ignite your soul's fire

Jaclyn Soroka

For the last decade, I’ve been devoted to understanding the unseen - the metaphysical, the mysterious, the currents of energy that shape our lives. I have followed the quiet pull of the universe, trusting that the right teachers would appear when I was ready.

My dear friend and mentor, Nathalie, held the gates to something long before I could understand it. Through Magdalene ceremonies and sisterhood rituals, she tended flames that whispered to something ancient inside me .... a pull back to my essence, my roots, my ancestry. 

The fire felt like home long before I ever stood barefoot before it.

As a child, I was obsessed with flame - poking at campfires, watching candlelight dance across my teenage altar, searching for the imagery that lived inside the glow. But as with all things in my life, I surrendered to divine timing. When obstacles initially blocked my entrance into this firewalking class, I released it. I trusted the fire would call me back when it was time.

And it did - unmistakably. Circumstances shifted, barriers dissolved like sand through open fingers, and the universe delivered signs so blatant they were almost humorous. (Imagine receiving a fire-alarm vehicle as confirmation, complete with angel numbers )

We began and ended the training in community, but for three nights - it was just me, the full moon, and the fire.

And that’s where everything changed.

Lighting my first fire, hands trembling as I prepared coals for my own feet, I surrendered. The first night’s flames rose wild and ferocious, burning a full circle of grass around me as if clearing space for what was coming.

I breathed into her, and she answered - roaring, whipping, unfurling with the intelligence of something ancient.

She consumed the pain I had carried through past relationships, teaching me I could not control her - only move with her, listen, and let her reshape me. And then, with bare feet on burning coals, I surrendered everything to the fire’s transmutational power. 

The second night was the most powerful. For the first time in any of my teachings, I invited my ancestors in. I had always believed I had no ancestral wisdom to draw from - how wrong I was. My grandfather’s presence was unmistakable, his orchestration undeniable, especially when I realized the weekend mirrored the anniversary of his passing twenty years ago.

The inner weave of my cells moved.... subtle, electric, remembering its own origins. Something ignited deep within me — as if the fire was unlocking memory buried in my bones.

The earth became my home.

The fire, my heat.

The moon, my guide.

And for the first time, I felt myself belong to everything.

Grief flooded through me - the grief of my grandparents leaving Ukraine, clearing land, surviving devastation, and forging a life through sheer resilience. Their endurance lived in me. My DNA remembered. Like the flame itself - a tiny ember erupting into a roaring blaze with just a breath - my own resilience ignited.

I first met the coals three years ago, trembling with fear, carrying anger and pain I knew were blocking my healing. Fire met me with truth, and I began to see all the ways she had revealed herself along my path.

And none of this would have unfolded without Nathalie - flamekeeper, space-holder, and unwavering guardian of the sacred. She tended a fire for five straight days with devotion I have never seen. Her capacity to hold space, to nurture transformation, to allow your soul to unravel and re-form within her loving arms… is extraordinary.

This experience was, without question, one of the most transformational passages of my life — something words can only attempt to describe.

This isn’t simply a “class.” It is a rebirth. A remembering.

If you are feeling the pull toward a deeper version of yourself… if something inside you is stirring, ready to awaken… then perhaps the flames are calling you, too. They will ignite something within you.