The Ugly Little Fire

All I had to do was gather wood, create a tepee-style fire layout, breathe a coal into flame in a tinder bundle, and use the flaming tinder to light the fire. I had seen examples of already laid out tepee fires, and an explanatory diagram.

I found a nearly ideal source of wood: a large fallen madrone. Much of it was up off the ground and therefor dry despite the recent rains. Its parts included everything from the thinnest twigs up to wrist thick wood.

My first step was to gather a double handful of the thinnest twigs with which to form the innermost tepee. I wanted twigs at least 8 inches long but they kept breaking into 3- or 4- inch long pieces. How was I going to have enough room to insert the hopefully-flaming tinder bundle under such a tiny “tepee”?

I kept going and harvested thin chopstick-size twigs, then pencil-size twigs, and finally thumb-sized twigs as the next three layers for my tepee. Going back to the shallow fire “pit” with my treasures, I found others hard at work. Their tepees looked great.

My thinnest twigs would not create a very big tepee no matter what I tried. Finally I just piled then up and tried to massage the pile into sort of a cup on its side. It did not look good.

The rest of the layers made a respectable-looking tepee. But I kept looking inside at the ugly, massaged pile of the thinnest stuff.

To put off thinking about what was going to happen if and when I tried to start my fire, I returned to my wood source and found a little more stuff to add on as a “door”, after the fire was lit and burning, over the gap into which the tinder bundle would be thrust.

When I got back I saw a couple of instructors helping some kids build great looking tepees. I also realized that out of politeness to the person nearest to me, I had not placed my “doorway” upwind to let the wind carry the starter flames into the tepee wood. And my fire layout still looked ugly and not at all what it was supposed to be.

I was pretty sure it would not work and I did not want to even try to get it going. An instructor saw my unhappiness and hesitation, and listened to my story. She told me I had to find belief and confidence that my fire would work; she said it looked fine to her. I told her I had to take a brief walk to see if I could find what I needed inside myself.

This is silly, I though to myself. Big deal if the fire does not work. Just give it a shot and whatever happens, happens. It's just a class. Don't be a wuss.

So I started trying to figure out why was I upset and reluctant to just try my best and not worry about the outcome. [Okay, now this may get a bit weird for you.] I realized that I was thinking about the wood. The course encouraged me to consider everything that had gone into making the wood: the soil and water and the years of sunlight. The classes suggested I think about what harvesting wood meant to the forest: removal of nutrients that insects and fungi and other plants would be using in the future. The idea was that respectful use of wood was fine, but wasting the wood dishonored the user and insulted the forest [my words not those of the course].

So, I apparently did not want to let the wood down by failing to make a successful fire. Yeah, having those thoughts surprised me, too. So I emulated sort-of what I had heard the instructors do, I silently asked for help to make a fire that burned and burned well so that its harvest was honorable. I was not ready to ask a Creator, or God, so I asked the wood. itself as the least creepy thing. It was still creepy and uncomfortable, but somehow I convinced myself that I now had an ally.

I got a tinder bundle, shaped it into a cup, and secured a small coal. I walked slowly back to the ugly little fire, breathing more and more life into the tinder. I knelt down. breathed the tinder into flame, and put the flaming bundle onto the messed up pile of thinnest twigs.

It was a struggle. I had to massage my wood around to get it downwind where the little flame could get to it. I had to keep breathing into the base of the baby fire to get it the extra oxygen it need for life. The flame died out several times but had created enough small coals that flame easily sprang up when I blew on them.

I fed in the stuff I had gathered for a “door” and just massaged wood around to close the “doorway.” My tepee began to look like a haystack. I was blowing, massaging, poking sticks in here and there, and just generally going for it.

And then the slightly larger wood started to ignite here and there. The flame had enough downwind fuel to start to take off. Flames got taller and began licking out the top.

It was not the quick, put-the-flaming-tinder-in-and-stand-back fire I had wanted. It never was pretty. But it burned.

I looked around. To my surprise several of the picture perfect fires had not started and people were getting their second tinder bundles to try again. Instructors were helping some start all over. How about that?

One of my neighbor asked me to help her get some more wood! Several instructors and others in the course congratulated me on a good job!

I remembered something one of the instructors had said, sometimes fires start for people when it makes no sense, as if they had help somehow. Maybe that's what happened for me, I do not know. But I silently thanked the wood.