The First Fire of Spring

There's a particular quality to the first outdoor fire after winter. The air still has a bite to it, but the light is changing. The days are stretching. Something in the land is waking up, and you can feel it if you're paying attention.

Last weekend we lit the first fire of the season in the clearing. The wood was damp from weeks of rain and it took patience to get it going — more patience than most of us are used to giving anything. But that's part of it. The waiting. The tending. The slow build from spark to flame.

By the time the fire was roaring, the group had settled into a different rhythm. Phones were away. Conversations were unhurried. Someone had brought bread to toast over the coals. We ate it with butter and honey while the sun dropped behind the trees.

There's nothing revolutionary about sitting around a fire. Humans have been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years. But for those of us who live in cities — who spend our days under fluorescent lights, staring at screens, moving at the speed of the internet — it feels almost radical. A deliberate return to something ancient and necessary.

The spring fire felt like a beginning. Not just of the season, but of something in each person who was there. I watched people arrive tense and guarded and leave soft and open. That's the work. That's what the fire does.