FIRE WORKS

Latest agenda item on the Drifters table is Fire. Fireplace or wood stove? For heat or for show…or both? How much to spend? Environmentally sound, efficient, responsible…? Lot’s to learn and lots to think about…but we’ll figure it out among ourselves. In this space I prefer to muse on the larger questions and as I previously indulged in extended reveries on Water and Trees, I’ll now add Fire…and perhaps add earth and wind later so I can cleverly embed an Earth Wind and Fire video and make it look like I had a well planned vision.

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products… including billions of words (could be trillions no?) in praise, tribute and poetry from time immemorial. So here’s my humble couple of hundred.

I love water, but fire isn’t far behind on my list of primal elemental attractions. And as earlier post suggested, put the two of them together ie: a bonfire on the beach, and you’ve got pretty much the (universal?) ideal for pure sensory bliss.

The humbling power of the heat combined with the kinetic break dancing of the flames is mesmerizing to me. I have enjoyed tending fires of various sizes and shapes most of my adult life (and much of my pyro-maniacal youth) and can’t recall a single dull moment. Observed carefully, every fire is constantly changing in subtle and often not so subtle ways. Outdoor fires are the best for experimenting with all the variations you can explore in order to promote different types of combustible action. Deciding what to burn is in itself an engaging exercise. Size, shape, hardness, dryness and flammability are all considerations. Then with the fire itself, wind is a factor (often discovered too late for the uninitiated) as is depth of fire-pit, and structure and height of the burning elements. I also like planning how I want the fire to progress--what logs will catch first and how the pile will shift and settle over time. For me, it’s like cooking. All the ingredients play a role and there are so many ways to improvise and play with them. Just occurred to me—that’s where “play with fire” must have come from. That’s literally what you’re doing. Playing. That’s why I’ve always preferred the term “playing music” as opposed to “making music”. It’s a small distinction perhaps, but not for me…”making” suggests that you are creating music, that you are the source-- whereas “playing” implies that you are a participant in something that exists outside yourself and precedes you but you can harness it and it’s there for anyone so inclined to do so as well. Digression over—while a fireplace fire is not a roaring pyre, it is still provides fairly substantial opportunity for interactivity. Choosing the right logs, setting them just right to promote air flow, watching it all develop from spreading flames on small dry initial kindling (the ideal way to start) and seeing that lower log take the bait and pass it along horizontally and vertically. It’s all fascinating to me. I sometimes enter into a silent dialogue with the fire:

Me: So what's keeping your right side from catching dude?
Fire: Patience my friend, just gotta let that little knot in my shoulder burn off and then I'll show you some serious orange and blue.

Whoever came up with the Yule Log idea was on to something--though it was probably just a TV executive looking for a cheap substitute to make up for lack of better programming, it's interesting that even a totally artificial, two-dimensional, (not to mention that the first ones were probably Black and White) odorless, heatless and somewhat out of focus image of a blazing fire could still have the power to compel...