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We explore stories of mystical adventure, inner transformation, and a little bit of fire – sometimes literally.
This show is about pushing limits into the unknown, discovering who we really are in the process, and celebrating the moments of connection that make us feel more alive.
Janelle 00:07
Welcome back to the alighted way. I'm Janelle, and I will be your guide today. This show is about pushing limits into the unknown, discovering who we really are, and celebrating the moments that make us feel alive. So let's get into it. I am very excited to introduce Mark Laurie from inner spirit photography as our guest. You can reach mark if you're interested in his work at inner spirit photo.com in his own words, Mark says, I have been photographing fascinating art since 1980 my interests vary and my curiosity drives me. He has been winning international and Canadian awards since 1984 and is the most awarded photographer in his niche in Canada and possibly North America, specializing in female fine art photography. He is also a teacher, speaker, author, international, judge and studio mentor, as well as a fellow podcaster. Mark will be doing fire specialty shoots throughout the whole winter and spring. So he invites you to just come and see them, and they will put you on fire and take you to the next level. Join us as we do a deep dive of Mark's take on sprites and what he has experienced and captured while working with fire in his photography and life, welcome.
Janelle 01:45
We are here today with Mark Laurie. I thank you for joining me. You have been taking photos for a very long time, 45 ish years. 45 years. So in all of that time your curiosity has taken you down many paths and modes and exploration. So what inspired you to move more towards Elementals?
Mark 02:19
I love to play. So we started playing with the idea of elementals probably five years ago. So we framed them as earth, fire, water and wind. It was just exciting to play with. And then we evolved to the body fire itself. It's not an actual person's body, which is very empowering for the people. We're all about empowerment and conference building, the fire gives amazing invincibility. As you see the flames race across your body and you feel nothing, it's quite powerful. People visually, it's good to photograph.
Janelle 02:53
What was interesting when I was in the studio with you and you were talking about fire, you had me like fire, but you also were explaining sprites, or what may show up in the flames.
Mark 03:09
That's the magical thing that dragons are really common with. It's sort of, it's been interesting because I'll explain the sprites first for your audience. Yeah, sprites are magical creatures in the fire. So when the fire grows, it's dramatically changing. Now sometimes it just looks like fire. Then you'll see animals appear. You'll see you'll see like, looks like peoples and demons and fairies and birds, and they seem to relate a lot to who's handling the fire. So thinking back on this is a new thought I've just got, as we're talking here, my original girl, or the second guy we used before Kaz, he was a real performer. His sprites usually look like dragons, but there's a real energy and power, and you see dragon heads all the time with this stuff. With Kaz, we're seeing more animals and different like a deeper depth of sprites. Me, it's because there's the flame has a chance to evolve on the arm or the body, whereas before, we're kind of moving it around when you see them, and it's funny, because you'll different people look at them, and they will find their own sprite in there. Some are very obvious, but we've had people look a little bit deeper, and the sprite they find resonates what's inside of them. It's like their own personal Sprite. It's it's really a neat thing to see,
Janelle 04:22
so mirroring the person, but it's very individual, too.
Mark 04:26
So every other client is recently, and she she's picking the ones that she liked, and her friends going, I can't believe you can't see this sprite right here. And I and she couldn't quite see it, but for the girl, because it was, it was on her wavelength, I guess, you know, kind of frame, and she saw that this thing, because whatever is important, she was kind of what you see. So there's the sprites that are very obvious and big, and then as you look deeper into it, you'll see smaller sprites or versions, not on every image, because that's the cool thing. They they only appear at certain times, and they and their their strength and size. Varies as well. And so each person's is individual, and how they respond to them is individual, and each person who sees it, so the girl who sees the sprite will respond to the sprites they see. And we're talking more about the more hidden sprites, because there's the obvious when people Oh, yeah, that's like, that's antler horror. Everybody sees that, but then down the corner there's a butterfly, and that's the magical part. It's like the flames speak to different people on different wavelengths. When people respond an image of the person who's got fire, especially if it's that person, the response and what they see and what they feel is really core, deep, because it's so personal.
Janelle 05:36
I had friends look at some of my different photos, and we had, like, differences, yeah, definitely, of what was seen, you know. So I was like, Well, this looks like, you know, a dragon. She's like, No, it looks like a cat.
Mark 05:51
Yeah, I've had a four inch flame my mouth. How much different could be? Oh, when they put ball, they put flame going across my arm, that's different. But they there is. I remember first time I was eating fire, I had a big, bushy beard, right? And people so what happens is a point when you're eating fire, you're swallowing fire that you can't see it, it comes down, that it's out of your and just hope that your trajectory is good, right? Yeah, everyone's terrified I was gonna miss and put my beard on fire. I had to sign a special declaration that if your beard goes on fire, we're not responsible, right? Yeah, but it is. And I've walked on fire like you, which is really wild. You look down, you see your foot going against Red Hot coals and flames for nothing, it should burn. It's not the watching four foot wall of flame raced across your body.
