the flame in everything

the flame was sparked thousands of years ago, and nurtured for millennia

the flame was sparked thousands of years ago, and was nurtured for millennia

even with traditions and institutions and sacred orders to feed and nurture and spread it, the fire couldn't outrun time and chance forever

rains, floods, misunderstandings and degradations of tradition--the flame dwindled and died

.

for a couple generations, mourning and denial

they read the old books, performed the old rituals, told stories of the fire's warmth, and convinced themselves that they still felt it, that it was still there somewhere

the children were harder to fool, once no one remembered the flame

it all fell by the wayside, the books and legends and rituals

.

some started to notice: it doesn't take much to start a new spark. any child with two sticks and some pine needles can do it just fine

but the old books and rituals didn't quite fit

the new fire was fed on birch and maple, rather than oak and cedar

its smoke was sweet and light, not rich and dense like the books described

the keepers of the books came and stamped out the fire

a fire that is not the fire of the book can only be heresy

.

so sparks were started in secret, kept in new ways

huge fires, tiny fires, smoldering embers; fires to cook on and fires to heat homes

.

slowly, an old truth became obvious

starting a flame is easy; flame is in every stick and leaf and brick of coal, waiting to be coaxed out

the difficulty is in nurturing the flame, in keeping it going once its started

.

three paths emerged

first the path of devotion to the dead flame

they stayed in their books and rituals, insisting that true warmth was not in base physical experience of warmth, but in the warmth of devotion to an invisible unfelt flame.

in faith that the flame was out there

.

second the path of the art of nurturing

they kept the new flames as close as they could to the conditions of the old flame: they burned with oak and cedar, though both were rare now, used up by the old order

they conquered nearby lands to keep cedar in the furnace

they took on the old books and rituals, not for their own sake, but to learn from them how to nourish a spark and keep it alive

the taste of smoke, the way to split logs, the proper positioning for airflow, the right ways to light and carry a torch, to spread the fire to a new furnace

they learned and followed all this wisdom

.

third the path of abundant flame

there's no need, they said, to be attached to a single flame

all fire is one, it waits in every leaf and bush and trunk to be called on

they giggled at the ritual of carrying the torch from house to house to light each fire

there's no way to separate the fires, they thought, no matter how you start it

why obsess on a single expression of the fire?

there's no way for the fire to die

as long as you teach again and again to each generation how to start a fire for themselves, there's no way to lose it

you can no more lose the fire within all things than you can lose the fire in your own heart

as long as you teach them the virtues of maple smoke, of oak, of birch, of cedar, of pine--

with all this knowledge passed along, there's no need to be precious about which flame started when, about which spark is the grandfather of the flame in your home’s hearth

.

we can teach everyone where to find the flame, and how to coax it

---

---

i’m on a mission to help more people find the flame and coax it—starting with somatic resonance