Keeping the Sacred Flame

One of the first Truths I heard, I took from a science fiction show.  Babylon 5, to be specific.  One of the characters was talking about us being star-stuff, and the universe examining itself.

I took that piece of truth and ran home with it.  And sat on it.

There’s an instinct when presented with a piece of Truth to want to hoard it.  We find it and we cuddle it close, or bury it like a squirrel with an acorn.  Then we guard it, keeping it from getting away.

But Truth does not thrive in the soil or hidden under the couch.  It’s not an acorn.  And Truth does best when we share it, live it.  Understand it.  We can’t take what we know and hide it away and pretend we’re living it.  We have to live Truth actively.  We have to share it, not with words, but with lifestyle.  We have to make it available to other people if they want it.

As well, we have to be open to other pieces of Truth, and not just cling to the piece we have.  It’s not enough to have ONE piece.  There are an infinite number of pieces out there, and we all cobble them together and try to find a whole.  When we cling to one piece and deny other people’s Truths, we deny the universe itself.

Questions:
What pieces of Truth do you have?
What do you do with what you have?
How do you keep from hoarding Truth and blocking out more?

What is a prophet?  Someone that communicates with the Divine and looks into the future, predicting events from what is happening at the moment.  Someone that sees more than just what is obvious.

Someone that is willing to speak instead of be silent when they see a future they don’t like coming.

FlameKeeping should be a religion of prophets.  Not one – not me, speaking the truth once and forever held invioble after.  No – I am one voice of many.  I may be first, but my voice is not stronger or better than those that come after me.  I build this upon a synthesis of what has come before, and what comes after me will be a similar synthesis.

That’s not to say the old should just be thrown away for the sake of newness.  There needs to be a balance and intelligent thought put into what is kept and what is updated.  But updating happens.  Synthesis happens.  And we all have within us the ability to be a prophet and speak the truth, if we are willing to take that risk, that holy calling.

Be a prophet.  See the truth.  Speak the truth.

Live the truth.

Questions:
How do you speak truth in your life?  How do you avoid it?
What are the consequences for speaking truth?
What are the consequences for being silent?

When do people get souls?  At conception?  Quickening?  Birth?  Some completely different point?

I do not believe that souls are given and done.  We are not given a quantity of soul to never again change.  Souls grow, accrete, change.  We can grow our souls, if we are willing.

How does a soul grow?  Through opening ourselves to other people and loving them.  It shrinks when we close ourselves off and refuse to care for others.  To love, to be open, is to open ourselves to pain.  It is a risk, and a risk that is bound to cause pain at some point.  There is no love without pain.  But there is also no growth without love, regardless of the cost.

What good is a great soul, if it leads to pain?  It can also lead to joy.  When we close ourselves off so our soul cannot grow, we block off enjoyment of other people.  We stop growing, stop caring.  And we starve ourselves and the Divine.

When we grow our soul, we grow the Universe.  We grow each other, and growth leads to growth.  If we can grow our souls great enough, we can change the world.

Questions:
What does it mean to have a great soul?  What does it cost?
Do you allow your soul to grow?  Or do you try to keep it safe?
How can a great soul change the world?

Once, in Egypt, temples were built to mirror creation.  They went down to the groundwater and were positioned in line with the stars.

We can be these temples.  Not literally, of course, or we would never move and our feet would be buried in water.  But we can anchor creation through ourselves, and live as forces for goodness and proper living.  We can let the Divine flow through us as we flow through the Divine.

This is not an easy task.  It is a call to action, to be the world we wish to see.  To act for justice and rightness in the world.  It is a call to fix what we see is wrong, not to stand aside.  We can be temples.  We can anchor the Divine in this world.

The Egyptian term for this is ma’at.  FlameKeepers refer to it as Improving the Universe.  By any language, it is a call to be that which we wish to see in the world around us.

Questions:
How are you a temple?
What does it mean to let the Divine flow through you?  Do you do it?
How do you bring about creation?  Are you aligned with the world around you?  Do you anchor the world against that which is wrong?

We are all gateways for each other to the Divine.  I allow you into the Divine through me, and you allow me into the Divine through you.

It is easy to see ourselves as separate, individual.  This god comes to me and not to you, that one comes to you and not to me.  We are separate.  But if I open my heart, and open my soul, I become a gateway for the gods into the world of humanity.

