I am here during the Christmas holidays, and will stay until mid-January, after which I will fly to Shanghai to take on a new teaching position. While in Italy I am staying in an old family house, where my mom, as well as my maternal grandad, were born and raised. There is no modern heating, and so for warmth while indoors I have to light the fireplace. My routine has been to do that early in the morning immediately after rising, at around 6 AM, and then spending the entire morning in front of the glowing flames working on the various projects which need to be completed. In this blog post, I will reflect on this new routine with a particular focus on the strange fascination and primal pleasure of fire.
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| Look Mom, I can do it on my own! |
I have been coming to this old house in Southern Italy almost every year since I was a little boy, mostly during the summer. The last time I was here in the winter was perhaps 12 years ago, and at the time it never occurred to me to use the fireplace, in part because during the day I’d be at my uncle’s apartment, which has all the accoutrements of modern life, such as gas heating and wifi. And so I only slept in the old family house, and thick blankets provided sufficient warmth at night. This time, I am spending much more time in it, as when needed I can connect to the internet via my mobile phone, and I can consequently spend the mornings in blessed silence working in front of the fire.
Since then (at the time of writing, about two weeks ago), I have been lighting the fire every morning, and am struck by how enjoyable the process is. As ever, I have reflected on the reasons for this effect, and have arrived at several potential conclusions.
The first is the sense of relief from the warmth. Just as, when one is hungry, eating food is immensely enjoyable, when one is cold the onset of warmth is pleasurable. It is a primordial pleasure associated with survival, and so in this sense likely activates the most primitive part of the brain. Perhaps this explains the sensual, almost unconscious aspects of attraction to the fire, that feeling that it is pulling me closer, demanding my attention and care independently of will or of the more rational and cognitive faculties.
The fire stimulates almost all the senses, particularly touch, sound, sight, and smell. Lighting the fire, like trying to seduce a potential lover, takes effort and action, trial and error, for the tinder to turn ablaze, but the process continues even after this crucial first part is accomplished. Tender care is required to keep the blaze going so that it continuously emits that satisfying heat: logs must be repositioned, for example, to go closer to the flame. Meanwhile, the fire exudes a soft light which dances on the surfaces of whatever object is facing it, mingling an orange glow with shadows as they dance to the rhythm of the throbbing heat consuming the logs. The smell of wood burning is pleasant, while the light whooshing sound, as if inhaling deeply, of the climaxing flame, and the crackling sound of the consummation of the wood, is first intense, then soothing and relaxing. At a certain point, the fire reaches a kind of stable equilibrium, whereby it is mostly autonomous, and here, I am able to concentrate more on my work; but in the background, the heat, sounds, lights, and smells are creating a very pleasant ambiance.
Another discovery is that lighting, tending, and sitting by the fire is a quasi-spiritual experience. I have been doing mindful meditation for years, and one of the key purposes is to train one’s mind to live in the present moment. The reason is that much mental stress, as well as anxiety and depression, arise in part because of the tendency to obsess about things that happened in the past, or to fear things which may happen in the future. It follows, ipso facto, that when we live in the present moment, we are less likely to pointlessly ruminate over things we have no control over, and calmness, tranquillity, and even a sense of freedom are the result. The fire can achieve a similar outcome if only because the simultaneous simulation of the senses in the present moment militates against obsessing about the past or future. It reminds me of being on the beach in Tulum, Mexico, in the winter of 2021-2022, during sunrise, as the soft heat of the rising sun and the light salty wind gently touched my skin, the sound of the waves splashing the shores, the sand beneath my feet, combined to help me perceive and feel the moment with an intensity which made me oblivious to anything outside of it.
The fire has a spiritual meaning in another sense. While observing the flames as they consumed the wood, I was struck by a sense of being in the presence of a powerful primal force with the transformative power to give and destroy life. This element allowed our ancestors to survive in the cold, and to cook meat, which further contributed to human’s prodigious expansion across the earth. The lack of fire for heating and eating ultimately could be a question of life or death. At the same time, the very heat which provides so much comfort and upon which life depended could quickly and mercilessly turn everything of value, including life itself, to ashes. Countless lives perhaps have been lost to fire, as have innumerable forests. And then, as if through magic, this process of destruction generates new life. The ashes from the flames can become fertilizer to grow more and healthy vegetation, which then go on to feed more people, which increase in numbers, and so on, in a never ending cycle of destruction and birth which characterizes all organic life. In our comfortable Western lifestyles, in which we deny or purposely forget the reality of death, it is easy to ignore this primal fact of nature. And yet for some unexplained reason the simple act of lighting and tending the fire forced me to face this reality and reminded me of why the ancients either worshiped fire or attached deep religious significance to it.
Closeness to nature, then, is one of the main benefits of my stay in the old family house in Southern Italy during the winter of 2022-2023. While here, I have spent mornings in front of the fire, which starts to flicker out about 9:30 AM. At this point, I go and sit on the small balcony on the second floor and take in the warm rays of the rising sun, the same sun which nourishes the plants which feed the planet’s population, including me, or which, in other contexts, may cause heat waves with deadly consequences. I go from one source of warmth, the fireplace, to another, the sun, both primal elements of nature, both givers and destroyers of life.
