Sacred Fire || Nawishkote Nikan

The Original Instructions

Ceremonial, sacred ritual fire is a missing link in the modern world's search for and understanding of how sacred properties exist and work.

Native American Indian Ritual Ceremony and Sacred Rites

Sacred Fires
Transformational Space
Three Times Seven Times Seven Times Eight || Divided by One

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Sacred Fires

For more than 40 years I have been a student of the small scared fires used in tribal cultures. These powerful instruments of consciousness and awareness are a precious resource of human knowledge. I have participated in the ritual meditation and construction of well over 5,000 ceremonial fires. To satisfy my obligation to my teachers, it seems relevant to offer to those who are interested some documentation of my reflections and experiences on this matter.

I am a man who has been born into and raised in the Northern Woodland traditions of tribal North America. All my life I have had a great interest in the ceremonies and the ideas that surround them. These ceremonies were all around my life when I was young. Over the years I have traveled to many other tribal communities all over the United States. I had the opportunity to work with many teachers, traditions and strong inter-tribal sharing.

This work eventually became my life and my full time work.

Before the modern people intruded so aggressively and destructively into tribal North America, there were tens of thousands of ceremonial fires. Some of these fires may have been burning for more than 10,000 years. this intensely interesting fact has nearly escaped notice. It is not well known, poorly understood, undocumented and neglected as a resource of human knowledge and experience.

In the long history of human beings, it was the small fire that perhaps guided and directed the human family into spiritual awareness. The ceremonial fire may have been the very first instrument of higher consciousness. These ancient rites are the roots of the great tree of human knowledge.

It has been and remains a great mistake to believe that ancient tribal people were stupid. I have lived and worked with tribal teachers, using instruments such as the sacred fire or sacred pipe, that have shown me how life works and what the universe is made of. They have demonstrated this knowledge without language or abstractions of any kind.

Morning Fire || Pantelleria Island

Transformational Space

In a ceremony of some days, the Fire is made as the first action, the beginning. Over the days at many moments the people come privately and collectively to put tobacco into this small fire. Everyone works well to keep it going. A fire that is used properly will show to the observer many different moods. In a good ceremony where the people make many offerings and songs, the fire will begin burning in a tight spiral.

Getting people to understand how they create this energy by working together at this fire is not easy. I am often surprised by how few people realize what a great learning device these fires can be. You have to work with the fire to make the medicine happen. It does not happen by itself. In some ceremonies where many people make many offerings around the fire, the energy of that space is tangible and powerful, beautiful. It is one of those great "secrets" hiding out in plain sight.

Three Times Seven Times Seven Times Eight || Divided by One

Sacred Fire is not one teaching, it is many teachings. Some rites and rituals have three fires, some on rare occasion may have seven fires. There are fires for sacred dance, such as the Apache Fire dancing. There are memory fires, dream fires, heal the body fires and change the world fires. sacred Fires can be defined by the sacred intent of those who are there at that time. There are sweat lodge fires, going away fires, and coming home fires. The Sun is a sacred fire bringing all life to this earth.

Every sacred fire has a keeper or keepers. Keepers and protectors are the ones who are there at that time. They are the ones who hold the responsibility to know, to make and to carry what is of the sacred for the people. keepers of sacred fire are no less than keepers of sacred bundles or sacred pipes. Sacred Pipe is a fire, it is not something else. It is a small very sacred fire. Every keeper of any sacred Pipe is a fire keeper.

When the modern people arrived onto these Turtle Island lands, there were thousands of ritual mystery life fires burning. Putting those out seemed to be first priority. Like the stampeding rhinoceros in The Gods Must Be Crazy, the modern officers of the church and the sate stomped every fire they could find. It may surprise people to know that they missed a few. There are sacred fires burning in the traditions of the original instructions in every one of the eight corners of Turtle Island.

In my understanding of the Ahnishinaek teachers, the tobacco morning fire is a teaching that is available for all people. In my life I have made or shared in over 10,000 morning tobacco fires. In every case the tobacco was put inside the fire by the people who were there at that time. These people have been from all around the world, from many cultures and stations in life. Recently a member of the Italian Royal Family and a grand-child of Queen Victoria has put tobacco into the morning fire. Every day people from every level of life have made this small ceremony. This ceremony, this sacred morning tobacco fire is being taken in a circle around the earth, a ceremony for the ancient future, for all people. Sacred Fire is the first teaching, the beginning teaching, the opening to all other possibilities. It is the one teaching that is made in the beginning of this work. the first and last place you stand when participating in the ceremonial space created by the World Journey of the Four Directions Unity Bundle. This is just one example of how this fire is used by the grandfathers to carry all of us into a better understanding between the modern world and the world of the old tribal teachers and their sacred concerns. Wherever I have traveled in North America I have known these fires of the original instructions.

Some of the sacred fire teachings are the private sacred property of the elders and spiritual leaders of their tribes. These tribal relations have not authorized their teachings to be made into the public world of information and prefer to remain silent. This rule of silence was never a part of the original instructions. It is the scar that remains from the many, many ways modern society demonstrates its disregard and indifference to the rights and beliefs of tribal cultures. This is one very slow healing wound. Good information can help this wound heal. Good behavior from modern people can help this wound heal.

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