A version of this post first appeared in Vol. 114 of Light Reading, our email newsletter. If you would like to receive messages like this every Sunday, please send an email to info@christinst.org.
Summer is officially upon us, and it's hot out there. The first day of the season brought triple digit temperatures to the west coast, while other parts of the country saw roads literally melting. We all know what we're supposed to do to beat the heat - drink plenty of water and stay hydrated; try not to go out in the middle of the day; wear sunscreen and breathable clothing; cook in the morning; take cold showers - but for those of us who pay attention to the spirit as well as the body, even the heat offers novel opportunities for reflection and unfoldment.
To meditate upon heat as a means of personal unfoldment, one must begin by understanding its symbology. On its own, heat is simply energy. In psychoanalysis, heat symbolizes psychic energy, the life drive pushing individuals forward. Heat is invisible, abstract, metaphysical, and to better understand it, we need a means to visualize it. To do that, we have to turn to the source of heat.
Heat radiates off flames and fire, which is a complex symbol. The negative aspect of fire is destruction. As a punitive symbol, it appears in multiple passages of the book of Leviticus, which describes moral law for the Israelites, as well as in the ancient “Book of Two Ways,” a guide to the perilous Egyptian underworld. In the Gospel of Matthew, fire separates wheat from weeds. The fire Jesus describes in the parable is as purifying as it is punitive, and it points the way toward fire's more positive aspects.
In alchemy, fire was the element of transmutation, used in efforts to turn base metals into gold, which indicated the transformative journey of spiritual attainment. Fire also is associated with the cosmic sun, and therefore it is Divinity, the act of creation and the origin of life. Altogether, fire is the creator, transformer and destroyer, a complete cycle. Accordingly, the folklorist Sir James Frazer associated traditional fire rituals with harvests, growth and human well-being.
With this in mind, it should be clear what the spiritual lesson of heat really is. Heat is not simply energy; it is energy realized. It is the potential of raw, elemental fire transformed into metaphysical reality. Fire - which is life, transformation and perfection - is too hot to touch. However, we can safely encounter heat, which is life giving, transforming and purifying. Heat is both tangible and invisible, a reminder of its spiritual dimension. When we embrace that kind of heat in our own lives, we are bringing the spiritual forces that create, uplift and perfect ourselves into our personal reality.
Heat is a reminder that our spiritual values are recursive, and have both a creative center and a radiating path. For example, thoughts about compassion should not lay dormant but stir us toward charitable acts - the spiritual and intellectual made physical and communal. When we act charitably, we have an opportunity to be useful and realize a better world, and in doing so, we feel better about ourselves and those around us - the physical and communal remade intellectual and spiritual. Such actions produce a synergy between our material and metaphysical selves, uplifting and unfolding us as holistic beings. That is the goal of spirituality: personal unfoldment, positive realization without and within, and a more enlightened reality, all aspects of a bright and beautiful whole.