06:33
That's a whole different thing, whole other level.
Mark 06:36
We did that with my B and I group and my there's 30 people in the room, of course, you experienced the soapy seal that sort of protects your skin from the fire. And we got our arms stretched out and our knuckles are touching, and there's this arm come across, and people like, what? And she says, let's do a countdown, okay, 123, and then she hits the flame, and this four foot wall flame races across her arm tomorrow, and then dies. And there's people backing out of chairs and streaming, oh my God, and it was gone. Like, like, do we see that, too? So, yeah, I go on a wider and you get like, seven shots, and in two seconds, like, it is really, really fast. And you may be able to verify this the people who look at your photographs, or when you people, when you tell people, I have this flame on my body and my legs and so on, they kind of hold you in awe, like you've done something that they could not do.
Janelle 07:24
Trying to describe it to people was challenging as well, because they were like, you're doing what now?
Mark 07:30
And this one girl was a scuba diver, and her girlfriend, they loved going, like, 20 feet with it the most colorful fish, like, that's where all the beauty lies, right, unique and serene. And her girlfriend was like, why? What's it like? Like, it makes no sense. And her girls, oh, imagine this. You've been down underwater for two hours, 20 feet, the most incredible colored fish that you can goes, Oh, yeah, that would be like, so cool. Okay, so now you get up on the dock, there's a girl in bikinis, Sun breathing, with a bathing suit that will never, ever get wet, let alone swim. And she looks at you with your scuba tanks and your mask and your snorkel and your big grin, and she says, Why would you go underwater? It's like that.
Janelle 08:12
That's a great example. You know, this is,
Mark 08:14
this is tried and true. So on the surface, it looks impulsive and and random and and just you risking your life, and then you realize you're in a cocoon. Nothing can happen to you.
Janelle 08:29
Well, and the fire lady herself, yeah?
Mark 08:33
Because yeah. I mean, she knows. She knows what fire is going to do. She knows all its tricks. She knows where she can put it and play it and, so that's second nature to her. So her real skill is passing that confidence onto the onto you. The subject's about to be lit on fire. When you walk in, you feel it's gonna be exciting, but it's not gonna be as dangerous as people think it is, right? Yeah, when you leave, it's kind of like, Huh? I thought he'd scarier. Even if something starts to go sideways, you wouldn't even notice it, because the correction would have happened so quickly that the people are miles ahead of watching your body language, watching the flame, watch they've set stuff up around you. So there's no mishaps that can kind of happen. There's nothing left to chance.
Janelle 09:16
So how has your relationship with fire changed over time, it's it's
Mark 09:23
gotten more magical and bolder. I guess I've actually been lit on fire. I've had that experience with it, which is like a wonderful, playful toy, and then you do three or four times and you're, well, how can we do it differently? What else can we do? I use my photography as a tool to enhance, empower, heal and celebrate women's that's a big thing. There's a couple poems I just love. And one is, come to the edge. He said, I'm bastardizing the poem, but come to the end. No, they said, We're afraid. Come to the edge. He commanded. So they did to their horror. He pushed them over the edge. They're surprised. They could fly. And the second one was, when you step over the edge in the darkness, you must believe one of two things. Either there's something solid on the other side or you're gonna sprout wings and fly. Otherwise, you'll never step over that. You must believe something positive is going to happen. So women come in with that trust. They there's some side they really want to do this. That's what's kind of driving them to, you know, sort of face a fear, or step into this magical thing. And then there's the moment it happens, where they go from being nervous to embracing it and being part of it, and their soul changes at that point. So you can imagine you're 80 years old, and you need a photograph of you holding a sword this kind of flames going up to it, and another photograph, and it's your arms are engulfed in flames. Let's talk about that, not my old age Greeks kind of stuff. That experience is a story that they're going to carry with them for a lot, like it's burned, literally burned into their memory.
Janelle 10:49
And it's very powerful. Yes, I
Mark 10:52
did a fire thing. How hard can this be? We had a client. We were talking this, like, eight months later, and she says, Well, you know, it became the high water mark every time something comes up that scares me, I look at and go, okay, is this scary? More scarier? Less scarier than photographs with Mark on fire. And she said, I gotta tell you, very few things come up to that level area. And I survived Mark's thing, and this is less than I can do this, and she's everything is gaged by that. So if it's really scary above that, that it makes me nervous, because this is my high water points. This is really high water point, but probably can do it because the fire was okay, and so everything goes back to that gage of experience. And it does it because it's just goes so deep. Then you have the validating photographs. So part of your brain goes, that really happened, like so quick, you know? And then you see the forked one. Oh, yeah, that happened. Then people see your photograph. Oh, my God, you did that.
Janelle 11:45
What's interesting, because for my 40th birthday, yeah, I had photos done. And then when I was turning 50, I was sort of looking back on the 40 right, 40 photo shoot, yeah? And I was like, I'm so glad I did that, because it captured something of that time.
