Sep 22 2013
Campfire Meditation
There comes a time when nothing here in the developed lowlands can cure what ails me, when I must load a few essentials into my backpack and head for the hills. It doesn’t have to be a vast wilderness area. Any pocket of wild woods will do.
I go alone. No one but my dog Matika accompanies me, that is. She makes good company in the woods because she’s not human.
I hike for several hours, sweating away much of my frustration with what passes for civilization. Then I start looking for a good place to camp. By the time I am comfortably ensconced in the woods, it is getting on towards evening. I build a fire to cook dinner. Afterward, as the sun is setting, I slip into campfire meditation.
Flames dance inside a small circle of stones at my feet. I feed thumb-sized sticks into the fire to keep it going. Placement is essential otherwise the pan-sized fire will quickly burn out. I pay careful attention. Eventually random thoughts give way to something else, to a deep calm, to clarity.
Hours pass. The moon rises, an owl hoots in the distance, the nearby feeder stream gurgles, and all is right with the world. When I start running low on wood, I let the fire burn down to embers. Then I put it out. But in the morning I do it all over again – this time with a pen and field journal in hand. Campfire meditation becomes campfire philosophy. And that’s pretty much what I’m all about.
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