Fire, and Other Sacred Things

My roommates had been talking about building a firepit for months. As the weather grew warmer it was increasingly on all of our minds. So yesterday afternoon we bought bricks, and as the sun set I pulled out a shovel and went to work.

What I dug out was an old firepit used for Wiccan ritual, buried for years. There was still a charred log, soft and moldy, beneath the sod. We arranged 4 layers of 13 bricks in a circle. We built a roaring fire, and sat beneath the stars and fat waxing gibbous moon to enjoy it. The moon grew bright, Orion stood guard over the house and the big dipper tipped backwards over the woods.

The allure of fire has captivated man for over 1 million years. Something in our very being is drawn to the fire we create here on earth, and to the fire burning silently in the sky.

Today, I flipped on the tv as I went about paying bills, and Contact was on. Based on Carl Sagan’s novel of the same name, it is one of my favorite films of all time. It explores science and faith in a profound way, and it makes you gaze at the stars in wonder. What is it that is out there? Amidst those millions of points of light? Those countless distant fires?

Fire is a symbol, a beacon. Like our intellect it requires fuel, so it’s no wonder Irish poets had “fire in the head.” Fire repesents passion, sex, health, vitality. We have built massive structures of meaning for the concept of fire.

But in the end, fire is fire, and extraordinary in and of itself. When was the last time you sat by a fire, and just experienced it?