The Makahiki Firewalk

Mar. 26th, 2003

         As I sat in the airplane, returning from my celebration of Makahiki and the firewalk leader/instructor training that followed, I pondered all the events I’d witnessed and participated in. There was board breaking, fire eating, some business with a needle; bending iron rebar and breaking arrows by placing them in the hollow of the throat and pressing forward with full commitment, and finally the firewalk.

         All these activities lack a certain degree of common sensibility, all of them fall outside what for most is normal reality and all of them inspire some degree of anxiety, fear or sheer terror. They are challenges, opportunities to transcend one’s perceived limitations and step into a new way of being, a deeper level of self definition.

         None of this may seem important in a world increasingly consumed by war

and unrest, and yet these are precisely the times when meeting our personal challenges become the most transformative. The events that unfold around us, when reduced to their ultimate core, seem to spring from a well fed by only two deep underground springs: love or fear. Some mixture of these primordial building blocks can be seen in all of our behaviors, in all of our reaction patterns and even in the events catapulting the course of human history in one direction or another. Human history may be too large a concept to take personal responsibility for and yet is not the history of humanity simply the collective cornucopia containing all of our individual choices?

         Sometimes our choices come down to something absolutely basic: to walk forward stepping on the red hot coals of life or to step aside; to face our fears or be faced down by them. This does not imply, in any way, that everyone at a firewalk should walk; rather, it applies to those who feel called to press forward against their reluctance and step off the edge of their comfort zone into the dangerous unknown.

         The fire roared fifteen feet into the sky. Sparks streamed heavenward with an aliveness that reminded me of fairies dancing. In time the flames gave way to coals glowing red hot beneath their slight blanketing of ash. The moment of truth arrived. There is a certain science and psychology to why a person can step on hot coals and not be burned horribly; but moreover, there is mystery and miracle, a touch of the Divine that carries one to safety on the other side of the coals. Still, fire calls forth an instinctive terror. Fire burns. We all know it in our deepest cellular memory. We have all shared the experience of being burned. It’s just plain scary to stand before the fire pit and know you have to either walk or stand aside, either exercise your faith or apologize later for its lack when one felt the call and ignored it.

         In the small space of this Morning Moment there is no way to adequately describe the emotions that surge through your body when you stand before the firewalk and feel its heat upon your face. It is the culmination of anticipation that builds and builds as you watch towering flames slowly consuming the huge, carefully stacked pile of wood, reducing it ember by ember into glowing, red hot coals. In case you're curious: The fire bed, with its shimmering, radiating, red hot coals averages between 200 and 800 degrees Fahrenheit, depending upon the exact spot you measure.

       A mother and her 12 year old daughter – both beautiful, wonderful women – came to our celebration. Neither had ever walked on fire before. You could see their emotions running high and almost hear the rapid beating of their hearts. Everyone present supported them as they worked up their courage and their energy. The mother walked. Her relationship to her own divinity deepened instantly. Her daughter really wanted to walk. She pumped her arms and marched around the yard. She approached the fire and hit the wall of her own fear. She stopped.

         “I can’t do it!” She cried. Around the yard she went again, again she marched up to the edge and stepped aside. Again she cried, “I can’t do it.” Yet she didn’t give up. She tried several more times, still unable to push through her fear of the fire. 

         Her mother came to her and said, “You can do it. I’ll walk with you and we’ll do it together.”

         So together they marched around the yard; together they built up their courage and their energy and their determination. Then they walked, arm in arm, across the hot coals and were not burned. I felt profoundly moved. We all did. The daughter, in a rush of excitement and joy, ran around and walked across the fire two or three more times. Everyone present felt the same rush of emotion. We all witnessed the bond between mother and daughter deepening and their love for each other overflow.

         The fire is a profound and sacred teacher.

       Thank you for spending this morning moment with me. May each of us, when we step up to our own personal firewalk, when fear and anxiety pumps into our bloodstream and ice into our stomach, in that moment may we remember the divinity that lies within, may we remember our limitlessness and walk forward across the hot coals of our fear and into the rush of emotion and love that lies on the other side.



Love and Aloha,
Holman