{"id":7482,"date":"2026-05-17T09:09:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T07:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/?p=7482"},"modified":"2026-05-31T10:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T08:20:12","slug":"den-natten-jag-gick-pa-eld-och-vad-som-hande-sex-veckor-senare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/den-natten-jag-gick-pa-eld-och-vad-som-hande-sex-veckor-senare\/","title":{"rendered":"The night I walked on hot coals \u2014 and what happened six weeks later"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Soft Sunday In Love<\/em><\/p>\n\n

There are moments in life that cannot be explained. That do not fit into any rational narrative about how the world works. That you carry with you for decades, not because you understand them, but because they changed something<\/em> \u2014 for real.<\/p>\n\n

July 2002. \u00c4ngsbacka kursg\u00e5rd in V\u00e4rmland. The NoMind festival \u2014 a week every summer since 1997, deep in the Swedish forest, where about a thousand people gather to do something unusual: be completely human together.<\/p>\n\n

I was single. I was looking. And I had no idea what awaited me.<\/p>\n\n

Who is Peggy Dylan?<\/h2>\n\n

Before I tell you what happened that weekend, I have to tell you about the woman who created the conditions for it.<\/p>\n\n

Peggy Dylan describes herself as a practical mystic<\/em>. That's a good word for her. She's not floating or elusive \u2014 she's warm, down-to-earth, and sometimes straight to the point in a way that takes your breath away. But what she's working on touches on something that science doesn't yet have a word for.<\/p>\n\n

Her journey began at the age of twelve with an epiphany that changed her understanding of existence forever. At sixteen, she was recognized by the Indian saint-mystic Sadguru Keshavadas as a budding spiritual teacher and underwent an intense apprenticeship under his guidance\u2014a tradition that stretches back millennia.<\/p>\n\n

In 1976 she trained as Professional Rebirther<\/em> with Leonard Orr, the pioneer of rebirthing\/breathwork \u2014 she was among the very first in the world. Breathing, she realized, is a key that most of us never fully use. A way into the body, past the mind, directly to what is stuck.<\/p>\n\n

In 1981, she traveled alone on a pilgrimage to India. The following year, in 1982, she walked on hot coals for the first time \u2014 along with Tolly Burkan, who introduced firewalking to the West. She immediately understood that it was something extraordinary. Not a trick. Not hypnosis. But concrete, repeatable proof that what we believe about the body's limits is not true.<\/p>\n\n

In 1984 she founded Sundoor School of Transpersonal Education<\/strong>. The name comes from Inuit mythology \u2014 Sun Door<\/em>, the door of the sun, the last step one passes through to live in conscious contact with the divine. Sundoor is today the world's leading school for firewalking and spiritual leadership, with offices in the United States and several European countries.<\/p>\n\n

She has taught hundreds of thousands of people. She has shared the stage with Deepak Chopra<\/strong>. She has conducted workshops for executives at American Express and Microsoft. She has appeared on CNN and international television broadcasts. And she has written the book Femme Vital!<\/em> \u2014 about how women can balance their emotional, physical and spiritual lives.<\/p>\n\n

But what you don't understand until you're in the room with her is the simple thing: she see<\/em> You. Not who you're trying to be. You.<\/p>\n\n

Saturday \u2014 the rebar and the pilot<\/h2>\n\n

We were gathered in the morning. Peggy stood in front and explained what was going to happen. Two by two we were to stand facing each other. Between us \u2014 a two-meter rebar, one end against each other's throat.<\/p>\n\n

I didn't really understand what it meant until we stood there.<\/p>\n\n

The man across from me was unknown. Warm. Handsome. He had worked as a pilot. We had never spoken more than a few sentences to each other. Now we stood face to face with a 1-2 cm thick rebar between us, and the whole room was singing and chanting intensely around us.<\/p>\n\n

Peggy's instruction was simple and impossible at the same time: look each other deeply in the eyes. Hold the energy of love. Walk slowly towards each other. Not with force. With presence.<\/p>\n\n

We left.<\/p>\n\n

The iron bent like cooked spaghetti.<\/p>\n\n

I don't know how to explain it. I just know that it happened, that I felt it against my neck, and that what bent wasn't because we were strong. It was because we \u2014 in that moment, in that chant, in that look \u2014 weren't afraid \u2014 we were in total love.<\/p>\n\n

Peggy doesn't call it magic. She calls it what we really are<\/em>, when we stop resisting.<\/p>\n\n

Saturday night \u2014 the bed of embers in the darkness<\/h2>\n\n

The day had filled us. Now the night awaited.<\/p>\n\n

We had started the preparations early. Wrote down what we no longer wanted to carry \u2014 on paper, in words, concretely and honestly. Things you rarely put into words, even to yourself. Then we stuffed the papers into the wood, stacked them up while chanting together, and then lit the fire.<\/p>\n\n

The wood burned for a long time. The embers formed slowly, hot and bright, and lay like a silent sea before us in the darkness.<\/p>\n\n

