I think it was in July 1999 that I participated in a fire walk. I can remember the day clearly in my mind and several characters I met including John Shango the firewalk instructor.
Before we participated he gave a speech to about 14 of us that we had to participate in a workshop first, if we were to also participate in the fire walk. We had to each pay £10 to take part. One person did not want to take part or pay the £10 but watch, he was told if he did not pay the £10 he could not participate but he could watch from outside (we were in a ground floor building that had glass windows on one side). He made his choice and decided to watch us instead.
There was also a particular lady that would seem to have had problems with self-confidence (her body language suggested this, among other factors) and yet she took part like the rest of us as if she had nothing to lose. We all underwent very quick embarrassing situations in the workshop, like standing on a chair and thumping our fists into the air and shouting out, ‘WE are powerful!’ We also talked to a wall in an emotional way, with everyone in the group doing the same thing at once – you would have thought the people in white coats would have come to take us all away!
After this we all put our hands on the back of the one in front of us and walked out of the room chanting, ‘We are powerful!’ The sun was beginning to set and it was getting dark but I could feel and hear a buzz of spiritual energy.
When we got to the fire walk itself the heat was unbearable. All went quite as we were instructed. Each of us knew what was to come next after we had finished raking the unbearably hot, flaming coals of wood aside and created a fire walk of three metres in diameter and about a meter wide.
I knew I could do this feat, even though it was my first attempt and when it was eventually my turn I did. It was quite an empowerment for me and all those who walked the flaming coals that day. But more so for that women I talked of earlier. Hesitating at the fire in front of her, with EVERYONE in that group urging her on and wanting her to succeed. She may have run across those burning coals instead of walking, but the sense of achievement on her face and her very being said it all. I have never in my life seen a single event in such a short space of time help give someone so much emotional confidence. I have seen it over a long period of time but not so instantaneously. Every one of us in the group cheered that lady when she made it to the other side unburned. The struggles of everyday life lay aside as this fellow human stood tall having emerged from the fires of life, like a phoenix from the flames, born anew.
She was indeed powerful! That day I learnt a lot about self-esteem and how it can and does transform other peoples’ lives. In my view the lady in question had achieved the highest of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Armitage et al, 2003, p.68.) – ‘Self-actualisation’ in such a short space of time, which is linked to humanistic philosophy. Maybe the group gave her the ‘love and belonging’ that she needed and our willing her to succeed was also a positive act to help in her ‘self-esteem’ to run across the hot coals and succeed were others had failed.
Further this links to Schön who cites Socrates from the ‘Meno’ by saying that: ‘the most important things cannot be taught but must be discovered and appropriated for oneself’. (Schön, 1987, p.92.)
Although we were all part of a group we each had to take the fire walk test by ourselves and for our self – in this way we assimilated the experience of a lifetime.
