The other day, I wrote a piece called If You Come To The Fire To Get Warm, Bring Wood.
Here are a few more reasons why this matters.
No doubt more will occur to you. If they do, please feel to share them in the comments below.
The first reason is that, the process of going outside, finding the wood, dragging it to you and cutting it will warm you from the sheet work of it.
The second is that the work of stacking and making the wood pile is work too and that will warm you as well.
The third reason is that the fire you attend will last a bit longer with your log on it or, if it’s not used that night, it will give someone else the chance for warmth.
I’m not the first to notice those things above.
But there’s another reason to bring some wood to the fires you visit: others will see you bringing the wood. The young people sitting there will learn more from how you approach the fire, wood in hand, than by anything you could say to them at the fire.
When you bring gifts to the host of whatever events you attend, let yourself be seen. Especially by the young. We could show them how it’s done.
We could remind them that nothing is free.
That everything costs something or someone.
That other things suffered for us to be here.
That it cost our hosts something to host us around their fire that night whether they bought the wood or cut it by hand with an axe or with a chainsaw (made from the Earth) they have to fuel (with gas and oil that cost some patch of land somewhere (extracted by machines that cost another patch of land somewhere)).
Us bringing a gift is our way of saying, “Thank you for all your work, seen and unseen, to bring us together tonight around the fire.”
Most people don’t bring wood. They assume that the fire will be there when they need it, regardless of whether or not they contribute to its existence. They think this because they don’t see the cost involved.
Given the cold days we are facing and that are galloping towards us now, our young deserve the warmth but, even more, they deserve the example of us tending to our shared obligation of feeding what’s been feeding us all along.
That example might warm them, for a long time, too.
Yes. 🙌🏽 not only well said, but well lived brother. I see you doing this every where you go.
I have no words to express how much I love this. Mòran taing, a caraid.