Dancing With the Fire

By Michael Sky

Human beings have walked on glowing, red hot coals in fire ceremonies since the beginning of our existence. What does this say about pain and fear, and about our ability to go beyond the normal limitations of physical reality? You may never do a firewalk yourself, or even see one, but Dancing with the Fire takes you on an extensive journey through the teachings of this ancient initiation ceremony. This book is a comprehensive exploration of the scientific, psychological, historical, and spiritual teachings of fire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Sky
• Release date: Apr 9, 2011

Michael Sky

Michael Sky (1951-2011) was a breathwork teacher, certified polarity therapist, and firewalking instructor, and the author of Dancing with Fire, The Power of Emotion and Breathing: Expanding Your Power and Energy. Michael led human potential seminars for twenty-five years, including more than 200 firewalks.

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Dancing With the Fire

by Michael Sky

Published by Michael Sky at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 by Michael Sky

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Note to the reader:

It’s been 22 years since the publication of Dancing With the Fire (Bear & Co). Though the book has long been out of print, I still receive regular requests for copies. And though my own practice of firewalking has slowed to a once-or-twice a year event, many others continue to lead firewalks, initiating thousands of new firewalkers every year.

So I am now delighted to be bringing the book back into publication, as a paperback and e-book. I did a full edit of the book, and am happy to say that I did not have to change its theoretical foundations or any of the supporting science. Indeed, all that I’ve seen and experienced in twenty years of leading firewalks has confirmed the main contentions of this book: that firewalking serves as a prime example of ordinary people behaving in extraordinary ways; that the experience brings a host of lessons, especially in dealing successfully with fear; and that conscientious practice of the ritual offers our world powerful support during these perilous times.

This is for Penny,

my partner at the Dance.

With Gratitude:

to all the firewalkers, firedancers, fireplayers, and firefearers; to all who have joined in this ongoing celebration—your courage is the whole story

to Tolly Burkan and Peggy Dylan Burkan for opening the gate

to Sydney Cooke, Phoebe Reeve, and Ken Cadigan for teaching me how to dance

to lulu.com for making it so easy

to Peter Kevorkian, Stephen Stern, and Garret Whitney for gentle review of the early manuscript

to Marie Favorito, John Michaelson, and Rob Cooper for catching it all on film

to Jeff Volk for producing the movie version of the book, and to Michael Johnson and Cathy Gallo for their starring roles

to my mom, who, when I first told her I was walking on fire, said, Well, if you can do that, then you can do anything.

and to a small Circle of friends back east: for actually coming to the first walk; for all the magic in my life; for so many years of steady support

Table of Contents

1. First Steps: an introduction to and description of the firewalk; how I came to firewalking; initial lessons; the feeling of walking on fire.

2. The Co-creative Process: why people walk on fire; the nature of our relationship to fire; our evolving capacity as co-creators of reality.

3. An Ancient Experiment: examples of the firewalk as an ancient and widely-spread practice; the firewalk in late twentieth-century America.

4. The Skeptical Mind: the problem with skepticism; the arguments against firewalking; the evidence for it; unhealthy skepticism.

5. The Power of Intention: accidental burn victims and the power of the human will; intention as the first key to the co-creative process.

6. Walking on Placebos: Dr. Herbert Benson; meditation and belief; the placebo response; the circular nature of belief; debunking the debunkers.

7. The Body Electric: human bio-energy; the difficulties with classical science; the nature and reality of energy; energy as the medium of protection.

8. The Challenge of Life: excitement and contraction; unresolved stress and tension; fear as the gift of bio-energy; saying yes to fear.

9. Boiling Energy: The Kalahari Kung; the positive excitement of bio-energy; the simple ways of boiling energy.

10. The Possible Human: firewalking as a human possibility; Rupert Sheldrake; other possibilities: Findhorn, The Option Institute, Jack Schwarz.

11. The Lessons of Pain: firewalking burns; the purpose and lessons of pain; the four levels of pain; transforming pain.

12. Dancing With The Fire: the firewalk as a metaphor for our times; the importance of ritual; the global brain; Gaia; the evolutionary leap.

Chapter One

First Steps

By consciously manipulating whether a particle, such as a protein molecule in a neural membrane, is a wave or not, I expect that we will be able to change our bodies at will. I expect that with that gain in sensitivity and consciousness new messages will be received and our evolution will be speeded up so fast that it will make our heads spin. Perhaps we will be able to heal ourselves simply by thinking positively about ourselves. Perhaps we will be able to regenerate new limbs, increase our intelligence, and even live for 500 years or more.

If we can learn to live together as a species, we will not just survive this world, we will create it as well as other worlds beyond our present dreams. The intelligence of the body quantum is absolutely unlimited.1

Fred Alan Wolf

Alice laughed. There’s no use trying, she said, one can’t believe impossible things.

I dare say you haven’t had much practice, said the Queen.

When I was your age I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.2

Lewis Carroll

I always knew that somehow, someday, I would walk on fire. I found myself thinking about firewalking from time to time, looking for `firewalk’ in the indexes of likely books, and trying to imagine what it must feel like to place my bare feet on a bed of glowing, red, hot embers and through whatever magic it entails, not to burn.

