The Fire Within Part 3

July 9, 2026

The embers of a fire glow steadily, warming and radiating long after the flames have settled. Fire can burst forth like fireworks, dance in flickering light, or glow quietly beneath the surface. Yet fire is not only something we encounter in the physical world, but it also burns within us.

We feel it in our bodies, where its steady embers ground us and give us the courage to take our stand in life. We feel it in our hearts, where it erupts as love that refuses to die. We feel it in our minds, where sparks of curiosity drive us to seek, to know, to create, and to become.

But where did this fire come from?

Did you place it within yourself? Did you will it into existence? Did you pray it into being?

No.

This fire is not something we invented, earned, or manufactured. It is not a product of the ego, nor one of the ego's many attempts to imitate the Divine. It is the Divine itself—unobscured, uncovered, and palpable in every moment of our lives.

This inner fire is the fire of Being. It is the life force, the sacred aliveness, woven into our body, heart, and mind, from the beginning. It fuels us, shapes our destiny, and quietly beckons us home to the Source from which it came.

Yet many of us lose touch with this fire, our essential nature.  We become trapped in the chatter of the ego mind and begin to live from our thoughts alone. Detached from the deeper current of our being, we move through life like talking heads—thinking, analyzing, and reacting—while remaining disconnected from the fullness of who we are.

In her classic work Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés explores the feminine life force through myths, stories, and archetypes. She believed that many women become disconnected from their essential nature when society scripts them into roles that estrange them from their deepest selves.

She writes:

"As we create, this wild and mysterious being is creating us in return, filling us with love."

And elsewhere:

"Go out in the woods, go out. If you don't go out in the woods, nothing will ever happen, and your life will never begin."

Estés invites women to reclaim their primal identities—the nurturer, protector, truth-teller, creator, lover, and fierce defender of life. She reminds women that they are not separate from nature, or their own inner nature, but are expressions of it.

Similarly, Sam Keen explores the masculine life force in his classic book Fire in the Belly. Keen challenges men to move beyond narrow cultural myths that define masculinity through stoicism, domination, competition, emotional distance, or the relentless need to prove oneself.

Instead, he reimagines the warrior as one who fights for justice, protects the vulnerable, safeguards the earth, and lives with integrity. He urges men to discover the deeper fire within—the passion, purpose, tenderness, courage, and authenticity that lie beneath social expectations.

Listen to this from Sam: 

“Burnout is nature's way of telling you, you've been going through the motions, your soul has departed; you're a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administering stimulants to an exhausted nervous system.”

Though they speak to different audiences, Estés and Keen arrive at the same truth: beneath all our roles, identities, and conditioning lies a sacred fire. It is older than culture, deeper than personality, and wiser than the ego.

When we reconnect with that fire, we stop trying to become someone else and begin inhabiting who we have always been. We discover that the Divine is not distant or hidden. It burns within us—warming, guiding, transforming, and calling us home.

The question is not “Where has my fire gone?” It is “How can I reconnect to it?”

Spiritual Practice Tell someone you love, the things about them—their countenance, their way of moving in the world, the way they love, that signifies to you, their life’s fire.

Inquiry Why would we feel affirmed when someone points out how we express our fire?

Prayer

Dear God,

For the fire inside us, I am so grateful… it is the reminder that it is You in me.

Amen