I said to an old friend last night, “Who would have ever thought I’d turn out to be a pyro?”  I was the kid who was afraid to move their finger through the candle flame.  In March 2004 I saw my first fire performance, and I was so entranced I just had to learn it.  Though I remained tentative around flame.  Always taking every precaution possible, and for years never touched it.

Yet on Friday after my performance I was nervous.  I felt like I hadn’t done anything particularly special.  The whole time there wasn’t a moment of danger or anything that was unexpected.  Fire is now a friend.  I understand it, every moment I’m working from it.  Moving through flame, contact with flame, holding it in my mouth, and eating it.  It’s a subject I know and am comfortable with.  Being scared of it is a memory.

It took remembering my old fear to recognize what I gave to the audience.  Remembering the work of countless moments with fire.  It’s a relationship I’ve been building for over five years.  At this point is so familiar, and filled with so much joy and love.  My last thought is that it is unusual.

I love replacing fear with understanding.  The confrontation is the best part for me.  The moment when the relationship begins to change.  What I admire about folks in the scene is their lack of fear and total regard for what they do.

When I tell people I have an aversion to needles, some folks say maybe it’s not your thing.  Though I think of it much like fire, full of old fears, I view it as a stranger.  It is simply something I need to get to know.  I want to understand it, I want to be familiar with the sensation, to form a relationship with it.

For me, it’s spiritual.  It’s a closeness to the soul.  Everytime I surpass a limit I learn, I get closer to myself, and to that which I’ve confronted.  I succeed when I am in full awareness of it, ceasing to filter myself within the moment.  It’s a journey that’s endless.  That’s part of the joy, there will always be something new to experience.

When other people are included on this journey, for whatever length of time we are allowed to share the path we get to also forge this connection with each other.  People who have lent themselves to scenes with me, even simply lent themselves as witnesses, I feel that connection with.  A shared knowledge of what we are.