It was the longest trip I ever made and it took maybe ten seconds. It happened in a Victoria city schoolyard one summer evening a few years back. There were maybe twelve people in my group but we didn't spend much time socializing. We were too deep into our own thoughts about the reason we had gathered there at that time. We were going to walk on fire.
And we did. All of us. We gathered in the early evening to pile split alder pieces in a great heap, and then the leader set it alight. If he was supposed to be some guru, he certainly didn't fit the image. We had all heard about the event, signed up and paid a very modest amount to be coached through the process of walking on fire. Now, here we were, the twelve of us grouped around this pile of wood that would become our bed of coals.
I think we all wondered the same thing as we looked around the circle of such a variety of people – couples, young people, elders – why were you here? I had enrolled with a phone call to a number scribbled on a piece of paper from someone I barely knew. He had been talking animatedly to a cluster of people at a meeting and when I got closer I heard him say:
"So I used my wife's lipstick and wrote on the bathroom mirror, 'Of course you can do it. You walked on fire'."
I asked and walked away with the phone number. Now I was watching the alder logs catch fire and wondering if I really wanted what I had signed up for.
We went inside while some assistants stayed to watch the blaze. Our host took us to a classroom where we sat in a circle trying to look cool, at least I did, and there was definitely no pun intended. The lack of conversation probably gave us away.
Someone once described teenagers as people who haven't quite got their act securely together yet, but the young folk amongst us seemed far more relaxed than the rest of us, and chatted together or with neighbours as if they did this sort of thing every night. After the "So, how'd you hear about this thing?" and an answer much the same as mine, there seemed to be nothing to talk about. Except fear, and I didn't want to talk about that.
When I was five years old, my brother was playing with matches and set fire to the insulation in an upstairs bedroom that Dad was in the process of building. His yells were my first signal that something wasn't right and when I came into the hallway to see what was up, I was staring at a wall of fire in my parent's room. We ran down the stairs just as Dad came tearing up.
I remember being put in the car which Dad backed out of the driveway to the safety of a neighbour's yard, and then watching as firemen arrived to climb onto the roof and spray water onto great sheets of flame that burst through the roof and from the windows. I hadn't thought about that for a long time. Maybe it was the songs that put me back into childhood memories.
"Let's try 'She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain,'" called out our leader. He was perched on a stool at the front of the room with his guitar and was just a great bubbling font of conviviality. I refocused on the man and tried to work up some enthusiasm. He stopped for a while after the song and told us it was time to give instructions for the fire walk, promising to go over them again before we started. We all straightened up and listened hard.
He looked out at us making eye contact and adopting a serious demeanour as he said, "The way to walk on fire is to put one foot in front of the other and to keep doing that until you reach the other side.
"Now let's try a round. This side first. Here we go. Row, row, row your boat."
It went on like that for about an hour or so. Many of the group got right into the spirit of the evening and called out campfire songs. If they were faking it, they were doing a good job of it. I kept looking at the clock. Finally, he said it was time and led us back outside where we removed our shoes and socks and formed a circle around a fire that had burned down to a bed of coals and low flame about ten metres or twelve to fifteen good steps across. Then the man got serious.
"This fire is hot. If you stop, you can be very badly burned, even crippled for life. Do Not Do This if you do not feel you want to. There is nothing shameful in not doing something that can hurt you as badly as this can if you do not follow instructions. Again I say, 'The way to walk on fire is to start where you are and put one foot in front of the other until you reach the other side.' There is no mystical metaphysical process at work here. When you reach the far side, take a few steps onto the grass. I will been on one side and someone else will be on the other with a garden hose to rinse off your feet and make sure you don't have any coals stuck to them. I do not answer questions. You know all that you need to know, and you will know when you are ready to walk."
We stood looking at the flames and glowing coals. Then two of the youngsters joined hands and calmly walked across. I saw it but it didn't seem real. Then another person did it. A grey-haired couple followed. Everyone wanted to be next it seemed, except me. They were smiling and high-fiving and hugging each other. I was the last person and I was so terrified I thought I was going to wet myself.
That would be a reasonable thing. I could just tell them, "Hold it, I have to go to the toilet. Be right back." Then I walked across.
At some point, I found myself in motion and I followed instructions and reached the far side and had the ash rinsed off and wondered how in hell I had done what I had just done. I'm looking back on the thing now from the distance of quite a few years, and I cannot say that at some point I knew in some mysterious way that I could do it or that I summoned the courage to walk. I just found myself in motion putting "one foot in front of the other".
There were no burns, no blisters, no discomfort. We talked a bit about the experience – those who wanted to – and then we put out the fire, cleaned up the site and went home. I awoke some time after midnight with a burning sensation in my feet, but I can't ascribe that feeling to any metaphysical relationship with the fire walk. I rubbed them a bit and went back to sleep. The biggest reaction came on Monday when I told people at my school.
In response to the common-enough question,"Well, what did you do this weekend?" I had a story to top anyone. "I walked on fire," I said and looked around for reactions. The first one I got was forceful and dismissive. The physics teacher wanted to set things right.
"It's no big deal," he claimed. "There are lots of reasons why anyone can do it with no problems."
And then he launched into a lesson on the insulating effect of wood ash and perspiration from soles of feet and a few other scientific principles that put everything squarely into context for all of us.
I waited for him to finish and told the group that explanations didn't really matter in the face of the fear that had held me for so much of that evening. Then I left.
I know the science teacher wasn't being nasty; he simply valued the science he knew and he wanted to contribute to his colleagues. But explanation or contribution or just Monday-morning coffee-room chatter, none of it was as real as the those twelve steps.
To this day, the koan for action in the face of fear - or embarrassment, or the thought about Who am I to do this? or Other people know better, or whatever - is that instruction to "start where you are and put one foot in front of the other until you reach the other side." I am ashamed to say that I don't always heed that voice, but I am the better for it when I do.