This is not self-abnegation.  It isn’t destroying the self to serve.  It is opening the self and being more.  It is finding the power inside yourself to open, even knowing that it will lead to hurt.  Our souls are flowers, and a flower can only live if it unfurls.  We can hold tight to what we are, petals curled over our tender innards, and never let anything near them.  Or we can open to the sun and those that pass by, and I can enrich you, and you can enrich me.

It’s easy to deny, to curl ourselves into balls on our stems and hold what we have for ourselves.  But it is the nature of a flower to share.  When we hold to ourselves, we rob ourselves and others of what we can be.

Open to the sun, and let the world in.

Questions:
Do you keep yourself contained, or do you allow yourself to be open?
What is the risk of being open?  What is the benefit?
How are you a gateway for the Divine?

We are the eyes and hands of the Divine.  We are the levers of God.  If we see something in the world that needs doing, we have to do it ourselves.  We cannot wait for another to do it for us.

It is easy to look at the world and say “this needs doing.”  It is much harder to roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves.  And sometimes it’s impossible to succeed alone.  But far better to tilt at windmills and try to fight the giants than to let the giants destroy all that we have.  Sometimes we will make the wrong decisions, but it is better to try and be wrong than to do nothing.  If we do nothing, all we assure is that nothing will change.

Change is scary.  Doing things is scary.  Sometimes we will have personal results that we didn’t want.  Sometimes we have to lose to win.  But we are the eyes and hands of the Divine.  If we look at the world and see evil, it is not enough to bewail it and cry out to God.  If we want something done, we have to do it ourselves.  There is no one else to do it.

Sometimes all it takes is a small push.  Sometimes it takes a life’s work and you’re still not done.  But if you never start, you’ll certainly never succeed.

Questions:
Are you living as a lever of the Divine?
What evils exist in your life?  What are you doing about them?
What would it take to do more?

The key to FlameKeeping is, of course, the Flames. Or there would be nothing to Keep.

However, the Flame itself is metaphor. There is no actual fire inside of us. It could just as easily be the inner waters and the outer waters, or the inner power and the outer power. What matters is the reality, not the metaphor we use to examine it.

Why use metaphor, then? Because some truths speak in ways the thinking mind cannot handle. We need to sneak around the intellect, the logic, and speak to the emotional side. Metaphor is not logic. It is poetry. And it sings to us in a way that cold logic never can.

But the metaphor must never be confused for the reality. We must balance our inner and outer selves, and the Flame is a good metaphor for that. But it is not the reality. It is a story we use to explain the truth to ourselves.

If the metaphor does not work, it is perfectly reasonable to find one that does. What matters is not that you use the idea of Flame, but that what you use works.

Questions:
What metaphor explains the Universe and the Divine to you? Why?
What would it mean to you to use a different metaphor? Try it.
What other metaphors are important in your life? Why?

The Divine Current flows within us all. It is a part of all that exists within the multiverse, and beyond. And yet, it seems to be beyond our reach. Even though we are a part of the Divine and the Divine is part of us, we have a hard time tapping into its Current.

This is because, in order to achieve a direct link to the Divine Current we need to be able to handle a great deal of energy. For most human beings, this Current is like a high-tension power line…hooked up to a toaster. It’s just too much for us to handle, and so we have to be content with just a little bit of what is really out there. We can tap it, but we just cannot experience the whole Flow. It would blow our minds (and quite likely our bodies).

The gods, however, are on a higher level than humans. They can tap into the Divine Current and use it (some can access and use it more than others). It won’t totally fry their systems to link to the Divine Current and use it for whatever they choose. God energy, while still a potential overload to a human, is not as direct as the Divine. We can learn to use it, if a god (or goddess) allows us to access it.

This is just one reason why a relationship with the gods is so important. With the help of the gods we can access the Divine Current and utilize it in our own lives.

Questions:
How do we connect with gods? Why?
Why is the Divine Current overwhelming?
What is the Divine Current?

We are all of the Divine. But sometimes, we lose our sense of connection, and our flames get smothered. But that does not mean we can’t ever regain our connection and respark each other’s Flame.

No Flame can be sparked without the desire of the person in question. Going out and trying to force FlameKeeping on people is a betrayal of the Divine and of the divinity of the people we’re purporting to help.

