A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FIRE

These experiences we can only find in individuals for whom religion exists not as a dull habit, but as an acute fever…
- William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. - Revelations

Fire is the archetypal form of matter. The world-order as a whole can be described as a fire of which measures are being extinguished, corresponding measures being rekindled; not all of it is burning at the same time. It always has been, and always will be, in this condition. - Heraclitus

God is not fire elementary, that heateth a body and burneth it; but God is love and charity. For as fire wasteth all bodily thing that may be wasted, right so the love of God burneth and wasteth all sin out of the soul and maketh it clean, as fire maketh clean all manner metal. - Walter Hilton

Last year, I gazed at the fire.
This year I’m burnt kabob. - Jelaluddin Rumi

All his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge… As the heat of a fire reduces wood to ashes, the fire of knowledge burns to ashes all karma. Nothing in this world purifies like spiritual wisdom. - Bhagavad Gita

Here on Earth is the same as in the Sky Land. - Native American prayer

Fiery the Angels rose, & as they rose deep thunder roll’d
Around their shores: indignant burning with the fires of Orc. - William Blake

(All photos were taken in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada)