“We are all connected by fire,” he said, one quiet line in the midst of a wry, wise tutorial. We sat on wet grass above the breathing heart of Mauna Loa—Pele’s house—to learn from Kumu Hula Manaiakalani Kulua and his pupils as they danced and chanted traditional Hawaiian stories.
Sun and its mate, moon; candle and lamp; campfire and cookstove; the flames of Western forests and the smoke they send aloft; lightening that links sky to ground and rockets across clouds; the heated rhetoric and deadly explosions of our troubled world; burning desires; banked coals; the pulses of our mother boards; potent sparks of imagination, genius, hope; a flash of recognition; the god and goddess of a thousand legends; and surely the simmering essence of earth that stretches beneath all our feet and calls toward its home in the sky. Fire.
Yes. Even here in the growing dark of winter–this winter, our winters—we are tempered and connected and comforted by fire.
Work. Right. You’ve heard this before. In January, I returned to the halls of paid employment. This time at a little library in the historic mining settlement of Clancy a few miles and a weather-system south. For ten hours each week, I shelved, checked in, checked out, and hunted for books in our shop or through interlibrary loan. I witnessed an interesting mix of deep rural conservatism, needless community infighting, and inspirational book-loving families. Ten months was enough. Besides, a generously-offered volunteer gig writing snippets for the Montana Historical Society’s Women’s History Facebook page provides the perfect combination of work and play.
Mysteries, beauty, laughter. In February, with my friends Milo and Janene, the Big Islands’ windswept shores, lava fields, mists and cultures brightened Montana’s darkest season. And introduced me to that amazing hula teacher. I came home to the privilege of bearing witness to my hospice client’s death; an early spring and stubbornly late, intense summer; to Jack and the Beanstalk tomatoes and gin and tonics on the porch; Parsonsfield—a infectious, “shockingly good”—as reviewers found them–ensemble of young musicians from Connecticut at the Red Ants Pants Festival; a trip up the North Fork framed by laughter and mountain light; tummy-tickling swoops on a sun-drenched historic road through the Bridgers; amazing lessons in felting from a fine artist; ghost town tours; breathtaking movies; a perfect Graves Hotel burger; a sky settling down to sleep in profound radiance; an aspen near my porch providing its own course in the mysteries of the universe.
Words and images. Even in Montana remoteness, I am reminded that incandescent creativity is ours for the taking every day. As close as outdoors, our magazines, the flicker of a Kindle, the online art that you post or send. That artisans of every skill—largely unsung–capture the very elements of our being and return them to us in searing passages. I am especially thankful this year for a rising generation of skilled Montana authors: Craig Lancaster, Gloria Florio, Russell Rowland, Christine Carbo; for the best from long-time favorites: Anthony Doerr, Kent Haruf, Elizabeth Gilbert, Stephanie Kallos, Simon Van Booy, Ivan Doig; for lighter writers crafting clever turns of phrase: Sarah-Kate Lynch, Catherine Alliott; and for a November framed by J. K. Rowling’s magic (yes, you told me to read Harry Potter a long time ago). Bless, too, the quilters and the sculptors, gardeners, movie makers and songwriters, the grand painters and ledger art editorialists.
Friends. Thank you for the wisdom and caring that fuel our friendship: your delicately-framed honesty; the poem you rushed to find; an unbidden hug; the perfectly-timed invitation to coffee; the call you placed when you might have turned another page; the batch of homemade cookies you invented and delivered; the day you devoted to sitting and talking in the sun; the email you crafted before cocktail hour; your gift of an hour of canine play—good medicine any day; a light touch; a book loaned; an fear shared; miles driven; boundaries honored; preferences understood; silences and celebrations. In the swirling fire-limed currents of our world, I treasure the well-tended, joyful circuitry of our friendship.
Tonight and through the year to come, may fire warm your heart and hearth, temper your soul, and connect you to all the beings with whom we share this globe spun from sun.
. . . .Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
some of us will ever know.
To live in the world
you must be able to
do these things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against you bones
knowing your life depends on it;
and when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
Mary Oliver/In Blackwater Woods