To help spark other people’s Flames, we must live honestly with our own. We must truly respect the Divinity of those around us, and we must respect our own. We can’t try to let other people live off our Flames. That’s no possible. Instead, we have to help people realize that they already have their own Flames, and are already Divine. There is nothing to aspire to in that. It is what already exists. What matters is what you do with it then.

The spark of the Divine lies within all of us. We can’t create the path: it has always been within all of us. Yet we can help each other unveil these sparks and fan them to Flame. We can open the way.
Questions:
How do you share your Flames?
What does it mean that everyone is already Divine and already has their own Flames? Do you let people live off their own Flames, or try to feed them off yours?
How do you live as a FlameKeeper? How do you integrate the Flames into your everyday life?

I’ve spoken of asking the Divine. But here I’m going to speak about opening yourself up to the Divine for it to speak through you.

It is easy to think of what it is we want and to ask for it. We all have wants and needs, and we’re taught from a very young age that we only get what we ask for. If we don’t ask, we won’t get it. So we ask.

But what we don’t translate that into is listening. The Divine asks, and we turn a deaf ear. We are given opportunities, but we ignore them because they’re not presented in a way we expect to see them. We ask the Divine, but we don’t give of ourselves in return. To refuse to give when we expect to receive is to betray the Divine.

We are the Eyes and Hands of the Divine. It cannot act but through us. We cannot wait for another to do it. It is our task, our calling. Our path to walk.

Questions:
How is being part of the Divine a responsibility?
What do you think the Divine asks of you? Do you give it?
What is it to open up to the Divine? What does it take? What does it give?

How are we both parts of the Divine and individuals? We are like lines on a page. There is one page on which we all are, but we each have a line drawn around us. There is a separation of each person, though the lines can bump into each other. But we are each our own shape.

What does it mean to be our own shape? We are individual, and that’s important. Without those lines giving each of us our shape, there is only one blank sheet of paper. It is the patterns on the paper that make it interesting. Without the patterns, there is no shape to life.

This doesn’t change the fact that we’re also all on the same piece of paper. We are all part of the same Universe, and when we ignore that reality and start trying to cut other people out of the Divine, we’re cutting ourselves. It is all one piece of paper. We can’t declare some shapes as part of a different paper and meaningless.

Questions:
How are we lines on a paper? What does it mean?
What does it mean to be interconnected?
What does it mean to be separate?

There are always times when we want or need something we don’t have. And there are ways to pursue this that are obvious (job applications for a job, going out and meeting people for more friends or a romantic connection) there are also ways to tell the Universe what it is we desire in a way that it will listen.

All that is outside is also within us. When we go far enough inside ourselves, we find the entire Universe spread out before us. Go far enough outwards, and we find ourselves in the Divine.

When there is something we need, we can petition the Divine, for we are only petitioning ourselves. Everything is part of one thing, and one piece can affect another. This is not to say that you will be answered, of course. There are many parts, and sometimes what they want conflicts with each other. But as part of the Divine we have the right to ask and be answered.

Questions:
What is worth asking for? Why?
What does it mean to petition the Divine for aid?
How does interconnectedness apply to requests for aid? What does it mean here to be all one thing as well as individuals?

What are dreams? Nothing more than the mutterings of a subconscious mind, tossing ideas back and forth? Or are they more?

Most dreams are probably garbage. We all have dreams about going back to high school, having teeth fall out, finding ourselves somewhere naked. And while they mean something about our emotional state, they’re not deep cosmic meaning dreams from the Divine.

However, some dreams have meaning. Sometimes we are reached out and touched, or we put something together, that we can’t quite grasp in waking life. When a dream resonates with you, touches something deeply, it can have great meaning, even when it isn’t easy to figure out. Gods speak in riddles and with portents, not usually clearly and obviously.

We need to be open to being spoken to in our dreams, just as we need to use discretion and common sense in interpreting what we hear.

Questions:
What do dreams mean to you?
What would it mean to get a message in your dreams? Would you hear it?
What does it mean to use discretion about dream messages? Do you over-think your dreams, or under-think them?

FlameKeeping has no salvation-concept within it. In fact, salvation is incompatible with FlameKeeping.

To need be saved, there needs to be a problem with what you already are. We believe that people are, while not perfect, already what they should be. There is room and need for improvement, but not a need for guilt over the fact that we are imperfect creatures.

