This is the story of how I became the Keeper of the Flame
And how the world became the Keeper of the Flame
And how the fire – inside me – changed me.

The Flame came from the Sun that day
Roaring on a bounding lion of light
It always came with the storms,
But this time I caught the Flame for myself.
I wasn’t the only one who caught it –
There was never only one –
But I alone learned to feed the Flame,
To keep it alive once the storm had passed.

After all the other Flames had died,
Mine burned still bright,
Heat by day and light by night,
My sacred duty to feed it,
To protect it,
To keep it,
To share it with my kin,
with my community.

We flourished under the Flame,
Learned to use it for food,
For shelter, for security, for war.
The world knelt before me for the Flame,
For the spark of life it gave
Before it faded in their hands
And endless they returned,
Desperate of the power it contained.

I was the Steward! the Champion!
The Chosen! the Keeper of the Flame!

But then the Woman discovered
That the Flame was not bound to the Sun,
And that the feeding of it
Was unnecessary to keep it alive.
Because she found it burned ever
Inside the heart of common stone,
And that all who have such a stone
Can summon the Flame on their own.

Without warning, that day in a flash,
I was no longer the Keeper of the Flame.
The identity to which I had shaped my life
Had become anyone’s to claim.
The sacred source of food, shelter, security, war,
Raged through the world,
Free, unconfined,
And the shaping of the world was no longer mine.

With time, though, I have learned
A new way to see the Flame.
It is no longer mine alone to keep,
But it has not lost its sacred power;
Indeed, its presence in stone is a mystery-miracle,
Wholly other, sacredness anew,
And its freedom, unbound from me,
Is a power unparalleled in all creation.

The Flame, wild though it may be,
Serves as light to the world;
And while I am no longer the Keeper of the Flame,
I am learning that we all are Keepers of the Flame.
This does not diminish the sacredness of the Keeping – 
It unites us, binds us together as one,
Guides us back to the beauty and power
Of the fire inside us all.

This is the story of how I became the Keeper of the Flame
And how the world became the Keeper of the Flame
And how the fire – inside me – changed me.