Fire Watchers: thoughts from a woodfire

They wake up at the hour when the world is still asleep. The last stretch of night before the morning greets them with silence as they open doors to the cool air outside. Through stillness a truck rolls, engine and wheels interrupting the morning calm as the headlights break through the dark.

They walk beneath the fading stars to the rough shelter and the sound of quiet voices. The night watch welcomes them from under their blankets, lighted by the dim glow of the fire. This fire is the reason they are here, the reason so many have set aside their work, their lives, to gather together before it. It must be guarded through the night, fed and carefully tended. For, even while it draws people in and warms them, it serves another, greater purpose. Behind the brick, in darkness sit the products of many hours of work, the work of their hands. Shelves, propped up by fire worn, stone stilts, are laden with vessels--object awaiting their transformation. The hands that formed them placed them gently into darkness, and now feed the fire that will make them beautiful. 

As the sky fades to grey, quiet conversation is the theme music to the feeding of the flames. The fire burns brighter now as the watchers push it onward. All this is in preparation for the great dance of later. The time is coming when there will be little rest as the watchers turn from woodpile back to fire in a wild dance, feeding its great hunger. They will sweat from its heat as they fight to bring it to the point of transformation. Through another night they will work, all for the sake of the work of their hands. For, when the fire is done, when the heat has receded and the darkness has returned within, eager hands will remove the door of bricks and hands and eyes will explore the depths of the kiln to look for flashes of beauty left as a surprise by the fire.

   

The fire changes a lot between the first and second nights