Mark 12:07
Yeah, everything that's happening around your life at that moment, the memory gets locked in. So suddenly you gage things, the before and after. Photo shoot timeline becomes embezzled, and everything's like before or after, before or after kind of stuff, B, C, A, C,
Janelle 12:23
I kind of have that gage with like, before kids, after kids,
Mark 12:29
D, K, D, K, yeah, before fire, after fire, yeah.
Janelle 12:34
I'm all for pushing boundaries, pushing limits, as long as you know, you know what boundaries you do have, and you know and for those to be just part of
Mark 12:47
who you are, once you've pushed one boundary, the second boundary gets easier, the third boundary gets easier to push and to break, and suddenly you're starting out of boundaries like, like, you just discover that you really are kind of limitless,
Janelle 13:01
and it's like breaking an arrow with your throat. When I was actually doing the experience, I didn't have a lot of fear around any of the challenges that were put forth before me. And people were like, well, let's go jumping off a CF, CF. And I was like, well, I could jump off a CF, but I don't really want to. So it's like, I don't have fear around it, but I know I could do it if I wanted to.
Mark 13:32
Like, yeah, that's really powerful, because there's a difference between a person that can't wait to push the envelope. They can't wait to as well just leap into everything head first, yeah, I'm fearless. And a person that says, Yeah, I can do that. Check a few things out first, but I don't need to. Yeah, we'll wait. More interesting comes and lots of confidence it gives you when you you pushed a couple boundaries. As you become more aware, you tend to look before you leave. You're fully prepared to go there. You want to make sure that aligns with what your needs are. It's not just taking a risk for the sake of taking a risk.
Janelle 14:05
It needs to have meaning, yes, to you, yeah, to partake in it, yeah.
Mark 14:11
What's my motivation and how does it serve you? It's not just the thing itself, like, like with with you. When you had your your experience, there's time when you have to process it, otherwise you're really not taking full advantage. For we had a course with a guy named John Kehoe, who's a great mind power individual. He had us ponder one thing for 10 minutes a day. For seven days, you would ponder this thing first three or four days, you're you did the obvious, you came up with the obvious, and then you started digging, because after that, it's like, well, what else is there? What is there? And then you you're going deeper into it, and then you wind up with these incredible truths that you didn't think was possible. You hadn't yet no idea when you first glance at the surface thing for and if you take a risk, if you push. Boundary, if you don't give time to consider it and to envelop it, to make a party part of you like to really understand what you did. Really understand at a visceral level what that means to you. You need a gap between challenges where you can sit back and go, ah, let's just sit in this, this feeling of momentary fear and glory and excitement and friends reactions to it. Let's, let's absorb that. Let my soul know this was important.
Janelle 15:30
It's like an onion, yes, like peeling back layers of it in time and space.
Mark 15:36
You discovered that different things motivate you. You hadn't realized. You suddenly see it's a tool you get to use that you're in her core, recognized that there's something that you had that sense that was coming, that you were unaware of, because we're such unaware people, that says you'll need this tool. You've got a challenge coming in your life that's going to require fortitude that we got to start building it up with. We had one client recently, Carol, and she'd been a horrible abusive situation. Three guys had attacked her, and they'd intimidate her, and she'd gone through body fire in the public speaking about the body fire, and she wound up three days after the public body fire and speaking about it, and one of the abusers kind of came up, and he tried to do the whole dominance kind of thing for saying, and she was having none of it, and she dressed him down and went looking for security, and he ran. And she says, you know, looking back, I think my my subconscious, my core, knew I'd meet these guys again, and knew that if I didn't, if I hadn't changed, somehow, it would be a replay. And it didn't want that. I don't
Janelle 16:40
want that and moving from victim, yeah, I'm not
Mark 16:43
afraid of you, and I'm gonna you know you're you're bigger than me, but the security guy, you're not bigger than him. So I will get him I would not have gotten before, but I'll get him now. But I think your subconscious has got a sense of your future, a sense of what the future you is going to need, hidden story, a gem that you hadn't quite got now, the core of the onion, but now 10 years later, you finally hit the core and go, whoa. He saw that in me at that moment 10 years ago, that's magical.
Janelle 17:09
Thank you for talking with me today.
Mark 17:11
My pleasure. It's been a delight.
CF Hughes 17:14
There it is, and there you have it. Thank you for sharing and brightening the path today. We will continue sharing and discovering stories that might push your limits, we invite you to be open and join us for this exciting journey. Safety always comes first, so buckle up, join us next time, as Janelle takes us to where her dragon path began, in the magical land of Bhutan, known as the land of the thunder dragon. If you're interested in learning more about dragons, Janelle has designed an introductory dragon course starting in February 2026 visit the alighted way.com to sign up, join our community or brood in Dragon's booth and uncover the magic that lies within Until next time, keep the flame of curiosity burning.