Course Two: Nature 73
which holds you back? Would you be willing to throw
your fear into the Fire—or your jealousy, distrust, or
self-hatred?
Write on a slip of paper a quality that you believe
you would be better off without and ask the Fire to
take it and burn away the pain and unhappiness it has
caused you. Or, even more powerful, choose an item
from among your personal possessions that symbol-
izes the quality you wish to transform, and give it to
the Fire. But be sure to visualize what will come in its
place. As the old jealousies, angers, and hidden shame
are consumed, the True Self, compassionate
and forgiving and radiant, is able to shine
brightly, a beacon light for all to see.Task: Make a Fire-Pot
A very impressive fire-pot can be
made with a cauldron-shaped ceramic
bowl. A small iron caldron, with the
traditional three feet, would work also,
but only if the rim is level and unbroken
by a handle, as you will need to be able to cover it
tightly with a pot lid to put the fire out. Collect all the
candle ends you can find, or just use candle wax you
can buy in a store.
You should first lay in a layer of sand, so the bot-
tom won’t get too hot. Then tear up a bunch of cotton
rags into small pieces, mush them together, and stuff
them into the pot. Old tee shirts or towels are excel-
lent. Melt the candle ends or wax in a separate (dis-
posable) pot or saucepan, which you can pick up cheap
at Goodwill. Then carefully pour the molten wax over
the mushed-up rages in the pot, until it’s pretty full,
with a few pieces of rags sticking up. Let the wax
harden, and you will have a perfect fire-pot; when
you light the rags, they will act just like the wick of a
candle, only making much more flames. Always put
something under it when it’s burning, like a trivet,
flat stone, or ceramic dish, as the bottom may get hot
enough to burn wood or cloth. Be sure to keep a pot
lid of the right size handy as this is the only way you
can put out the fire—never try to blow it out!
Another much simpler kind of fire-pot is just
filled with wood alcohol, which can be lit for a danc-
ing blue flame. You should add some Epsom salts to
give stability to the fire.Lesson 8: Spirit
I am the Spirit around you
I am divinity within you
I am the light shining through you
I am all that I am!
—Abbi SpinnerThe Fifth Element is Spirit. It is this that animates us
and gives us consciousness. Just as Water exists
throughout the galaxy in the form of ice and rains
down upon all the worlds and moons, so does Spirit
permeate all the Elements and brings them to life.
Consider: Your spirit encompasses every cell and part
of your body—even the minerals of your bones and
the water in your cells and blood. All the Elements
except Spirit are identical in a body that has died as
they were when it was living. The only difference is
the lack of Spirit—but that difference is everything.
Just so does each level of Spirit encompass all
the Elements within its consciousness. The Spirit of
Gaea, the living Earth, includes and interpenetrates
us and every other living creature—as well as the
waters, the rocks, the air, and the fires of our planet.
And the Spirit of Gaea is encompassed within the
greater Spirit of the solar system, which in turn is
encompassed within the Spirit of our galaxy...and so
on, both Above and Below.
The evolutionary journey of your own Spirit has
already traveled billions of years, through all your
ancestors back to the dawn of life. But, just like the
water in your blood and cells, all Spirit is One—even
when seemingly contained in separate vessels. Here
is a little Vision of Spirit I had many years ago:
All living creatures are like cups of various sizes
and shapes, with which the Waters of Life are scooped
from the Well of Souls. And all the cups are emptied
back into the pool when they are broken at death. New
cups are continually being fashioned of living clay
and are dipped in their turn into the same well to be
filled. But it is rare that a new cup will scoop up ex-
actly the same batch of molecules as had been con-
tained in a former cup. Usually, there will be a con-
siderable mix.
And so it is that a person may have bits of “past
life” memories of several other people, as well as as-
sorted animals, or that a human-sized cup could con-
tain a number of birds and other small animals, but at
most, only a fraction of a single whale. And in the
proper balance of Nature, each new generation re-
places the previous, so that the number of each kind
of cup remains approximately constant.
What do you suppose happens when one species
proliferates greatly at the expense of others? When
there are no more cups of Mammoth, Cave Bear,
Megatherium, Saber-Tooth, Dodo, Moa, Sperm
Whale, Thylacine, Condor, or countless others,
but the cups labeled “Human” are being pro-
duced by the geometrically increasing bil-
lions? In that case, I believe, the human soul-
stuff would become increasingly diluted with
other decimated species, and all the vanished
animals would return in human form....
And the lost souls of dinosaurs became
dreams of dragons....- Nature.p65 73 1/14/2004, 3:33 PM