Firewood

Firewood dumped again in a pile. It always amazes me when a pile of wood is dropped here for the next heating season. It is different these past, more recent years here regarding firewood - or cord wood as it is usually referred to for those of us that heat only with wood. Dwelling with firewood is a rhythm that marks the year for a good many months. Long ago we used to find and gather our firewood. It often came from a neighbor that cut a tree down. Or it was gathered from a downed tree by the side of the road. This took us a really long time to get it together. It was not very efficient either. Such is life when you are young and have more energy than money.

How do you decide to dwell in your young life? We had decided to make due with just about everything. This included our heating story. There is a furnace here - unused for all the time we have lived here. It just became a habit to use only cordwood. A habit born out of necessity and frugality. It isn’t always a very easy lifestyle choice. It does allow one to have some small amount of independence from heating in ways that often depend on others. We like that. If the power is going to go out - we can at least stay warm. We do not live off grid so we are still hooked up to power. That is another story for another day.

I think firewood is beautiful. When a pile of it arrives here it feels a bit like a sigh of relief with a warm sense of safety. It even seems to hold a bit of fire magic. We have had the same wood guy for a long time. He is always fair and consistent. If you need to be warm, you want your wood guy to be fair. It is serious business finding a wood person. You want to keep him and also to keep him going for the community. It is something that you always keep in the back of your mind - what if? So, we keep going with the cordwood that is delivered - which is really only the beginning if you heat your home with wood.

In the beginning of the season it feels cozy and warm. It feels plentiful and unrushed. You know - a nice fire going in the woodstove to sit back and enjoy. As the season turns colder - the hauling it inside - stuffing it in the stove - waking up at night to load the stove - all of that begins to factor in to the joy and contentment you feel. As the days grow dark and shorter with longer nights - the fire is always on your mind. The colder days make hauling it a hurried affair. It’s hauled across the house to the wood storage spot and dumped with a heavy let-go of the log carrier. I am grateful for the warmth.

When you heat with only wood - there are things to consider. For instance - generally I always have a scarf on all winter long. I can wear a hat as well when it’s below 0 fahrenheit. There always seems to be some sort of chill in the air coming from somewhere. Always more work to do in fixing that old house that you live in that you heat with wood. Sometimes you get splinters or bruises from loading the stove in a hurry. If your arms hurt or your back is soar - well, that isn’t something much to consider as you still need to load the stove to stay warm. It is pretty to watch while at the same time being a nuisance sometimes.

Living a life that includes heating with cordwood has it’s own kind of rhythm. It is a tempo that you need to always be aware of. It is maybe a bit like having a story your living while heating in that season of wood. There are maybe only three months out of the year that the wood stove is not going - although not at full capacity through all of that time. The story is a remembering - hauling - stacking - pulling - dumping and finally loading. Memory may become muscle - and you still need to remember. You cannot forget about the wood or the woodstove ever. What is it doing? When does it need to be fed again? Is it clean? Do we need more firewood called in? Come to thing of it - it is like caring for a being. It is the Wood Stove Being that needs forever tending. In the tending of that beast in your home - you tend yourself and see your own thoughts in the mirror of the stove.

As I look into the stove day after day - night after night - it is me and my being meshing with the being of the hearth stove. We are one. I am grateful for the woodstove - grateful for the warmth. Moreover - I am glad to have a focus that grounds me in a simple act that humanity has been dancing with for eternity. The fireside enchantment of heating with wood allows me to be in connection with all of my ancestors. The effort of heating your home with wood is the heart and hearth connection with humanity that needs warmth in the cold to survive another year. A loud thud of wood dropped from a big ‘old dump truck is a contract with the fire gods that this ember is going to keep going for another year.

First Frost

A handmade life is a story that always interests me. In a time when so many are providing interesting life stories to read about and follow along with - sharing handmade lives - it is good to remember that in general we share what we are most comfortable with. This happens both in person and online in the lives that we have offered up in the ongoing time. Here I am sharing a snapshot of my own handmade.

