Fire Dancing
Why does fire dance its merry dance for me, but burn me when I try to poke it?
———- from Jerry Goldstein of Charleston SC
You must win back fire’s trust. Oh sure, it was easy to be fire’s friend when all it was doing was dancing for you, but now that you’re jabbing it with a stick, displaced feelings of aggression come into play, and you project onto the fire the very feelings you’re acting out. You say you’re from Missouri. That could be the key to solving this dilemma. Go somewhere where people use gas for heating and cooking. Get to know one of those uniform, predictable blue flames. Then, when you’re comfortable around fire, go back to Missouri, hunker down round the fire with Lem, Abner and all the gang, and see if you can take that sense of trust back to Hooterville, or wherever.
You must win back fire’s trust. Oh sure, it was easy to be fire’s friend when all it was doing was dancing for you, but now that you’re jabbing it with a stick, displaced feelings of aggression come into play, and you project onto the fire the very feelings you’re acting out. You say you’re from Missouri. That could be the key to solving this dilemma. Go somewhere where people use gas for heating and cooking. Get to know one of those uniform, predictable blue flames. Then, when you’re comfortable around fire, go back to Missouri, hunker down round the fire with Lem, Abner and all the gang, and see if you can take that sense of trust back to Hooterville, or wherever.