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badstar(reposted and slightly edited for reader context fromthe adf-dance list, less explaination needed here) Most of this isn't anything new to anyone reading my journal.
Courtney and I both lit up and spun for the ritual, and one of the comments that I made when I had finished spinning was that there is but one means by which I have ever known intoxication, and it is *not* wine or any other sort of alcohol or drug...but by the sound of the fire rushing around me for long periods of time- I don't know how else to explain it, but to say that I literally get high from it.
I first learned of fire spinning in a very typically Dionysian environment (Playa Del Fuego) where I actually have had brief brushes with him- It is really not accurate to say that before very recently I was wholly unfamiliar with Dionysus, I wasn't...but the acquaintance was generally incidental and fleeting- and wholly different from recent experience. I had written a poem after the last burn that I attended which I was quite happy with- I wish I could find it. Hopefully it'll turn up one of these days, I'm pretty sure I only ever wrote it down on paper, never put it on LJ. Anyway... I don't do any drugs, I am a very light drinker, but when I'm planning to play with fire, I stay away from alcohol altogether (I may be a little crazy, but I'm not stupid). Utmost respect for the fire and knowing my own limits, and knowing that what I'm handling can be indiscriminating in its devastation...and knowing that I may have control of the staff, but not of the fire itself- all I can do is take the appropriate safety measures but there are so many variables to consider...this knowledge only adds to the experience.
And then there's the physics of it- spinning so slow that I'm literally pushing the staff around, or faster, letting momentum carry it, or working against inertia and the muscle memory that makes it all so fluid and automatic, the light, the smell and the sound...oh my gods, the sound. I said that I can get high from it, I'm not kidding. but this combination of everything affects me in ways that I just can't describe. It's like the rest of the world isn't there almost and I'm in another world- how do you describe the feeling of shifting into a parallel universe? Durned if I know, but if there is such thing, this is it.
I can sometimes do this for hours at a time- it's a lot easier in the environment of a large festival with a huge bonfire and fifty or sixty other people doing the same thing, though I've done it on my own also. As long as I have a bag full of water bottles, I'm good to go. Doing this for four or six hours, stopping only for very short breaks, becoming exhausted to the point where I'm sure I can't move anymore and having it just melt away in the space of seconds, doing that two, three, four times until I really know that I can't safely go on anymore....if I could spend the rest of my life doing that, I might be tempted to do it....but the next best thing I think, is waking up the next day and hurting for a week afterwards, maybe it sounds crazy. But it's an immediate reminder...every muscle in my shoulders, arms, back, neck, legs, every time I move, I know where it came from...
Man, now I have this sudden, overwhelming urge to go and lay waste to a couple of bottles of lamp oil...
Hmm. so far have no plans for the night of the winter solstice. Not planning to go to PA til the 23rd or 24th....sounds like a good time to do that to me.
Courtney and I both lit up and spun for the ritual, and one of the comments that I made when I had finished spinning was that there is but one means by which I have ever known intoxication, and it is *not* wine or any other sort of alcohol or drug...but by the sound of the fire rushing around me for long periods of time- I don't know how else to explain it, but to say that I literally get high from it.
I first learned of fire spinning in a very typically Dionysian environment (Playa Del Fuego) where I actually have had brief brushes with him- It is really not accurate to say that before very recently I was wholly unfamiliar with Dionysus, I wasn't...but the acquaintance was generally incidental and fleeting- and wholly different from recent experience. I had written a poem after the last burn that I attended which I was quite happy with- I wish I could find it. Hopefully it'll turn up one of these days, I'm pretty sure I only ever wrote it down on paper, never put it on LJ. Anyway... I don't do any drugs, I am a very light drinker, but when I'm planning to play with fire, I stay away from alcohol altogether (I may be a little crazy, but I'm not stupid). Utmost respect for the fire and knowing my own limits, and knowing that what I'm handling can be indiscriminating in its devastation...and knowing that I may have control of the staff, but not of the fire itself- all I can do is take the appropriate safety measures but there are so many variables to consider...this knowledge only adds to the experience.
And then there's the physics of it- spinning so slow that I'm literally pushing the staff around, or faster, letting momentum carry it, or working against inertia and the muscle memory that makes it all so fluid and automatic, the light, the smell and the sound...oh my gods, the sound. I said that I can get high from it, I'm not kidding. but this combination of everything affects me in ways that I just can't describe. It's like the rest of the world isn't there almost and I'm in another world- how do you describe the feeling of shifting into a parallel universe? Durned if I know, but if there is such thing, this is it.
I can sometimes do this for hours at a time- it's a lot easier in the environment of a large festival with a huge bonfire and fifty or sixty other people doing the same thing, though I've done it on my own also. As long as I have a bag full of water bottles, I'm good to go. Doing this for four or six hours, stopping only for very short breaks, becoming exhausted to the point where I'm sure I can't move anymore and having it just melt away in the space of seconds, doing that two, three, four times until I really know that I can't safely go on anymore....if I could spend the rest of my life doing that, I might be tempted to do it....but the next best thing I think, is waking up the next day and hurting for a week afterwards, maybe it sounds crazy. But it's an immediate reminder...every muscle in my shoulders, arms, back, neck, legs, every time I move, I know where it came from...
Man, now I have this sudden, overwhelming urge to go and lay waste to a couple of bottles of lamp oil...
Hmm. so far have no plans for the night of the winter solstice. Not planning to go to PA til the 23rd or 24th....sounds like a good time to do that to me.
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 03:23 pm (UTC)At least I don't freak out as bad as I used to as a kid if fire was in anyway close to my person :)
Next time you do firespinning you should have someone armed with a camera so you can share pics with us :)