Going Back to the Campfire

 

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It's late at night and the moon is full. You stare at the campfire with your friends. The warmth hits your feet and your face. It is glorious. The experience and comforting. Just staring at the fire conjures up memories and nostalgic thoughts inside that head of yours. There's a really anxiety reliever in all of this. There is magic that in that smoldering smoke and red hued cinders. 

What is it about campfires that makes them so attractive and introspective? Most of the time it's a social affair. We may be enjoying the wilderness while camping or hanging out in a friend's backyard. There is something about building the fire, tending to it and enjoying it that brings about some sense of mysticism. A magical experience that seems to connect us to our ancestors and the universe around us. 

The fire is the social center.

In this hustle and bustle world, we tend not to have too many slow times where we can reflect and ponder about the little, but big meaningful things in life. A campfire seems to prevent a portal into slowing down and not taking things too seriously. It's like a breath of fresh air. 

Contained fires are a portal into our ancestry. Ever since the discovery of fire and how to make and control it, humanity was forever changed. A spark that quite literally set in a revolution of technology, food production and how we move about in the world around us. A game changer in the evolutionary process. Cooking over the fire has more or less allowed us to access calories and digest more efficiently as to leave room for the brain to grow. Fire has helped with so many things that help us have a rich, abundant and convenient life today. There are so many things that we overlook that came into being from the catalyst of fire. What a dangerous and profound mistress. 

When we play with fire, we know the risks. We know we can get burned. To control the fire is to align with the present and potential. 

Watching wood burn has a meditative effect. We see the slow and semi-violent reaction of the fire turning the wood into a new substance. A substance that can be used to put back into the earth thus completing a natural cycle. What burns can turn death into life. It's a chemical reaction and romance that attracts us to it. It brings us in as to invite us into a remembering of where we came from. 

Building and experiencing campfires brings about a humble realization of the radical revolution that fire sparked for the whole of humanity. No pun intended. Look at how amazing it is that we have intelligence to control something so dangerous and destructive, yet so beautiful and illuminating. 

Fires are like mirrors. We can look, but not touch. It is as if the past is telling us to reminisce and learn and not try to control. For a hot log or coal will surely burn us. We can symbolically cast all of our worries into the fire and watch them burn. Watch them slowly turn into smoke and dissipate into the atmosphere. What we burn just turns into another form. We may see it is destruction, but it is a process. Imagine holding on to a hot thing for too long without dropping it. Holding onto the burning thing only creates more pain. Why not cast it away to be turned into a new form. A form that will surely benefit the whole from where it came. 

Fires act as time machines. Passages into memory lanes and highways of thoughts. We can visit the memories and images that fire ignite. Let them play out and simmer. Once we retreat from the fire, we tend to lose that solemn introspection. That meditative state of stillness. There is great beauty in that stillness. Who would have thought that staring into a slow burning flame would bring up so many emotions, thoughts and images? 

Let it burn. Watch it thrive. Feel your inner landscape come alive. 

From the fire we can forge a sword. A real one and the one in our mind. Just watching fires can make us sharper human beings. It ties us to the temporary nature of life. All things must pass into different forms. The dead remnants of the trees can create fuel, warmth and the potential for human socialization. It is no surprise that our ancestors worshipped the power and potential of the fire. 

Fires act as retreats from the screens that seem to occupy most of our daily modern boxed in lives. When people and tribes would wind down they would gather together and share stories. It was a time of wonder and reflection. Gathering around a fire is way different than passively sitting on a comfortable couch and staring at a screen. This doesn't mean that there isn't any value in watching a screen, but we really can appreciate the alternative when we are able to go out of our way and SLOW DOWN. Take your time. Let conversation arise. Listen and let live. 

The present moment us burning for our attention. 

DG