional representations of our fear, hatred, anger and aggression, our endless hunger, our timidity, our anxiety and the rest of the third chakra egoic expressions. At the appointed time after dark, the staff - actors, facilitators, didi - turned off all the lights in the compound as we all stood in silence in a circle with our "voodoo dolls" so to speak in our hands. The darkness and silence deepend as we waited. And then the drums came, and figures dressed in white appeared with torches. Didi and one of the main actresses called the circle and ceremonially, slowly, marked each of us with the hindi bindi mark, representing our determination to burn our karma in the fire. we then were led in two long snaking lines around the property and towards a huge fire laid in a field. As we walked, a young man in line to be a trapese artist in cirque du soleil breathed fire while others, dressed in steaming red and yellow outfits, shreiked and ran around us, carrying torches and another one ran pounding a gong. Clearly we were in for no light weight little 10 minute new age ceremony.

the fire was huge, reminding me of the fires we used to build for the lakota inipis - sweat lodges - that i attended faithfully for the year or so after Joe died. But perhaps twice the size. We had learned several chants and dances in the afternoon for the ceremony, so we did the first with our bodies semi lit by fire, circles around and then letting go and everyone dancing wildly, whooping and generally letting out that uninhibited testosterone spirit of the third chakra. We then, in three groups as we are nearly 100 people, did the ceremony to burn our "voodoo" objects. We first crouched down, hands firmly on the earth, crying out with all our gutteral force, fire, burn my anger, fire burn my fear, fire burn my aggression. Then, at the signal, we all rushed in and threw our paper objects in the fire. After all the groups had done this - and believe me every person there was holding the fiercest intention they could - we did a chant: fire, transformation, feel the force of my will, fire, transformation, feel the brilliance of my splendor, fire, transformation, feel the heat of my love. three times we chanted this, faces lit by the fire, and you could really feel that the dark forces of your ego had a place to be reborn - in will, in splendor, in love. My own voodoo object was a steaming volcano, with dark forces within. As I moved through this ceremony, I thought, "These have been with me for years, and will be here again and again, but as long as my intention to face and transform these forces rises up one more time than the forces themselves, I am on the path." In a Vipassana retreat we did "fierce determination" meditation for an hour a day, a time when we really focused without moving a muscle. This ceremony was fierce determination. At the end, which was not the end, we sat and suddenly a tableau was lit across the field, enacting the eternal dance of shiva and kali. Suddenly we were in the middle of a pagent with horrible demons dancing across the field, teaching us about battle of the demons within and how we must, in a way, eat every ounce of our own karma, transforming it all - every scrap - into devotion. This way of tantra, of "it-allness", asks us to encounter the dark and light of our own lives with a fierce and open heart.

Then the play was over, the musicians packed up, but many of us remained as the fire was still huge. suddenly, the totally clear sky clouded over and we were blessed, washed with rain. Many skittered off at that time, but some of us stayed, chanting the basic chant we use here on and on and on. I curled up by the fire, went to sleep for a while and woke as the very last people were leaving. I stayed, chanting, breathing, feeling the solitude and power of that moment and eventually went off to bed. It was 5 hours after the ceremony began.