Living in Boston, I could only assume that my firewalking would have to wait until I traveled off to some exotic locale where such irrational activities passed for normal. Meanwhile, the same part of me that felt attracted to firewalking had also undertaken an exploration of unconventional healing practices. This eventually led me to teaching about such things, which in turn led me to regularly telling small groups of people about firewalking and what I saw as its special lessons. I had come to view firewalking as a graphic example of how the mind and body might better interact, and as a way of inspiring the belief in and pursuit of human potential. And, I suppose, talking about firewalking was a sensible alternative to actually doing it.

In early 1984, I was leading a weekend workshop and feeling frustrated at the end of the first day. I thought to myself that if I could light a candle in the middle of my talk and hold my hand in the flame, unburning, this would prove my assertions and catalyze the workshop experience. That evening a good friend called and asked if I had seen the latest issue of New Age Journal, for, believe it or not, someone out in California (where else?) was leading people through firewalks.

Over the next few days, I read that article a dozen times, my mind spinning around and around its implications, for this man named Tolly Burkan totally upset my theories and expectations. Where I had always assumed that only the high adepts of advanced metaphysical practices could walk on fire, Tolly was taking groups of average Americans, unscreened and unprepared, and successfully leading them across the coals in just four hours. As far as I could glean from the article, his techniques were unbelievably simple.

I sent away for more information. When I received his itinerary, it included a flyer announcing his first firewalking instructors’ training, upcoming in May. While the flyer listed as a prerequisite that participants must already have walked on fire, I felt my calling, and applied anyway. They accepted me.

Tolly Burkan and his wife Peggy Dylan wanted to teach us every aspect of successfully leading firewalks. Since their own approach had been to travel around from place to place, building fires wherever they could, our three-week training would consist primarily of ten public firewalks with a lot of traveling in between, so that we would get a taste of life on the road. Thus, although our group of ten students came together in Sacramento, we spent our initial two days journeying in a motorhome up to Seattle for our first firewalk. This two-day waiting period actually helped me, for I could see little difference between this group of people—all of whom had already walked on fire—and myself.

I did not feel like their spiritual or psychological inferior, and I could thus reasonably expect to do as well as they.

Alas, on the day of my first walk, all reason and logic abandoned me. As the day wore on (firewalks always happen at night, which really means that they happen for an entire day) my body became uncharacteristically tense; a low level anxiety took over and gripped me. I was not hungry and I did not feel like talking. I kept thinking of the thousands of people who had already done this. I kept looking at my fellow trainees and seeing of our essential sameness. My mind would be somewhat reassured, but my body grew tenser still.

Midday they showed us a brief news clip of Tolly walking across an amazingly hot-looking bed of coals, and my stomach lurched in protest. I felt as if I had just witnessed an accident victim sprawled bloody across the pavement. I continued to fast and I talked even less. In a notebook I wrote, I feel like I’m in an airplane, about to parachute into enemy territory.

At this point, I felt twisted by a combination of fears. I worried that I would severely injure myself. Even worse, I might chicken out, a horrendous thought given the time, expense, and self-esteem I had committed to becoming an instructor. Or, worst of all, I might walk on fire, fail painfully, and limp home a crippled and embarrassed wreck. As evening approached, I found my mind less able to issue up reassurance, and more focused on my fears. My body grew tenser still.

Finally, the workshop began. Fifty or so people gathered, mostly looking as if they had just been told they had four hours to live. Tolly had an intense, yet entertaining style. Working the crowd, he first terrified us with what could go wrong, and then exploded the tension with his wonderful sense of humor. After an hour or so, we went outside and together constructed a large pile of wood, kindling, and newspaper. Then we circled about it, holding hands, while Tolly doused it with a gallon of kerosene and set it aflame. In moments, the fire blasted us with such heat that everyone took two steps away from the scattering sparks and billowing smoke. Definitely not a summer-camp fire, nor even a homecoming bonfire. We beheld an inferno, and if it was designed to frighten, it succeeded.

Back inside we went, and for the next two hours Tolly prepared us for walking. I remember agreeing with most all that he said, while at the same time feeling concerned that I did not really hear anything new. Clearly, I had hoped for some powerful technique or super meditation that would change me from one who burns into one who doesn’t burn but as time passed I felt distinctly unchanged and increasingly vulnerable. Things gradually took on a surreal air. It felt as if we were all doing drugs together or, again, as if we were all in a plane behind enemy lines, lost in our separate thoughts, contemplating doom, barely breathing.

Finally, the time came. We returned to the fire, which had calmed somewhat into a large pile of glowing embers and smoldering hunks of wood. We held hands, chanting softly as Tolly took a heavy metal rake and carefully spread the coals into a path some twelve-feet long and six-feet wide. With each pass of the rake, sparks flew off in every direction and what little breath we had left became filled with smoke. The heat was still so intense that people moved away from rather than toward the fire, its red-orange glow pulsing, menacing, yet oddly inviting. My mind finally emptied and quieted; I surrendered to the singing and felt transfixed by the fire. My body trembled out of control, as if it were somehow freezing on this warm spring evening. I could feel through their hands the similar shaking of those on either side of me.

