Four Elements Series: Pt. 1

Is there anything we can’t learn from fire? It’s all we need to master in one constantly evolving state. And Wyoming has provided me my window of study: my tiny wood burning stove.

For weeks now all I’ve wanted is to perfect starting a fire. In an automatic, mindless, detached way. Like step one: two medium pieces of wood stacked just so, step two: two fists of newspaper, step three: two fire starter squares, step four: door open 4”… you get it. Each day I attempted to tweak this into a winning formula– perhaps it takes a different stacking method, perhaps a door open 6” instead of 4”.

But alas now, the breakthrough has occurred. And it’s that, gloriously, there is no formula for starting a fire. Just as there is no formula for living. We could do the same thing each day and likely enjoy some degree of success. But wonder then if an unforeseen variable occurs? Something we hadn’t planned for in the original steps, what would we do then?

So are the teachings of tending to a fire, of not dulling down into any pattern but instead taping into nuances. Actually appreciating why it’s different from the fire we had yesterday. While yesterday’s required more oxygen, today’s requires more heat. Or less heat, more newspaper, more stoking.

We even learn that sometimes one fire is stronger than the last explicitly because of its predecessor. Maybe the previous fire left behind just the right amount of partially charred remains. And it’s those remains that bolster the next fire into raring success. Like all we go through– not to be amounted to ashes and just brushed aside.

Moment of Gratitude: But to be admired, accumulated, the lessons that feed into it all. The full flame we’re becoming.