Forged By The Fire

Leadership, Wellness, Resiliency… With a firm commitment to total wellness, we can use the “heat and hammer” of life’s forging process to build resiliency.

By our life experiences and our heritage, we are forged and shaped into the unique individual who interacts with the world each day. At Forged by the Fire we offer a forum for wellness, leadership, education, creativity, and networking for individuals, groups, schools, districts, and organizations.

03/17/2026

Blessed St. Patrick’s Day!

03/16/2026

How your Spirit comes back to us. In the Black Oiled Sunflower seeds on the stoop, you rest and eat. I will miss you forever.

02/25/2026

Reaching Sunset
The world works in digital format and I am paper.
Files I can touch, print I can hold.
I walk.
Toward my sunset, not for lack of relevance or experience, but because my soul needs the tangible.
Here today and gone tomorrow is faster when the button clicks one second away from gone.
I want to be print.
I want to imbed the paper like ink.
I want to feel like substance and the weight of words…not bytes of information coursing through the cloud.
I will give up all the digital madness for a simpler life of garden and gifts from the earth.
My heart is heavy for what my children must endure.
For now I am lost in the technology I must use but despise, manage but mistrust.
Around me most are consumed with it, even the other half of my soul
The proverbial BOX where you can find everything.
In my mind I fight it every step of the way and hate it for impinging on the sacredness of work.

F.J. Serenka- Pastimes and Poetry 2026