Fire
The Wish
It was one cold December afternoon when the question came up. After several days of intense bow drill practice, my aspirations of hitting fire had all but vanished with my fading motivation. I was inconsistent with my skills and couldn’t grasp what was at the root of the problem. I had hit fire before but was unable to replicate my feat despite repeated attempts and an excess of energy. Those with whom I was working were having similar issues, and together we sat baffled and exhausted on the Bowshop floor.
“What is the most essential element in doing bow-drill?” Our teacher spoke up from his quiet observations with what seemed like a basic question. “The dryness of the wood”, one student answered matter-of-factly. “No, I think it the roundness of the spindle”, spoke another. After nearly every possibility had been offered up I put forth my ignorant answer of, “The notch is the most crucial part.” Our instructor’s shaking head left us all mystified. What could possibly be more essential than the plethora of possibilities the class had just put forth? Breaking the silence of a room full of perplexed students came, “The wish.” This is the most essential component of bow drill that was proposed on that cold day of frustration. To ask from within in an earnest, true, passionate desire to draw forth that spark of life. To place a wish out there and to kindle it as you work. The wish is the determining factor.
In taking on his words of wisdom and placing a wish at the forefront of my mind, I found my success did increase. But more importantly, a quality of life was born. This wish can be used as a metaphor for all of life’s journeys. In wishing, one can begin to conjure a spark within any combination of the variables that are life. To wish or to ask is to begin a journey of one’s whole self. To wish is to prepare one’s mind, body, and spirit for a path of searching, learning, creating, having, being, and sharing. It is the beginning. It is to reach from within and begin to branch out with a notion of desire. Just as with bow-drill, the wish to kindle “flame from fingers” is to bring one’s entirety into any process. It is to achieve something so magical, and so transforming as is life itself. To wish is to plant a seed in the soil of process, the process of growing into the full, lush, vibrant beings that we can become. While one can be engorged with knowledge and skills of many facets, a wish, I have learned, is at the heart of it all. To move from without and into a more introspective state, we can embody this metaphor and the multi-dimensional fullness of life that it brings.
Journal Entry
by Henry Glick
Advanced Naturalist Student
The Gift
Fire by friction, such as with a bow drill or hand drill, requires an understanding of many things. The knowledge of trees and/or native plant species suitable for use is paramount, as well as an appreciation of form and function. All the right materials need to be there, fashioned with care and applied with the insight and understanding of process. Then there is the wish!
The wish for a coal to be born out of the dynamic interaction of the parts; where the opposing parts of spindle and board, with just the right amount of human persuasion regarding bodily sense, balance, and pressure, bring it about. A small coal that gives rise first to smoke and then to fire!
The light energy (photon), which had been stored within the wood of the tree for years, is then released upon its continuing journey. A traveler once again moving at 186,000 miles/second, where that which was stored through photosynthesis and locked into hardened form, is set free. Quite impressive given that it took up to 100,000 years for that same photon to reach the Sun’s surface from its core, with another eight minutes after that to reach the Earth where the dance of photosynthesis then wielded its magic. When pondering such vast extents of time and speed, I often compare this view to the other end of the measuring stick and consider the speed and time of a neural impulse. Clocking in somewhere around 150 milliseconds, it isn’t surprising that we don’t give fire much thought these days. Both phenomena happen at scales outside of any significance and meaning for our day-to-day minds, perhaps leaving us stuck on a stool caught somewhere between the two ends of that stick. Yet fire, when viewed from the mythic proposition embodying the four cardinal elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire), is a real will-o’-the-wisp perspective that may provide us with a bridge between the two, and worth some deep pondering.
Much has changed since Man first discovered the secret of the “red flower”, but its magic and mystery remain, and the treasure of the gift can still inspire those who readily seek to master this art of fire making. Considering that our modern human form has been around for 200,000 years, with our earliest ancestors taking us back anywhere from between 5 -7 million years ago, a mere hundred-plus years since the modern match saw its rise in 1910 becomes a mere drop in the bucket of time marking the point where our more intimate understanding of fire began to slip away from us. With the first human-controlled use of fire placed roughly 2 million years into our past, fire has always been a cardinal player in the human story. For our modern species of Homo sapiens, it has been there since the beginning; an emblem of the light, warmth, and protection of hearth & home. So, fire, when seen as emblematic of the involutional world of the cosmos, as well as the evolutional potential of human life itself, is raised a bit further within our mind’s eye.
