By the fire

We were camping in the Redwoods National Park in early autumn. Night approached, we started or small bonfire in the fire pit. Gathering around the fire is something most of us love. Few activities give us a greatest feeling of togetherness. And although it may sound redundant, of warmth. Richard and I prepared the firewood, splitting the bigger pieces with an ax. Good ax handle. I’ve been using axes since I was about four. If you use an ax, you know how important is the handle. Axes and fire are much related. Su Dongpo, the Sung Dynasty poet, painter, calligrapher and genius wrote, living water should be cooked with living fire. My daughter and her mother were in care of cooking with the portable butane stove. Cooking with fire.

Once we had our bonfire on, I looked around a little. There were modern tents, some amazingly comfortable modern RVs, modern cars. Most of us had left our houses, to spend a few days camping in the middle of the ancient redwoods forest. We set our tents by the 500 year old trees. They were our homes for those days. The cell phones had no signal in the forest. All we could hear was the soft whispering sound of Smith river, the night insects, and the burning firewood. Our hearts were filled with an immense joy, a joy not easily matched. Not the sort of exhilarating joy that takes you up, and then comes down. It was the joy of quietness. Even. Without ups and downs. Instead of hangover, it leaves you an unstoppable awareness of wholeness, of having joined the dance of the universe.

I looked at Richard and said, “isn’t it funny?” — “What?” he asked. I said, “look around. There’s so many people camping here, and gathering round the fire. We work so much to get all that technology, our modern cars (although mine is a ’51 Land Rover), the sophisticated houses. Then, we leave all that behind, to find joy just by camping in a forest, and gathering round the fire. Just like thousands of years ago.” We looked at each other and laughed. Gathering round the fire is something most of us love the most.

Being in love

“I’m in love,” told me my neighbor.

“Congratulations!” I said, and asked, “you know what it means?”

“I thought I was broken, but now I see I’m not,” he replied.

I said, “it means that you can love. To fall in love, you must be able to love.”

He’s twenty six. We have a great reservoir of idealism and romanticism at that age. We should never loose it. They are a great strength, a great force. When I was even younger than my neighbor, I used to go to a jazz spot. There was a poster on one wall. It was a rather grotty (grotesque) face, with entangled hair and bugs walking on it. The face was saying, “I love you, and today everything seems beautiful to me”. My neighbor’s face reflected exactly that. It seemed funny to me, that my yesterday’s post had something to do with love. And today this chap said he was in love. When we are in love, we see the world with different eyes.

We don’t need, however, limit ourselves to be in love with a human being. We can be in love with life in all it’s forms. The rock breaking in the grass, the light of setting sun, giving its colors to mountains, rivers and oceans. The food we eat. “Oh, I love you so much that I would eat you, dear soup of mine.” Up to the smallest bread crumb we can love. And everything looks different.

This will work as long as it’s not a simple emotional lack of objectivity. On the contrary, genuine love is conscious love, the fruit of awareness, of seeing with objectivity and equanimity. In the case of romantic, personal love, it does not consist of hiding under the carpet what we don’t like of the other one. We love our beloved because he/she is the way he/she is. As in the words of the Beatles’ song, “cos the things you do, endear you to me, oh you know I will.”

We don’t need to be teenagers to be in love. We don’t need to be twenty six to be in love. What we need is awareness. The awareness that comes from mindfulness. Appreciate things-events by what they are. We need, simply, being able to love, and that is inherent to all of us. Love like children do. That’s their happiness. So, like in the poster, don’t worry about the bugs taking a stroll on your head. Be like my neighbor. Just fall in love, and make a toast to him and his beloved: may their union be always happy! and if you want to give it a little Irish touch, raise your glasses and say

May they live as long as they want
And never want as long as they live
Sláinte!