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Fire does not exist in all worlds.

In order to exist, Fire requires three things: a spark, oxygen, and fuel.

If any of these is lacking, there will be no Fire.

Since fuel is (more or less by definition) organic, this means that Fire exists only on planets that support life. Of all the planets that we know to be, Fire exists only on ours. Fire may live on other planets as well, but this we do not know.

To the ancestors, Fire was a god (or goddess). In the Vedas, Fire is called the Youngest God, because he is constantly reborn.

Well, Yule is well and truly gone.

Gone the tree, with all its treasures.

Gone the green: the mistletoe, the holly, the ivy.

All is stripped away now, burned away to ash.

What remains, essential, is the seed, the core, the center.

Fire: the pure, pure flame.

I’m always nervous when I need to write about an unknown divinity and especially when it comes from a culture where I have to rely upon transliterated information. Kojin is the next deity from the atheist’s graveyard. I find him interesting in that he is a male divinity of the hearth.

When the thede (tribe) of witches foregathers, as we did recently at this year's Midwest Grand Sabbat, we kindle (wood on wood, in the old way) the traditional Fire of Gathering.

The Fire burns continuously throughout the time of assembly. Everyone tends it; offerings are made to it daily. It roars at the very heart of the sabbat itself, and on our final morning together it is ritually extinguished. People take the ashes home with them when they leave.

Anyone who grows up in a traditional culture knows how to behave around a sacred fire—how it differs from a household fire, for instance—and doesn't have to be taught What You Do and What You Don't. For those of us who (alas) did not grow up in such a culture, how then does one impart these rules, the Does and Don'ts of sacred Fires, in a manner that doesn't devolve into learning boring lists of regulations?

Well, my friend and colleague Chris Moore came up with the perfect way to do it: you give people a metaphor.

Monday morning dawns bright and cheerful which doesn’t match my mood at all.  After a rough night of sleep filled with pain, I only want more darkness and sleep to smooth out the rough edges.  However, I’m a responsible adult (mostly) and have to be at work. 

Somehow I have to smooth out the rough edges to get through my day.  Coffee is not something which helps me.  I’ve never liked it nor do I ever drink it.  I have to find other things which will ease my grumpiness. 

Me, when I hear “Midsummer's,” I tend to think "Bonfire."

But of course, that's not the whole story.

Because on Midsummer's Eve there's not just a blessing on the Fire. There's also a blessing on the Waters.

They say that on this night the Sun and the Moon come down to bathe in the waters. For Christian folk it's John the Baptist's night, and what does “baptize” mean in Greek but “dunk” in plain old English? People may have different reasons, but they all agree on what you're supposed to do.

“There's no true religion without fire.”

Robert Cochrane

A horn calls: the Voice of Thunder, speaking the Primal Word.

A young man runs in, bare-chested. He's carrying a torch. The flame streams behind him as he runs, like the tail of a comet.

He rings the clearing once, then darts to the center and lights the laid and willing wood.

And so we begin.