SOUL FIRE & PASSION: the nurture or scorching of our inner (and outer) terrains…. by Marcia Singer, MSW
My inner Guides are leading me into a deep contemplation on soul fire, the inner flame, the Light within ─what we may experience as passion. Passion has a dizzying range of expression, from Christ facing crucifixion, to the ardors of love or burning sexual desire. Getting fired up might show as steady enthusiasm, being wildly overjoyed, or being in-fury-ated, as in the heat of a terrible tantrum. Heat. Intensity. In widely varying degrees, lukewarm to scalding.
The 3-fold Nature of Passion
Passion has a 3-fold nature. Its first facet is its Fiery Life Force. These energies attend both our natural creative and sexual expressions. They intimately connect to primal drives for survival, grounding, belonging, and to reciprocal loving, reproducing. When our hearts are unencumbered, the soul fire energies are lit. We glow from within, our love light gifts the world. But when we’re scared and troubled, we can get hot under the collar. There are rages into not-so-good nights. In extreme cases, “crimes of passion” are committed.
Shakti kundalini is a Sanskrit term for the soul’s fiery life force energies. Shakti wants to freely flow through the subtle body. When it’s blocked, we may feel emotionally tethered, physically stifled, all bottled up. Like a pressure cooker about to blow. To the extent that our native creative, love expressions are suppressed, we face eruptions.
Buildups of pressure and intensity signal that What We Care About is feeling threatened! This 2nd facet of passion asks if we’ll act out our fears with aggression against others, or against ourselves? Will we avoid, run away or numb out? Get a temporary “fix”? Become addicted to seesawing between emotional highs and lows? Hopefully instead, we learn to respond to such discomfort with compassion. Frame it as a wake-up call, as an opportunity for growth, for meeting our true needs more wholly, to give tender care to “this little Light of mine”… When basic desires such as for safety, love, nourishment, pleasure and free expression are being fulfilled, passion can incite ecstasy, spark creative genius. Stoke joy.
Burning desires, whether expressed cleanly or not, urge us toward movement, into a Drive to Action. Desires and needs are calling out for attention, for fulfillment. This 3rd facet of passion exists to resolve tensions, restore personal homeostasis. Balancing might mean stoking the fires, adding heat, or it might necessitate cooling things down, maybe to prevent a scorching of our interior landscaping. Recovering equanimity requires skills, as does regulating the interior thermostat. Such skills are usually learned with the help of others further along the path. Reaching out can mean clearer goals, more satisfying relationships, a lightening of the load along the Road.
3 Elements of Inner Fire
In order for soul fire to burn brightly, it needs three things: fuel, a lighting agent, and a trigger ── a motivating circumstance and the right conditions. Constructive burns often involve letting go of encrusted, handicapping beliefs, habits. The dross burns away, leaving us freer to Be passionately authentic, happier, more at peace. Healing comes when the conditions are mysteriously right. What is illusory burns away. What is true is revealed, we see the Light. Healthy expression of passion is essential to robust well-being. Trust yours to lead you to the best version of yourself. Revel in discovering again and again, its many facets that bring us alive.
Shine deLight. Marcia
