Guided Meditation: Fire in the Head
This meditation was presented as part of a presentation on the use of fire in personal practice at the Magickal Marketplace & Psychic Faire in March 2023.
A great deal of inspiration comes from the work of Ian Corrigan, particularly the Two Powers meditation.
As you seek Peace, begin with your breath. Focus your attention on your breathing. Let it slow, deepen, and gentle. Let a few deep breaths carry tension from your body, and leave you calm, alert, and prepared for Magic.
Reach down into your contact with the Earth. Feel Her deep strength anchor you, as in return the cool water of Her power flows upward into you. Feel the energy of the deeps pool in the Cauldron of your hips… rise up to the Cauldron of your heart… fill the Cauldron of your head… and flow outward as a spring might from the top of a mountain, falling down to return again to the Earth.
Deeply anchored, flowing with the Waters, reach up and feel your contact with the Sky. Feel the warmth of the Sun, the glimmer of the Moon, and the stabilizing pull of your own pole Star. Let the brightness, the warmth, sink into the Cauldron of your head… and filling it, spill into the Cauldron of your Heart… and down into the Cauldron of your hips… Glittering in the Waters, ready to bring Manifestation to their Potential, overflowing into the Sacred Fire that enlivens the world, and from there returning their light to the Sky.
Let a few deep breaths mingle and balance these Two Powers in the Cauldrons within you… up from the Earth, dark and cool… down from the Sky, bright and warm… Chaos and Order, Potential and Manifestation, Love and Will…
And as the Powers mingle within you, the Cauldrons heat, and a sacred Mist begins to rise from them and swirl about you. This is the Mist of the Between, gradually thickening, obscuring your inner vision with a gently gleaming blanket, letting you know that you stand on the threshold of the Sacred.
Now, use your Will to act upon the Mists. Picture your desired destination, your own sacred space. Picture, as your initial target, a fire. It takes shape dimly at first in the Mist, some distance ahead of you. Let its glow become a beacon, shining through the Mists, your goal and your target. Make a gesture of opening toward the Mist between you and your altar. Feel a warm wind spring up at your back, gently clearing the way between you and your target. As your fire becomes clear before you, so do its surroundings. Move toward it, and see the space around it gradually come into focus.
This fire, and this space, are your own Sacred Space. Look around, and see what appears around you; are you indoors or outdoors? Is this fire on a hearth, a candelabra, a rock? As you sit or stand before the fire, what else is in front of you? Now look to your right… now behind… and to the left. As you become comfortable with these surroundings, just bask for a few moments in your fire’s warmth and light.
You can do anything with this fire that you might with a fire in ordinary reality. You can offer it things to transform, things you might wish to be free of. You can offer it incense and sweet woods to burn. You can trace symbols in its coals with a poker and whisper spells into its updraft.
You can use this fire to seek vision, to access your own inner wisdom and that of the Divine Kindreds. Watch the fire closely, and allow a question to form in your mind.
When your question has solidified, reach your hands out toward your fire and give it your question. Leave yourself open to all the ways a fire might respond. You might see images in the flickering of the flames or the shimmer of the coals. You might see flashes of color, or patterns in the swirling of the smoke. You might receive a response more directly within your mind, your heart, your spirit. It’s also okay to see something and not be sure what it means right now. Fire is like that; understanding its visions takes some practice.
There is more of this fire and this space to explore, but we need to leave that for another time. When you are ready to retrace your travels and return to the material world, take a moment, and express your gratitude for all you have seen and learned here. If you like, produce a small offering to feed to your fire. Then, begin to feel the pull of your anchors, your connection to Earth and Sky, and your body beyond the Mists. Turn back toward your body, and make your gesture of opening to invoke the Mists again. As they rise and swirl about you, follow your anchors back toward your body until you see it appear ahead of you, first dimly, gradually growing closer and more clear. When you reach it, turn around, and settle your vision-self back into your physical body’s pose. Make a closing gesture. Let the Mists close up around you, and then begin to recede back into the Cauldrons of your head, heart, and hips. Feel the flows of Earth and Sky within the Cauldrons, and yourself once again balanced and centered in your body. Rest here a moment, a few breaths, becoming aware again of the movement of air within your body, echoing the flows of the Two Powers within your mind.
When you are ready, gently release the Light to return to the Sky… and the Water to return to the Earth… leaving you calm and relaxed, returning comfortably to the awareness of your body and your surroundings. Hear your breathing, and the sounds of the world around you… Feel your body in contact with its support… let your eyes open. Shift and stretch the parts that have been still a while. Then, let the calmness of your breathing float through you one more time. Know that all you have found is always available to you, whenever you choose to seek it again.