When viewed through the perspective, or ecological eyes, of the “gift economy” which has accompanied most of our human journey, as opposed to the “market economy” dominating and darkening our most recent spot in time, fire has always been intimately connected to hearth, home, and personal life relationships rather than the impersonal trading of a commodity within a market system. The outer warmth, comfort, and protection gifted by fire have always wielded magic invoking gratitude and the deep threads of human connection in return. Picture yourself taking shelter from the storm and being nestled beside the crackling fireside. This mystery of form without substance and light without the sun, typically invokes a wee bit of wonder within me, which then progresses organically to the state where I experience gratitude. Giving thanks - the “words before all else” according to the Mohawk people - gradually leads quite naturally to the rising sense of reciprocity; a giving back that is then guided by the inner fire of human attention and intention. We are then connected, or, as the words of the Mohawk Thanksgiving Address concludes with – “now our minds are one”. The viewing of the “economy” (the running of the household) from this position is thus one of plenty as opposed to that of scarcity. Bounded and usurped by the market economy the exchange becomes drastically reduced and diminished. As a commodity (aka fuel) to be weighed, measured, and traded, our view of fire becomes, unfortunately, and consequentially, dominated by fear, misunderstanding, and complacency. Fire, a natural component part of our life, no longer wields its magic, and the mystery becomes a mere ‘flick of the Bic’ expectation all too easily come by. And why, like Icarus, we are all too often getting burned as we play these days. Forest fires burn California with a vengeance unparalleled within modern times, while the Amazon, since shocking the world a year ago with the pictures coming to us from Brazil, continues to blaze across the rain forest. A waste of nature’s gifts as well as our own reciprocating gifts entailing attention, wonder, gratitude, and inspiration. Our “original sin” of inadvertence, where the mythology of Gaia’s elemental forms fails to take root in the fertile soil of human imagination, no longer serves us in any proper pedagogical, functional, or intuitional way.
For these reasons, and more, I always placed fire making skills at the forefront of my teaching, where for a quarter of a century I had the privilege of working with youth, teaching the Naturalist Program. A course of study inspired by Henry David Thoreau, where immersions into the worlds of natural history and field ecology, via experiences utilizing primitive skills under wilderness conditions, took place ~ and were rooted! Ancient skills were most often practiced on the floor of the rustic building we fondly called the “bow shop”, then moving the challenge of learning to the forests and fields around the school, before embarking into the White Mountain National Forest where the freedom of true wilderness provided the ultimate classroom. Adventures in learning where the societal obligation of providing Right of Passage (ROP) experiences to our youth was honored, and intentionally followed. My role as an educator was always seen as creating that spark in firing the mind’s intelligence to seek out a deeper understanding born out of experiences where youth learn to do their own thinking. Everyone began with the efforts necessary to master these technologies.
Need, of course, is one of the best motivators for learning, so going out into sub-freezing temperatures throughout the Fall and Winter months equipped only with a bow drill or hand drill was a fantastic incentive for relearning this ancient skill. Just the kind of challenge that youth require of themselves and will find for themselves if not obligatorily provided for them. The street all too easily becomes the crucible where this learning is drawn out haphazardly, or adults can shape these experiences for them. Immersions where such mythic adventure mirrors the timeless call and awakening toward the promise of the real hero’s soul journey. They should be commonplace in these dire times.
That spark of fire which I speak about “firing” within the adolescent’s mind is ‘non-other’ than what we commonly refer to as attention. A will-o’-the-wisp phenomenon likewise taken for granted these days, as it too has become something to market and exploit. The ability to make and control fire has outwardly set people apart from the animals. Fire has been utilized for communication (signaling), hunting, agriculture (clearing land), woodworking (burning out a canoe), hide tanning, metallurgy, ceramics, bathing/hygiene, sanitation, and war. Simply put, fire has helped draw out, shape, and define our outer world interactions. Drawing forth fire by friction, as skilled physical process, does require a unique, and complimentary, ‘drawing forth’ of attention from within us as well. Representing the never-ending promethean struggle, and defiance, against darkness within the outer world as well as the darkness pervading that of our inner realm. One must be sensitive to the body, maintaining balance, poise, and pressure, while simultaneously being conscious of the breath’s rhythm working side by side with the rhythmic passage of the bow driving spindle & board. Then there is the ever-attentive working of the mind, watching both body and breath as one holds the necessary wish for fire to be born. The fires of human attention must lawfully draw out, shape, and define the interactive nature of our inner world of intention if the wish exists to elevate and dignify the evolutionary journey on its grander scale. A gift, as well as a paradox, of our ability to hold the opposites in perfect tension; echoing Thoreau’s deeper meanings invoked via his “action from principle” where the separation of the diabolical from the divine (within us) takes hold.
