Each month in Wilton, community members led by “firekeeper” Chris Griffin gather around a sacred fire to share about their lives, connect and release their burdens.
“If you look at archaeological record and at history, we spent 800,000 years sitting around fires together. It’s only since industrialization that this has changed,” Griffin said. “If you look at our timeline, as humans, most of our time at night was spent gathering around fires with other people, and this is what’s built into our DNA. What has replaced it in the modern world is TV, social media, the internet — and as a result, what we have now is a lot of mental health problems, isolation and disconnection.”
The public is welcome at the fire circles. For information, send email to chris.griffin@sacredfire.org.
Griffin, a longtime Wilton resident, is board chair of “Sacred Fire,” an international nonprofit which “advocates for the healing benefits of connecting to the spiritual essence of fire.” The organization trains people to become firekeepers, who facilitate emotional connection at the fire circles.
“Gathering around a fire with others has been called ‘the original form of therapy,’” Griffin said. “While Sacred Fire has been training and initiating firekeepers for 20 years, it is really in the past five years that we have perfected the process for how to do this in a deeply effective way. We have developed a curriculum and have a proven track record for training people in how to produce beneficial transformation in the lives of others.”
According to Griffin, Sacred Fire’s firekeepers have special permission to use traditional offerings from the Central American-based Huichol spiritual tradition, in which Griffin trained, to consecrate the fire. He is quick to clarify that the community fires are “not a Huichol ceremony; they provide a space where people from all religions and paths can gather together in a safe space to explore connection through our common humanity.”
“We use these offerings to consecrate the fire, creating a ritual space for our work. It creates a wonderful environment for sharing our lives, our joys and also our challenges, and the things that weigh heavy on us, the strains and troubles of modern life,” he said.
Sacred Fire has initiated firekeepers on four continents and eight countries. According to Griffin, the mission of Sacred Fire is to “support a way of living that restores an essential form of human connection through community fires, the organization’s ‘lifeways’ programs, which provide online and live programs and resources; and community events such as ‘Fire Speaks.’”
“Every firekeeper is committed to offering a sacred fire circle to their community once a month, free of charge,” Griffin said. “Our approach to firekeeping is that it’s rooted in a very traditional approach to working with emotions, with firekeepers trained to help people connect with their emotional expression.”
Griffin said people leave the gatherings “in a state that is greatly shifted from when they arrived.”
“People walk away with a feeling of lightness, like something has been burned away and removed. It creates openness for connection to other people. Fire has a spiritual presence that touches something very deep within us, a part of us that innately knows how the world works, and how we find our place within it, ” Griffin said.
According to Griffin, the Monadnock region is particularly special because of the strong presence of Grand Monadnock. On Aug. 21 to 24, Griffin will host “The Story of Mount Monadnock and Fire Speaks” at Camp Wanocksett in Dublin.
“I am super excited about our upcoming Fire Speaks event, which will be happening right at the base of the sacred mountain,” Griffin said. “Our community’s ‘elder,’ who is a fully initiated shaman in two different indigenous traditions, will provide the voice for the Sacred Fire to speak to us. This event is very unusual by our modern standards, but the phenomenon is well-known and recognized within many traditional societies.”
Griffin says the Fire Speaks process, in which the elder “gives his body over to the presence of fire,” allows for “access to ancient wisdom and knowledge that is unavailable in any other way. “
Griffin notes that the process is not “channeling,” such as practiced by spiritual mediums.
“This is very different. What we do is grounded in a purposeful, meaningful life. The intent is to help people who are having challenges in the modern world, which is everyone. No one is 100% happy and satisfied; everyone has challenges, ” he said. “The most important thing we do for people is to help them start to be able to recognize the presence of the divine, or the voice of the heart, within their lives. Through attending Fire Speaks, we can find purpose and gain deeper understanding of who we are, and what our purpose is. The community fires present an opportunity for ongoing support to the process of opening.”
The Fire Speaks event in Dublin includes the option of a three-day community-building retreat which will center on construction of a sweat lodge, followed by a sweat lodge ceremony and the reenactment of a sacred story.
To register for this event, visit sacredfire.org/fire-speaks.
Griffin is also a plant spirit medicine healer, a musician and co-owner, with business partner DanaLynn Marangi, of the Rise Up! Center in Wilton’s River Arts Mill complex, where he participates in Sacred Song Circles the first Saturday of the month. By day, Griffin works in research and development at a major medical device company.
For a complete schedule of events at Rise Up! Center go to riseupcenter.org.
The next sacred fire gatherings will happen on Saturday, July 19, and Saturday, Aug. 9, at Griffin’s home in Wilton. The community fires are free and open to all. For information, contact Griffin at chris.griffin@sacredfire.org.