We’re far from perfect creatures, of course. There are many things we could do better, understand better. There’s not a day goes by that we don’t make mistakes that have hideous consequences. But there’s no one to rescue us from that except ourselves. The more we look for a rescue from someone or something outside of ourselves, the more we limit our view to what we can do ourselves.

There’s a large desire in many people, if not all people, to find certainty. Being a sinner and needing salvation can be a certainty for many people. Or we find another way to create certainty in our lives and afterlives, for ourselves and other people. We measure our “goodness” against another person’s to measure our “progress”. But these are false measurements and false certainty, because we don’t have anyone to measure ourselves against but ourselves.
There are no easy answers. There is no easy way to deal with our spirituality. And there’s no answer which will give us an “out” from our own misdeeds and failings. But we also don’t need one.

Questions:
How do you cope with your failings? How do you cope with the fact that you can never be perfect?
What does there being no salvation mean to you? Why is salvation incompatible with FlameKeeping?
What does it mean to not have certainty? To have only yourself to measure yourself against?

It’s easy to look at objects and see them from a scientific perspective. We see the sun and it’s a ball of fire in the sky. The moon is a glowing rock reflecting sunlight. And these are truths, but are they the whole truth?

We have stripped the mystical out of our world, leaving everything just the physical. We see the trees, but we don’t see them with spirits anymore. And while populating the world with many spirits all out to hurt us (a common view in old mythology) isn’t necessarily a bad thing to leave behind, removing all the spirit from our lives isn’t good either.

The sun is, yes, a fusion factory that just goes. As that fusion factory, it doesn’t care about us, it just is. But the sun can also be seen another way: as the force which warms and nurtures the earth. Whether or not it is viewed as a god directly, it gives us a chance at life the earth wouldn’t otherwise have.

This is not to say that the sun, or any other parts of our lives that make life possible, should be worshipped directly. But I’m also not saying they shouldn’t be. We should be aware of the power and mystery of the sun, not take it for granted. Just as we should be aware of the mystery and power of the carbon-oxygen cycle which makes it possible for us to live, and the moon which gives us the tides and the light at night, and the stars, distant suns which give us dreams.

We are surrounded by mystery, if only we allow ourselves to think about it. Be aware of the Divine, and the pieces of the Divine which are visible all around us.

Questions:
How do you see the mystery in life around you?
What in your life is mystery? Do you celebrate it or try to avoid it?
Imagine life without mystery. Is it better or worse than life with it?

Our words are the words of the Divine. When we speak, the Universe speaks through us.

What does this mean? It means we must be careful when and how we speak. Words are powerful symbols of what we perceive reality to be and what we think reality should be. What we say is a statement to the Universe.

This doesn’t mean we should only speak when we have a request to make. Communication is sacred in and of itself, because when we communicate it binds us together and makes possible knowledge and understanding. Words are too important to be kept only for the sacred. This doesn’t change the fact that words are inherently sacred, however.

We need to be aware of how we speak and what we intend when we speak. Because our words recreate the Universe.

Questions:
What does it mean to speak? What does speech mean to you?
What would it mean to be unable to communicate with language? What does communication mean to you?
When is speech sacred? What does sacred speech mean compared to regular speech? Is there a difference?

“What is my purpose?”  It’s a powerful question, and one without easy answers.  We all want a purpose, but FlameKeeping does not believe we are born with specific purposes.  Instead, we have to figure out for ourselves what purpose we are capable of, and then live up to that.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t any rules.  We all have potential, and we all need to work to the boundaries of that.  When we slack off and refuse to do what we can do, we are cheating the Divine of ourselves.

How do we know if we’re working up to our potential?  That’s a question that only the individual can answer.  Just as what purposes we choose are different, so are the levels to which we can work.  Trying to define our level of ability to another person and their life sets us up to failure, even if their goals are ones we can reach.  We betray ourselves when we try to live up to other people and not ourselves.

We have to accept ourselves for what we are, and that is different from other people.  When we try to live up to other people’s goals and standards, we rob ourselves and the Divine of what we can be.

Questions:
What are your goals?  What are you doing to reach them?
What do you think you should be doing?  Are you?
What does the Divine want of you?  Do you know?  Is it what you want from yourself, or different?

What is sacrifice? It’s giving something up to another. We sacrifice regularly in our lives, giving to our family and friends, even our workplace. What does it mean to sacrifice for our religion and the Divine, however, and what do we give?

The Divine does not need things. It is everything that is. Giving it once piece of itself back to itself just moves bits around. There is only one thing we have to give, and that is ourselves. We are the sacrifice.

