There’s something wonderful about an autumn bonfire. It brightens the darkening evenings, and mirrors an inner process taking place as we respond to the end of the bright months…

(300 words; a two minute read)

We had ‘light from Nature’ during the long and bright months of the summer. We didn’t have to do anything to be a part of it, just step outside, take a walk with the dog, even stand at the window gazing at the beauty of a sunset.

Now, as the days become saturated with rain (here in Cumbria, at least) and the ground turns to mud, we cannot adopt a casual approach to the psychological need to take nourishment from the world outside.

We have to work at it a little more…

When I sit on our doorstep and perform the very physical act of putting on my long socks and wellingtons, I smile at how the easy days of the lighter months have most certainly gone.

On such days, a bonfire is a friend. We don’t have them for the sake of it; we have lots of trees and shrubs. There is always a pile of cuttings and blown-down branches to make the next fire.

I like to stand before it, gazing into the flaming heart. It mirrors the act of finding our own inner fire; adjusting to the departure of the summer and resolving that our own contemplative flame will pull us through the months of relative darkness.

The fire flares up, as though catching my thoughts. I watch its highest flames climb into the midnight blue sky.

©Stephen Tanham, 2020.

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, which offers a distance-learning program to deepen the personality and align it with the soul.

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