"Fire Ritual for a New Future"

A video still from, "Fire Ritual for a New Future," the ritual created by Aliah Lavonne Jahan-Tigh for Breathing in the Time of Disaster, a collection of digital installations that came together to create Cassie Mira and Ching-In Chen’s larger work.

Before the vernal equinox, many Iranians and others perform fire rituals. Fire is associated with truth, cleansing, and a strength that exists beyond the individual. In the last days of winter, just before spring, many of us ask for a trade—"your red flame for my yellow pallor.” Today’s ritual comes from my own cultural hybridity, but I do not promote a specific dogma—my intention is to bring you back to your own grounding, your own ancestors, or whatever Good form that illuminates and strengthens you. Or just a safe meditative and empowered place in the present.

You’ll need two candles. One for the prayer for past healing and loss. I borrowed a candle from my mom—this borrowing made sense to me. A second candle for the prayer for our future—for this part, I used my Chaharshanbeh Suri red candle because I have a long grief-and-very-much-hope-soaked history with it.

What is possible if we feel our feelings and then collectively connect to what makes us strong? What happens when we burn away our self protective skepticism, and instead, enumerate our demands for the future? I hope we’ll honor grief, refuse numbness, re-connect, and then boldly ask for a new season and new future.

“Fire Ritual for a New Future'“ Ritual written & documented by Aliah Lavonne Jahan-Tigh for “Breathing in the Time of Disaster,” a community healing art installation by Ching-In Chen and Cassie Mira Jack Straw Center for Creative Art, Fall/Winter 2022. To learn more about the larger project, please look here.