I don’t mean we should go flinging ourselves on altars. This is a sacrifice that involves living, not dying. We need to give ourselves in life to the Divine, knowing that we’re giving ourselves to a greater version of ourselves. This isn’t a stepping aside, but a stepping up. Not into leadership necessarily, but simply into service. Into doing.

What this sacrifice will entail is different for each person. As we are all different, we are all called to different work to suit our strengths or shore up our weaknesses. We are called to beautify and improve the Universe, of which we are part. This isn’t a sacrifice that destroys ourselves to improve others. It is a sacrifice of our time and our effort that improves ourselves along with the Universe around us.

Sacrifice is scary. We are asked to give of ourselves for an unknown reward, if any, and sometimes for unknown reasons. It’s reasonable to not want to give oneself into sacrifice, especially when we’re not sure what we’re being asked or what it will cost. But when we refuse to give, we also refuse to live. Giving ourselves in sacrifice is a loss, but it’s also a chance at incredible gain. We just have to let go and give.

Questions:
What do you give in sacrifice? Why?
What have you gained from sacrifice? Do you think it’s worth it?
What do you refuse to sacrifice? Do you think this is reasonable? What do you think that costs you?

The Divine uses many ways to try and communicate with us. Some of these means are subtle inner promptings from within. But sometimes the Divine works through gods.

The gods are indivduals, like us, but closer to an understanding of their Divine nature. They work with people on an individual basis, using images and words to break into our mundane existance.

So what does it mean to deal with a god directly? What does it mean not to?

Having a god bothering one directly is no sign of especial holiness. We are all equal in the eyes of the Divine. Being godbothered, instead, is a sign of having work to do. There is something that we are particularly suited to do, and we have been chosen to do it. And being godbothered can also be a sign that we are being particularly thickheaded, as we cannot find our calling without direct pushing.

To be godbothered is to be called for something specific. This does not mean that there aren’t other things we need to do as well. It simply means that we have a specific task. It’s not a sign of holiness or something to be especially proud over. It is simply a calling and a way to improve the Universe that we are called to do.

Questions:
What does being called to a task mean to you?
If you could be called by any god, who would that be and why? What do gods mean to you?
Would you rather be called to a task or choose your own? Why?

Ecstasy is something totally outside daily experience. It transcends us, throwing ourselves into a world of beauty and wonder and terror. Ecstasy breaks all boundaries, destroys preconceptions, reshapes the world in a frightening instinct. It is that moment when things become clear that weren’t, that the world around you changes into itself, that everything you’ve ever believed is charged with new significance or destroyed as meaningless.

Ecstasy defies easy description. It is that moment when your soul reverberates with the Universe, and no words can describe that. But we try, oh, we try. We build religions and boxes of words to shove transcendant ecstasy into, and try to contain that ecstasy into safe parts of our lives. We want it in the box where we can pull it out when we want to bask in it again, and shove it back away when it’s not convenient. But we can’t. Ecstasy transforms all or doesn’t come to us. It exists in a place out of words, out of easy understanding.

I cannot say what ecstasy means. The words we have don’t describe it. It must be experienced, and each person’s experience will be different. Or perhaps they’re all the same, but we perceive it differently. We can open our lives for it and never find it, or we can run ourselves to the ground and have it appear out of nowhere. It is a gift and sometimes a curse that blows us away.

Ecstasy needs to be welcomed into our lives. It makes us more ourselves, more powerfully changed by the world around us and more powerful to change the world. We need to make space for ecstasy, even while admitting that ecstasy cannot be shoehorned into specific space, forced into time that’s convenient for us. We have to allow our lives to change, to look at more than day-to-day concerns.

There are ways to welcome ecstasy into our lives. We have to give ourselves time for ecstasy, time that allows for our world to change in ways we can’t predict and control. We have to allow for change and chaos, to accept the change that will happen to our lives and still seek it knowing we won’t know what will happen until it’s too late. We have to let go and accept that the Universe is bigger than we are, and just allow what will happen to happen. We cannot control. The best we can hope for is that the transformation is something we accept instead of resisting.

Questions:
Do you allow room for ecstasy in your life? Do you try to keep it boxed?
Could you accept transformation if it happened to you? Do you want it?
If ecstasy came to you, what parts of your life would have to change? What box of words would it open?