Years ago I took a woman’s self defense course which ended with the empowering ‘board breaking ritual.’ Two edges of a square wooden board are placed on two firm objects. In our case, two chairs. The hand slices through the wood to break it. It is about overcoming fear and doubt. Will I hurt myself? What if I can’t do it? The usual noise heard in the back of our head. But you do it and the feeling is indescribable. Having taken a self defense course you now really do know that you can, if needed, break a clavicle, nose or damage some other part of somebody to save yourself.

So now fast forward to Quantum Leaps Lodge. We are in the work room, called the Rumi Room, named after the Persian Sufi poet of the 13th century. Through the window the forest becomes transfixed as strained glass.  

We sit on the floor with colouring materials and our piece of wood. On it we are to write something we wish to break free from. There is apprehension in the air. But I have a silent confidence. I have done this before. I can do it, no sweat. I lose focus. Indeed I realize my doodlings on the wood are of new found parts of me, not those I wish to remove. Did it really matter? Surely this was only an exercise in overcoming fear? But it did matter.

On the shores of the Blaeberry River the sun was setting. The fire was blazing, preparing the embers upon which we would soon walk. 

 Brandon about to break his board

 Two logs were upended upon which the boards to be broken would be placed. My turn came. Because of my short stature I asked for smaller logs on which to place my board. There was no fear. I imagined my hand in the position below the plank. I envisaged it having sliced through the wood. I breathed deeply. I let fly. My hand hit the wood with a painful thud. The board did not break. How quickly self doubt wells up. I tried three times. My hand was bruising. I knew I must stop, bewildered.

I would later make an interpretation of what had happened but for now I was filled with self doubt.  Others began the next exercise. They snapped the shaft of an arrow by leaning into it to bend it. The point was at their throat, the feathered end supported by another’s palm. I did not want to face my fears at that moment so I did not try. I wanted to prepare myself for the challenge still to come.

The bonfire collapsed, the burning embers were raked out to make a flat walking surface. We removed our footwear. Our bare feet stood on the cool bank above the river. We walked across the burning embers. I did it twice.

 photographer  Dawn Joy DeFord

The photographer recorded my hands clenched in fists, a walk of determination and a hint of a smile as I realized – it wasn’t hot!

Photographer Elke B

Many have asked me why people do it. Why did I do it? I suppose it is about self empowerment. To test one’s fear and doubt in the face of logic. After all, wood and human flesh are poor conductors of heat. If I had stood still on the embers for a period of time, I would have been burned. But I kept moving. If a sheet of metal, a good conductor of heat, had been placed over the smoldering wood and I had walked on that…well I would have ended up in hospital. But the mind sometimes does not behave appropriately to logic.  
Often we cannot believe what has proven to be real and create our own version of reality.

Later, my ash stained feet

Facing and then overcoming fear reminds me that I have many choices; differing ways to behave and attitudes to develop in a particular situation. Therefore I cannot set myself up for failure without my permission. It was not therefore a matter of having failed at board breaking and succeeding at fire walking. I learn that it is not the end result, the outcome that is important, but how I look at the process. I was later able to understand the message in the rigid board and before I left Quantum Leaps Lodge the moment was right to shatter the arrow.  

Several remained at the Lodge after the retreat concluded. We shared some photographs of the fire walking. We were aware of the presence of orbs in the photos. These are opaque spheres that sometimes appear in flash photographs. It is claimed that they appear in locations where the spirits are present. Others say they are quirks of camera lens, flash catching dust, fire etc. All I can say is that I have taken many flash photographs and this is the first time I have seen orbs. When I catch light in my camera, the aberration is triangular, shafts or rectangular and usually bears colour. Some orbs are present in the photos taken of me walking across the embers.


When another group member took a photo of me with Neale Donald Walsch in an indoor but daytime flash photo - there was an orb.

photographer Deborah  Parker-Fiddler

I like to think in that special place, where each one of us was trying to get closer to our spiritual selves and move to a higher level of consciousness, that we were not alone. If we embraced the belief that we were all part of the whole, that indeed the whole in all its essences is always present.   I like to think that the essence of those who have been important in my life do remain in my energy field. I like to think that when, without apparent reason, tears well up that I am vibrating in unison with some essence. It seems that when I acknowledge the ‘welling up’ as a presence, the tears dry up. I liken it to the ‘poke a friend’ option I have on my Facebook home page!! It would be a comfort to think that orbs could well be those same vibrations.