The Escape Fire
A team of fifteen experienced smoke-jumpers parachuted into a forest in an attempt to contain a raging fire fueled by increasing winds. The blaze became out of control and soon the team of smoke-jumpers were running for their lives, racing to the top of a steep ridge. Their foreman, Wag Dodge, recognized that they would not make it out alive with this fire quickly consuming the forest and all the underbrush.
With the fire barely two hundred yards behind Wag, he made a strange and unexpected decision. Right on the spot, a survival solution came to Wag and he instantly recognized the genius of that solution. Wag realized that forest already burnt by the fire would be a safe haven because the fire needs new forest and underbrush to continue igniting and blazing. The only reason a fire eradicates itself is because all the fuel, the forest and underbrush, has already been burnt,…fire does not backtrack,…so under it’s own violation the fire ceases any more destruction.
Wag's crew must have thought he had lost perspective of this dire life threatening situation as he took a small lighter out of his pocket, bent down and set fire to the grass directly in front of him. Fueled by high winds the fire spread quickly uphill, he stepped into the middle of the newly burnt area, calling for his crew to join him.
But nobody followed Wag
The team looked back and saw where Wag was standing, they ignored him, clinging to what they had been taught as a survival skill, and they literally ran from the answer that would save them. In mere seconds the fire raged past Wag and overtook the crew, killing thirteen men and burning 3,200 acres. Because Wag was standing in the already burnt out area Wag and another smoke-jumper survived nearly unharmed except for smoke inhalation.
Wag Dodge had invented what is now called an “escape fire,” and it has now become standard practice.
How does story and technique apply to your life ?
How many of us have been in challenging situations that we thought we had the answer to ? Many times, many times. We had the 'answer' because we had been taught ‘the answer’ in our early upbringing and education. That ‘answer’ became the accepted fool proof method. But that answer can turn out to be as deadly an answer to follow as Wag's other firefighters followed to their demise.
When it comes down to practical application and an actual real life problem staring us right in the face as it did Wag Dodge,…sometimes we have to trust another wisdom way beyond traditionally accepted methods. Wag survived because he went against the practiced and traditional answer and aligned himself with an inner knower. He heard the solution and invented the escape for both him to survive and his crew. As clear as the new answer was for him to see, it put fear in his crew’s eyes. Unfortunately for that oversight, they perished.
How many times have you really put these fool proof answers to test ?
How many times has a person come along into your life and gave you the answer you have been seeking ? How many times have you inwardly heard an answer that went against what you were taught as foolproof, an answer that would be completely against what you have been taught as a solution ? Then as life unfolds, a circumstance enters our life where you have the opportunity to use this new answer, but you buckle under pressure of your peers.
When you do that you stay in the drama of life because you went along with the crowd mentality. And what happens ?,… you parish with your peers into more life drama and unproductive ways of thinking and being. Yet, you had the answer given to you by someone who presented an out-of-the-box type of thinking and brought you to a new insight. You could have survived the issue challenging you as well as your peers…but you went for the learned response.
The Escape Fire is your answer
It is an approach that gives you the permission to back away from what you think you know. The Escape Fire allows you to lean into being in the present moment with the situation you are involved with and receive an answer that will evolve you into a new way of being and expressing yourself.
The Escape Fire actually will protect you from your past negative experiences.
Wag placed his physical body in the burnt out brush area for protection. Think about that, he stood where the ground was still soldering. His wisdom told him that a fire needs fuel to burn and because where he would elect to stand the fire would not harm him any longer. Was he scared ? I’m quite sure he was.
Similar to what Wag did, you can stand in your past experiences and not have fear to be burnt by them again. Sure you will possibly re-feel what the experience was that initially harmed you. But all you are doing is re-experiencing the past event.
You are not going through the experience again
The experience is not happening to you again. It’s just a re-remembrance. This is a very important distinction to have. Like Wag his wisdom knew that the fire would not turn back because there was no fuel for it to burn again,…it had already been used. This is subtle but if you comprehend and integrate the distinction but it will allow you to heal by actually proving to yourself that after the remembered event passes you are still healthy on all levels of mind, emotion and body. Totally safe and with a new found wisdom how to champion other traumatic experiences in your life.
Put to use the Escape Fire technique
Practice being in the present moment as Wag Dodge did. He received this wisdom in a split second. The same will occur to you and your life when you begin to function from your intuition.
Your intuition is always available to you,…your intuition is always communicating with you,..
will you have the courage to hear it?
About the Author: Earl Valentovic
I have been involved and studied various fields of personal interest from; the bounty of nature, financial markets, philosophy, metaphysics, self-actualization and mindfulness meditation to name a few. What I have found is that everything is connected,…all of life intersects and interacts. There are no coincidences. At times an obvious connection reveals itself. At other times the connection has not yet shown itself.
My writing will explore various avenues of perception. I will be challenging the socially accepted myths and beliefs by investigating these myths and beliefs that you and I are living under. Most of what I will be presenting is best stated by Albert Einstein, "We cannot solve a problem with the same thinking we used to create the problem." Hopefully that is what my writing will initiate in the reader,..when you begin to think differently, you will begin to experience your life differently.
I am not attempting to change anyone’s mindset,…I'm simply presenting my discoveries. My hope is to touch a chord within the reader that will challenge their own myths and by doing that the reader will discover the personal power and greatness that they possess.
