Between Notes; The Wisdom of the Fire, Alana Bartol and Arcana Shanks, 2025.

This workshop was presented at UAAC-AAUC 2025 as a part of the panel Manifesting Reciprocity: Fertile engagements with the more-than-human world, chaired by Raquel Mendes and Deepikah RB, with papers from Yani Kong, Alana Bartol, Arcana Shanks, Jessica Marion Barr, and Dani Hagel.

Abstract:

This session is a sensory exercise engaging fire and scent as a way of attuning the body. Using beeswax candles, participants are invited to notice how scent opens awareness and creates conditions for presence. This draws on research into pollinators and plants. Together, we will sit with beeswax candles and practice close observation, considering how fire itself can be engaged as an artistic collaborator and more-than-human force. Though not considered “alive” in Western definitions, Fire undeniably moves, breathes, and transforms. To work with Fire requires reciprocity: attention and care sustain its presence. Through guided exercises, each participant will be invited to engage in meditative scrying with a single flame, observing how it shifts in response to air, movement, and presence. Participants will engage in an adaptive form of meditative scrying, observing how their flame responds to external stimuli. These observations will be guided by exercises inspired by performance art techniques, theories of Deep Listening (Oliveros), and maternal practices of witchcraft. Participants will be invited to share and reflect on their relationships with more-than-human beings and how observational communication can be used to deepen the ethical and reciprocal connections we have or wish to create.

Photo credit to Raquel Mendes and Deepikah RB.