Building a Fire
Time running out, or waiting to be discovered?
I look out toward the horizon through the mesh windows of my temporary dwelling: a snug and simple yurt perched on a farm along the rugged coast of Maine, an hour north of Acadia National Park. The silhouettes of pine trees at the edge of a field—planted with potatoes and leeks—reach toward the swollen moon. It’s the same field where the farm apprentices and I spent the day kneeling in rows, weeding and collecting potato beetles (a common pest) to feed to the pigs.
The sun was high. The work, relentless. Our bodies bonded through labor. Through the warm dirt between our toes. Through the unsettling size of larvae. Through the necessity to drastically reduce pesticide applications, and the awareness that the transition isn’t easy. Through the shared conviction that true nourishment—of soul and soil—requires more than effort: it demands reverence. Connection. Care.
Now the night breathes softly. I think about time, self, and spirit. Fireflies rise like flickering embers, signaling something holy. Perhaps it's the passage of time itself. The quiet expansion of the universe that gives life its breath. Their presence always tells me something—about the year, the climate, about loss and return. North America alone has over 100 species of fireflies, many of which are declining due to habitat loss, light pollution, and pesticide application.
As a teenager, I once wrote: “Fireflies are elegant six-legged creatures, dressed in black embroidered with yellow and red—hidden in plain sight until they glow.” Now, I see them not just as wonders, but as witnesses. Indicators of place, of ecological health, of inner joy. As they signal through the dark using bioluminescent organs, I’m reminded that the sacred is often small and blinking and brief.
I hold deep gratitude—for these beetles that awaken the inner child in me. For these farmers who tend to land without chemicals that never harm only one species. Otherwise, this field would not be twinkling through the night.
There’s something ancient about tending a fire. For warmth, for safety, for light. But also as ritual—an elemental communion with something alive and enduring. Ram Dass said, “For some of us, it seems there are only ashes now. But when we dig in the ashes, we find one ember. And very gently, we fan it. And from that ember, we rebuild the fire.”
So, what happens when your fire begins to fade? Not extinguished. Just dulled—by the wind of expectation, the ash of exhaustion, the long invisible pressure to perform instead of feel.
Mine had been dimming for years—quietly, imperceptibly. I was doing everything “right”: working hard, achieving, producing. During the week, I scheduled joy in thirty-minute blocks and often replaced it with cleaning. I called it “balance,” but I was withering beneath invisible demands.
So I stepped out. Not forever, just for a season. I left the rental I could barely afford. I walked away from meeting invites and the summer congestion that floods eastern Long Island. I took myself on a long-promised trip with my cousin. I then drove myself to northern Maine and landed here—not to escape, but to remember.
Now, I am caked in soil. I wake with the animals: horses, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, and one velvet-soft black rabbit named Basil. I move with the rhythm of weather, pasture, and something larger than me. I came seeking something real enough to burn—and in the process, I found it.
While my inner flame choked for air, the world outside was catching fire, literally. Oceans warming faster than ever recorded. Topsoil—the living skin of the Earth—eroding at alarming rates. The FAO warns that 90% of Earth’s topsoil may be at risk by 2050. Coral bleaching. Biodiversity collapse. Emission targets unmet. Marine species abandoning their ancestral routes.
Last summer, wildfire smoke from Canada turned the New York sky into a smoldering blur. I watched children walk to school beneath an ochre sun, faces covered by masks. The Earth is losing her breath too.
We’re not watching climate change unfold over generations—it’s arriving by the season. The Earth is now 1.2°C (2.2°F) warmer than in pre-industrial times. 2024 was the warmest year since records began in 1850, by a wide margin. We are living inside the consequences.
Climate scientists describe feedback loops: drought feeds heat, which feeds fire, which releases greenhouse gases, which intensify heat. A runaway cycle. But it’s not only happening out there. It’s happening in us. Our personal burnout mirrors ecological collapse—too many demands, too little regeneration. The fires rage while we struggle to keep warm inside. For many, the world can feel cold.
There’s a link we rarely name: when we lose the ability to tend our internal flame—our joy, our rest, our purpose—we also forget how to tend the Earth. The hearth goes cold. And in its absence, we shift from participation to extraction. From care to consumption. We forget the sanctity of tending.
The farm didn’t “fix” me. It reintroduced me. To rhythm. To reciprocity. To the part of me that knows how not just to hear, but to listen.
Here, the feedback loop is mostly intact. I care for the horses, the horses fertilize the pasture, the manure feeds the soil, and the soil feeds us all. The compost pile steams in the cool air like a slow, steady exhale. Little is wasted. Even the shit matters.
This is what climate science calls a closed-loop system—a design that mimics nature’s intelligence instead of interrupting it. These systems sequester carbon, retain water, rebuild soil, and mitigate emissions. They don’t just sustain life—they regenerate it.
I don’t think in carbon offsets while rotating the sheep pasture. I think in weight. In texture. In whether the farm animals meet my gaze or avoid it. Out here, everything offers feedback—including me.
It’s funny, on days I’m scattered or detached, even the animals pull back. When I arrive fully, the rhythm returns and the loop tightens.
You don’t need to leave your whole life to reclaim the ember within it. I left because I could, and that alone is a kind of privilege. This isn’t a prescription. It’s a remembering.
So much of our time is held hostage by systems that reward perfection over presence. We’re asked to perform, to contort ourselves to fit molds that were never made to hold a whole human being. But when you step outside that machinery—when you draw a line around your energy and say “no more”—something sacred happens: time dilates. The process becomes more gratifying than the product. As you bare witness to the journey, new worlds unfold.
In that widening, something ancient becomes available again: the act of tending. To care for one small thing—a plant, a ritual, a quiet corner of your day—is to kindle a hearth in the chaos. It’s not about scale. It’s about intention. And when you make room for what is living, you make room for yourself to live.
Field Notes for Growing a Fire
Horses sense your presence before you enter the pasture. How they respond reflects how you’ve shown up in the world.
The best compost is simply time and attention, layered slowly.
Milkweed offers a bridge to something gone, but not lost—transformed. Monarchs and bees echo this story in flight.
Weeds will teach you everything you need to know about persistence.
You don’t need to grow everything. Just tend a few things well.
To cultivate soil alongside people who believe in something greater than themselves is to feel a rare and radiant kind of hope.
BEAUTIFUL <3 this captures the spiritual essence of the farm so well