The Fire of Transmutation?

Fire Symbol Icon Prometheus Unbound by Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Fire symbolizes knowledge in Prometheus Unbound. In the story, Prometheus “tamed fire” for humanity after Jupiter misused his power as a ruler and failed to share the knowledge, which he had been given by Prometheus, with humanity. Without this knowledge that was their “birthright,” humanity had no power of thought or reason and therefore no ability to understand their emotions or to feel love.

Rather than providing humanity with fully formed knowledge, however, Prometheus instead gave humankind fire, granting people the freedom to develop tools and advance civilization as they wished. The power and freedom contained within the gift of fire reflects humanity’s instinct to explore, think, experiment, and discover things for themselves.

Prometheus, who is a “champion” of freedom and knowledge, gave this gift freely, while the tyrannical Jupiter fears, denies and represses it. Jupiter’s fear of fire—really, his fear of knowledge and the independent thinking such knowledge inevitably entails—springs from the possibility that his role as supreme authority will be compromised if humanity learns to question the way he rules them.

Knowledge in this sense is, like fire, a powerful and unpredictable force that cannot necessarily be contained once it is set free. The Furies imply as much when they suggest that Prometheus’s gift of knowledge to mankind has “kindled” a desire for power that “outran” him. Although the Furies mean this in a negative sense, Prometheus insists that the benefits of knowledge outweigh its destructive tendencies when it is allowed to flourish unrepressed.

The ending of Shelley’s poem, in which the Earth is transformed into a planet suffused with love, suggests that true freedom requires full, unbridled knowledge, as only with such knowledge can humans make decisions based in love.“

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/prometheus-unbound/symbols/fire

September 12/26

Got back from the Hospital after three days of dreadful illness and recovery. My dreams were vivid and intense. Been a long time.

One that shook me up was making me hot and got my heart racing.

I dreamt that to the east there was a raging fire. Close and hot and all embracing. I heard the wildfire and flames next to me close. I looked up to see tall flames. The wind and orange flames. My thought was,

“Oh no a fire has come to consume our home.?”

I awoke instead to the orange-purple lights still on in the living room ceiling that surrounds the room. The pumpkin scented candle on the hearth was still burning bright. At this time, the air conditioner went on creating a sound and feeling of movement and noise.

My poem to Prometheus

Orange, wind, and fire

I awoke startled.