A white bench made quickly a bunch of years ago from an Ana White simple woodworking pattern - sits by the doorway. It needs paint again now. So many moments sitting on that bench - talking, sharing, pondering, wishing. The first frost arrived on the land and everything is covered in a beautiful heavy dusting of glitter. In the early morning sunlight - frosted sparkles catch my eye everywhere that I glance. It is easy to see the magic things in the landscape of nature. The air feels bright and clear, An expectant nuance blankets the early morning world. Even the songbirds sound excited with their cold calls.

I wander about looking more closely at the plants. An artemisia just yesterday coated in velvet - now frosted and soon to turn dark as it withers against the cold. Its scent is unmistakable. I almost always run my hands across her stems and leaves - bring my hands up to my face - deeply inhale. It is one of the great many simple pleasures of living with plants. The plants that we are drawn to share something with us. A deeper connection is found when we return again and again to the plants that we are drawn to. If you have lived a very long time on a land place the plants are another one of the signposts of your journey of lifeways.

Plant ways bring the most profound gifts and healing ways if we remain open to them. It is even better if we take an active interest in the actual plants living with us. Looking closer in with an open curiosity will reveal answers and insight to questions and wonderings that we may be carrying. Living with an inquisitive nature toward the plants that we feel drawn to - allows a connection to be created between two sentient beings.

I have lived on and with this land for a very long time now. I know the rhythm of the seasons. I can anticipate the plants that will arrive again and again. When they don’t return - I am disappointed. What happened? Perhaps it’s like a friend that has taken a different pathway. We do not always get to know the story of another. One way to incorporate plant medicine into our lives is to use the essence and energetic qualities of a plant. I mean to use them on the same energetic essence level as an imagination. What is the immediate quality coming to you when you sit with a plant or walk by a plant ally. Did a memory occur to you? Has a person entered your consciousness suddenly? Is it really out of the blue? I think in these sudden inexplicable ways - we communicate with plants on energetic levels that can offer up to us very healing pieces of plant medicine.

Just like we meet people in our lives that offer us something - so too a plant peaks our attention in subtle and more direct ways. If we listen with a gentle attention there are wisdoms for us to take in. We can ask questions to the plants themselves. Perhaps later on in a dream an answer of importance may move us in a direction of - before not thought of. It is these quiet ways that we can have access to a whole world of beautiful guidance. It is a living book of answers for us to find a way to enter into. Try to be gentle as you enter into plant relationships. Like with a new person you meet - you might gently introduce yourself. There is so much to discover!

In exploring with a plant you will want to be patient. Not all is always as it seems at first. It takes awhile to learn about and get to know the energetics of plant medicine. I am speaking here only about the friendly and curious relationship you can form with a plant. Tell the plant you want to work with her. Definitely bring a gift for the plant as you first come to visit. Perhaps you might come back another day with a well formed and simple question. Listen for the little whispers of inspiring that speaks to you. A thought comes - a memory is conjured - a wish is noticed - a feeling is deeply felt on an energetic and heart felt level.

I would recommend keeping a journal about your noticing’s and interactions with your plant connection. Record any dreams you might have found about the plant during this specific time of claimed working with your plant. It is a beginning. Notice where you travel. Try to just remain open - without expectation. In the unguarded moments it is when profound insight can come to questions we carry. I think that is why we are - some of us - it is because we are seekers. We are seeking answers and somehow we know that answers can be found among the plants that we so tenderly care for and witness.

In your handmade life - perhaps if you make yourself a simple bench built by your own two hands - you will find yourself listening to the frosts that arrive each year as you sit quietly in contemplation. Moving slowly is so needed in these times. Allow your nervous system to quiet a bit and look toward forming relationships. If you don’t have people relationships in your life - you can most definitively form deep and lasting relationships with the plant world. The gifts to be found there are filled with meaning - as deep as you can explore - your solid new friends.

Artemisia in the Garden