Tolly laid down the rake, stepped up to the fiery path, and, with just the briefest pause, walked quickly across the coals.

I registered that he took six steps and that he seemed okay, when suddenly another person walked across, and then another. I noticed my head shaking, side to side, as I watched feet sinking down into glowing, red, hot coals. People continued walking, one after another, and our singing steadily picked up, becoming more excited, more vibrant. My mind went blank, while my feet, acting on their own, carried me slowly toward the top of the path. My trembling increased and I sang even louder. Suddenly, I was at the top of the path. Moments later I moved—seven quick steps—I had walked on fire!

I felt overwhelmed with joy and found myself applauding each succeeding walker. The energy between us continued to rise, higher and higher, becoming more and more excited. It was all so beautifully stunning—the fire, the circle, the singing, the stars, the moon—and the wonderful feeling of grass beneath my happy feet. At last a strong shout of joy exploded through the group. Some people hugged, everyone laughed, and then slowly we all filtered back inside.

The funeral parlor had transformed into a circus. A tangible wave of relief rippled through a room filled with happy chatter and excited giggles. We took some time for sharing our experiences, and miracle stories abounded. I became aware of a spot on my left foot that felt a little hot, just slightly painful. Some other walkers seemed distressed also, including a fellow trainee who would turn out to have several bad blisters.

Later, as I called home to assure my wife and friends that I had survived it, feet intact, I began to feel a little let down. Obviously it had been a long, exhausting day. Somehow I had expected more difficulty; it just seemed too easy. I mean, if anyone could do this, then....

My second walk came two nights later at the same location. I collected the release forms that night as people entered the room, and felt myself tense slightly as a pretty young woman named Kathy3 arrived, moving slowly on a pair of crutches.

I would only find out later that Kathy was a social worker for handicapped rights, that she worked in her spare time on a suicide hot-line, and that she had a bumper sticker shouting Expect A Miracle, but I could tell the moment I saw her that she was a determined and self-sufficient woman who was working hard to overcome the limitations in her life.

As I watched her throughout the evening, it became apparent to me that Kathy had come to walk on fire. So I worried when, just before going out to the fire, her husband asked if people with cerebral palsy should firewalk and Tolly recommended against it. I sensed that Kathy did not take kindly to, nor listen to, people telling her what she could not do.

For myself, this second walk was much the same as the first, though slightly colored with the memory of pain. I felt the same tension throughout my body and the body of the group. The fire seemed just as hot, and the path Tolly raked out looked a tad longer. My mind was every bit as incredulous when the walking began, and I experienced the same sense of shifting to a magical, otherworldly reality. I did manage, however, to walk before most everyone else, and thus felt double elation as I reached the other side, unburned.

At some point Kathy started moving toward the fire, walking on her crutches really, her legs and feet stiffly dragging behind. The electrical tension in the circle increased tenfold. Ever so slowly she moved, shuffling into and through the fire, so slowly that at times she seemed stationary, up to her ankles in glowing embers. Each step was a major victory, first carrying her into the heart of the fire, and then slowly carrying her out toward safety. Just at the end of the path she stopped, suddenly, and in the next moment she started screaming.

We carried her immediately from the fire and into the house, and later to a hospital, both feet severely burned, the skin already blistering and peeling. Somehow the firewalk continued, as one crazy person stepped forward in the midst of the terror and started the flow of walkers again. The mood afterwards was subdued, however, as we had little energy for celebration given what we had witnessed. I remember feeling torn. On the one hand, I felt finished with firewalking, and wanted never to take part in such a tragedy again. At the same time, I kept trying to believe that things do happen for good reason and that Kathy’s experience might become an important contribution to my understanding of firewalking.

Kathy would later say that she had been doing fine, feeling neither pain nor the slightest heat, all of the way to that final step. Then she looked down, and the image of her feet buried in burning embers overwhelmed her, causing her to think she was doing the impossible and to hear her lifelong admonishments:

You can’t. You’re unable to. You mustn’t. At this point she began to burn. She asked that we not feel sorry for her or responsible for her actions, and she demonstrated her personal power by healing in a fraction of the time that her doctors had predicted.

She felt truly grateful for the whole experience and stressed that she had in fact walked on fire successfully for all but one step.

A newspaper reporter present that night had timed the walkers with a stopwatch. He said the average walker took between a second and a half to two seconds to get across the coals and that Kathy had been on them for a full seven seconds before she screamed. So she had indeed firewalked the equivalent of some fifty feet (at that time, a Guinness world record) without burning, and without even lifting her feet out of the fire. Through her extraordinary courage, Kathy had demonstrated what I would come to see as the two primary lessons of firewalking: yes, we can walk through extreme heat without burning; and yes, the fire is hot, we can get burned, and whether we burn or not depends more on our state of mind than on how we walk.

I would experience many other