Keeping the Fire: Overture

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     Much is made of the act of making fire. In the East we make it with the striking of flint against steel. The crack of metal and stone bringing sparks at our beckon call and fire is the servant of our knowledge. In the parts of the Westin Mountains they still make fire with a bow and stick, a long, hard labor of wood grinding into wood until, at last, a faint smoke ushers from the groove. There, in the West, fire is won by struggle and strength like all other things. Sometimes fire is given by the heavens, a great crash and the blow from the sky rends a tree in half leaving a burning wound. But always it takes this moment of struggle, a moment of violence to make the greatest of gifts: fire that which cleanses food, bathes with warmth, shelters with light, and gives life. 

     Much is made of that spark, that moment of violence from which all fire comes. But is not the keeping of fire a greater task? What of the long nights, the constant care, the gentle coercion, and the thousand quick interventions, what of all the many tasks that must be done to keep the hearth; what of the matronly duty of those that carry fire in a horn, tending the pregnant embers along a journey. There is not the same violence and passion to it, this long, quiet work of tending the fire. But is it not a greater duty, this lonesome, thankless task? Even if the world rejoices in the spark, in that one moment of violence, would it not be a colder, darker world without the long hours of the keeping? 

     Are we not lesser without that work that goes unseen? 

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Don't know what this is? Check out the Pages section to the right to learn more about the Keeping the Fire project.