Then we left.<\/p>\n\n

Barefoot. One by one. And the embers didn't burn us.<\/p>\n\n

The pilot and I walked hand in hand.<\/p>\n\n

It's one of the strangest memories I carry \u2014 not because it was dramatic, but because it was so still. The light from the embers. Voices singing. His hand in mine. And the feeling of something old burning up and leaving my body.<\/p>\n\n

We never met again after that weekend. No contact, no addresses, nothing. Just that moment \u2014 complete and complete in itself.<\/p>\n\n

Sunday \u2014 the arrow and the wish<\/h2>\n\n

The final initiation rite was reserved for the women.<\/p>\n\n

An Indian arrow against a board. The pointed end against the pit of the throat. And a wish \u2014 not a vague hope, but a clear, complete, stated intention \u2014 that we held within ourselves as we walked straight ahead and broke the arrow with our necks.<\/p>\n\n

I wished\u201dthe perfect man for me<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n

Not a man. The perfect man for me. The difference is important. It wasn't a desperate hope \u2014 it was a directed, living, body-order with intention.<\/p>\n\n

Six weeks later, I met my son's father.<\/p>\n\n

What Peggy actually teaches<\/h2>\n\n

It's easy to dismiss this as New Age, suggestion, group dynamics. And maybe it is partly that. But I think it misses something essential.<\/p>\n\n

Peggy's work rests on a basic idea that is no stranger than what most great traditions have been saying for thousands of years: that what we believe about our limits is not true. That fear limits us more than reality does. And that the body \u2014 not the mind \u2014 is the gateway to what we are truly capable of.<\/p>\n\n

The fire is not the goal. It is the proof. Once you have walked on hot coals without getting burned, you can no longer say \u201cit is impossible\u201d in the same way about other things in your life. Something in you now knows that you are wrong.<\/p>\n\n

Her methods include:<\/p>\n\n

Firewalking<\/strong> \u2014 the most famous, an ancient initiation rite from cultures around the world, from the kahuna priests of the Hawaiian Islands to the indigenous peoples of North America, to the Hindu temples of India. In the Sundoor tradition, it is always preceded by deep psychological and energetic preparation.<\/p>\n\n

Steel Bending<\/strong> \u2014 the rebar against the pit of the throat, two by two, eye to eye. A demonstration of what focused presence and loving energy can do to that which seems hard and unyielding.<\/p>\n\n

Arrow Breaking<\/strong> \u2014 intention as body. To plant a desire so deeply that it passes through thought and reaches something else.<\/p>\n\n

Breathwork\/Rebirthing<\/strong> \u2014 conscious breathwork that leads the participant past the rational mind and directly into the unprocessed. Peggy was one of the very first in the world trained in this, and has developed it over fifty years.<\/p>\n\n

Sweat Lodge<\/strong> \u2014 a Native American purification rite, darkness and warmth and shared presence.<\/p>\n\n

Spiritual coaching and sharing circles<\/strong> \u2014 the everyday holding of the room, the conversation, the way-of-being-seen that is the backbone of everything Peggy does.<\/p>\n\n

Why I'm telling you this<\/h2>\n\n

Not to convince you of anything.<\/p>\n\n

But because it's true. It happened. There I was, barefoot in the dark, hand in hand with a pilot I'd never met before or since, and I didn't get burned. I broke a rebar with my neck while we were singing. I wished for the perfect man with my whole body \u2014 and six weeks later he showed up.<\/p>\n\n

I don't know how the world works. I only know that it is stranger and more spacious than we usually allow ourselves to believe.<\/p>\n\n

And I know that there are moments \u2014 if you're open enough, single enough, thirsty enough \u2014 when life swings in the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n\n

July 2002 was such a moment.<\/p>\n\n

\u2013 Mary<\/p>\n

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Want to know more about Peggy Dylan and Sundoor? Visit sundoor.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n

The NoMind festival at \u00c4ngsbacka is arranged every summer in V\u00e4rmland. Read more at angsbacka.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Soft Sunday \u00b7 In Love \u00b7 #SoftSunday #AmaelleLife #PeggyDylan #Sundoor #\u00c4ngsbacka #NoMind #Eldg\u00e5ng #Initiering #Transformation<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soft Sunday \u00b7 In Love July 2002. \u00c4ngsbacka kursg\u00e5rd in V\u00e4rmland. The NoMind festival \u2014 a week every summer since 1997, deep in the Swedish forest, where about a thousand people gather to do something unusual: be completely human together. I was single. I was looking. And I had no idea what awaited. Before I\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5196,"featured_media":7494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_angie_page":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"page_builder":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[51],"tags":[120,121,122,123],"class_list":["post-7482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soft-sondag","tag-eld","tag-glodande-kol","tag-peggy-dylan","tag-shaman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_2463.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7482"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7956,"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7482\/revisions\/7956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amaelle.life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}