The power of such mythic imagery has always spoken eloquently to the transformative spark within our consciousness regarding that perfect tension, and fire’s pedagogical significance. Numerous stories abound explaining how people first acquired fire, either through their own daring or as a gift from an animal, God, or hero. Greek mythology brought us Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind, as well as the mythic imagery of the Phoenix rising from the ashes of human ruin and darkness. A “darkness” also without substance & form, where instead of magic we find the prosaic lack of beauty and imagination. Symbols of such new life illustrates fire’s blessings as well as its burden. Uncontrolled outwardly, the deadly and dangerous element of fire can race and leap like a living thing. Forgotten inwardly, its shadow consumes and devours all in its path. A heavy price and burden which we appear to be paying on both fronts during these perilous times.
The bringers of fire are legendary heroes in many traditions. My favorite however comes from the Native Americans belief that long ago some evil being (shadow) hid fire so that people could not benefit from it. A hero had to recover it and make it available to human beings ~ to us. In many versions of the story Coyote steals fire for people. According to the Navajo, Coyote tricked two monsters that guarded the flames on “Fire Mountain” (our higher, transcendental, realms of thought), then he lit a bundle of sticks tied to his tail (the key to understanding canine emotional patterns) and ran down the mountain to deliver the fire to his people. A true “prayer of the heart” act of courage, where the dual trickster nature of Coyote consciously chooses the role of messenger, and the bringer of light. Much like Dorothy, the divine goddess or “good witch” of the South in the Wizard of Oz, who quests to steal the evil witches’ power, in order to bring the fire gift of inner attention (real power) back to “Kansas”, our home. These instructional stories bring this dual nature of Fire into greater relief within my inner world and help orientate my actions in the outer. Stealing back these powers of human attention does require patience, fortitude, conviction, and time. Education, in order to preserve & prepare the future, must include this quest as its highest priority!
With fire, the gods became manifest. Myths were told around the hearth and through it philosophy was explored. Out of it a science emerged. Sadly, the shadow that accompanied this nascent perspective witnessed the magic, mystery and metaphysics of the gift being deconstructed via that very human sin of inadvertence. The current times are now calling upon us to recreate it! Like the eucatastrophic tale of Humpty Dumpty, where all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again, the fires of human attention, and intention, are being called for where acts of reciprocal exchange, accompanied by the magic of seeing with new eyes, envision a different story to that being played out before us today.
If Aphrodite, according to the myth postulated by Empedocles, created the eye because correspondence between the intraocular fires and external fire required some greater pentecostal bridge, a ‘drawing out’ of the fire of human attention, I believe the summons has never been so clear. It is what the myths describe and define, this bringing forth of light to illuminate the darkness, and a skill we need to relearn and remember!
“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they (*the 12 apostolic bezels of wisdom) were all with one accord in one place (*the Divine Goddess of Conscience). And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
Acts 2:1-13 King James Bible (*my emphasis)
Then, we must focus and, while pondering the all-important coal created by friction, ask ourselves what “flame from finger” ignition point principle is in play at the moment when particles of wood become waves of light. This very real ignition point (the temperature at which matter combusts), provides a segue into an understanding of that larger, vast involutional/evolutionary mystery within the Cosmos itself, mirroring the particle/wave dichotomy at the core of particle physics. What reconciling principle bridges the two, bringing the two into relationship? For myself, the spindle, containing all its stored energy from the Sun, is analogous to a lightning rod, and what channels that ignition ~ lightning! According to science, lightning is thought to have furnished one of the sources from which ancient man derived fire and is (aside from Man) the most prolific cause of fire in nature. Myth likewise connects fire’s derivation and destructive potential to lightning. High-quality lightning data, recently available, indicates that lightning occurs on average 44 times every second over the entire Earth, and has long been believed to have been the “spark” igniting the magical journey of all life itself. But as the world burns, we have become cold and indifferent. The transformative power of fire is not a painless process, but we must ask ourselves what within our inner world mirrors the illumination power of fire in the outer. What potential gift is given to us that we can reciprocate back if not that of human attention? And what will ensure that the same lightning bolt impulse for igniting the mind of man is re-membered and preserved?
Ritual.
In many cultures, people have long practiced rituals related to fire, and these rituals are often based on myths and legends about fire or fire gods. In ancient Rome, for example, a sacred flame associated with the goddess Vesta represented national well-being. Women called the Vestal Virgins, like Coyote in the Navaho, had the holy duty of keeping that flame alive. Making fire by friction is one such ritual that may well serve today. A ritual where we, awake and aware of the neural sparks of impulse requiring a quiet, balanced reciprocal exchange, bridge our inner world content to that of the outer world. To do this – to remember it - all the right materials need to be there, fashioned with care, and applied with the insight and understanding of process. Then there is the wish!
What is he doing there?’
‘He is putting out the fire, your Excellency.’
‘Not likely. The fire is in the minds of men and not on the roofs of houses.’
—Fyodor Dostoyevski, The Possessed
This article first appeared in Parabola Magazine, Fall Issue 2021
