Do you want inspiration? You will want to start a fire

When the winter comes, fire becomes a king.

Mehmet Murad Ildan

Like the winter, inspiration too can come in many ways and forms in life. And there’s an inspiration to find in the element of fire as well.

Indeed, fire is one of the most important discoveries of mankind. The fire was the one element that helped the human race to fight the weather and the climate. And it was the fire that slowly paved the way to the settlement behavior of humans as well.

It’s quite clear that fire forms an intimate relationship with humans for millennia. In fact, a lot of countries, religions, and cultures treat fire as a sacred element. It is used as a means for purification, purging, and formalizing social bonds.

Recently, the festival of Lohri was celebrated in India. It’s a celebration of the end of the winter season and the onset of the harvesting season. People seek blessings from nature to provide them with a good crop in the year ahead, without any hurdles/problems. People sing and dance around the fire. They also offer foods like puffed rice and popcorn into the fire in exchange for blessings.

When fire holds so much significance in our lives, then surely there must be some lessons to be learned from it as well. There must be some inspiration hidden inside the fire too?

The answer is yes.

Fire and concentration

If you have ever observed a fire flame, you’ll notice many things. The first of them being your focused attention. The fire is one of the best ways to improve your concentration capabilities. A lot of meditators and yoga practitioners use fire as a means to focus.

You can try this out yourself as well. Simply burn a candle, switch off the lights, and sit comfortably. Focus the eyes on the inner area of the flame. After a few minutes, when all the thoughts have finished moving around in your mind, everything will slowly quieten down.

In a way, you could say that the fire burns away all the thoughts and doubts arising in the mind.

Fire and inspiration

This part is even more interesting.

If we talk about the chemical aspect of fire, it requires fuel, oxygen, and heat to start up. But that’s not what we are going to get into. If you paid close attention during the previous step mentioned above, you will notice an amazing phenomenon.

The flame of the fire is always pointing upwards. No matter what you do. Even if you try to tilt the flame, it will still end up pointing upwards. The flame might flicker few times in between. It might even get bent while trying to fight a source of air/wind. But it returns back to its standing upright position.

This behavior holds immense importance for us. Humans who have known fire intimately since ages can still end up learning so much from it.

Despite all odds, all weather conditions and even the effect of gravity, the fire still stands. Keeping in mind the global pandemic of Coronavirus, this is significant inspiration for us.

There is global slowdown. Industries, careers and personal lives have taken a hit. And this isn’t the first it has happened as well. Humans have always bounced back from such setbacks. And a major chunk of inspiration to do that comes from the fire.

If we too can mimic/copy the behavior of a fire flame, it will empower us in ways we have never imagined before in our lives. Because we must understand that pandemics are one of many obstacles/hurdles in our lives. They will keep coming up. However, how we treat ourselves and how we behave in the face of such adversity is what will bring us back up.

Inspiration is all around us

Inspiration is waiting for us everywhere. It is there in the weather, in the elements of nature, in other species/organisms, in the rocks, and in the mountains. With a little bit of concentration, this inspiration is within our reach. And once that inspiration is grasped by you, then you can overcome any challenges in your lives.

So, to start off, why don’t you light up and start a flame of fire. See into it and gain access to abundant inspiration waiting for you. Because……

Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly

Neil Gaiman