“Success isn’t a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.” -Arnold H Glasow
Long time, no see! It's been a doozy of a summer. And autumn. And winter. Quick run over the rest of the summer, I finished my beekeeping work then immediately enrolled full time into college. That was all well and good, but then one little moment changed everything.
I was sitting in my writing class early in the morning when I got a call from someone on the farm. I was a bit perplexed as the friend who was calling me knew I was now in school during this time. When class had ended, I checked the voicemail that was left by my friend Jeff, “Hey kiddo,” his voice sounded heavy, as if it was weighed down with the gravity of bad news, “I wanted to call and let you know that your tipi caught fire.” In a flash, my mind ran through the morning’s routine before my imagination imparted a reel of images showing me driving away as the top of my tipi did its best impersonation of a candle on a birthday cake.
Before I left for school, I started a fire in my wood stove with the intention of just creating a small bed of coals so Boo could have some reprieve from the early October morning chill. Sadly, in my rush to get ready for class, I had totally forgotten to shut the flu and damper on my stove. Not long after I left, the fire was hot enough to pull air through the stove so quickly, it was spitting embers onto the canvas at the top of the tipi within minutes, setting it ablaze. Boo is very lucky my friends caught it before it burned all the way down and fell on top of her.
Feeling tense to the point of nausea, I drove the forty minutes’ home after class, trying to prepare myself for what I was about to see. When I pulled in, I stepped out of my truck to see my tipi splayed and squat as though it was desperately trying to keep itself from falling completely flat onto the ground so as to preserve what little dignity it had left. Jeff met me outside and gave me a comforting hug. I asked if Boo was alright, and he said, “Yeah, she’s fine. Just scared. She wouldn’t come out after we got the fire put out.”
Eager to see my dog, I walked through the gate to my yard and called for her. She poked her head out the door that was now facing skyward and came trotting over to me, her head and ears low while her tail wagged against the back of her legs. After giving her a quick look over to make sure she wasn’t burned or hurt, I patted her back and scratched her rump the way I know she likes best, then looked to my poor, dilapidated tipi.
The poles were burned quite badly at their apexes, so I knew from the get-go, there was no standing it back up. Never mind the top third of the canvas was totally gone. Inside, all my things were in the condition I had left them, sans some books that were dampened by the rescue effort.
I stepped inside the tipi and untied the inner liner from the walls and carefully skinned the charred skeleton of what remained. The more dismantled the tipi became, the more accepting I felt of my reality. “Oh well,” I thought, “I’ll just move back into a tent and try again later.” A friend loaned me their spacious tent to camp out in, and members of the farm came and offered their condolences over the course of the next few days. Then, after a week or so, the owner of the farm regrettably informed me that someone had complained to the county about the fire, and the county sent a representative out to check on things. Turns out, living in a “temporary” shelter is illegal in that county, and if I wasn’t moved into a permanent structure or moved off the property in 30 days, the owner of the farm would be hit with a $10,000 fine.
Just like that, my time on the farm had come to an end. Now I was really beginning to worry. You see, I had little money as I had just started school, and my TUI (Trade Act Unemployment Insurance) benefits/student aid had not come in. It was quite difficult to find a place, as you could imagine, with little money, no income, and a dog who kills small animals. But in the end I found a place, thanks to the generosity of friends, family, and my very gracious, current land lord.
Oddly enough, I think everyone else was more sad about the tipi dying than I was. You see, I had been dealing with a stroke of bad luck for some time before this event (and after), so it was just one more thing to add to the growing list. There was a sort of painful hilarity about the whole thing, and with my growing ideologies of simplicity and non-attachment (I’m a Zen practitioner after all), it was easier for me to ride out the usual banter of self-ridicule and criticism that tends to accompany these sorts of things without feeling overwhelmed by them. What I didn’t foresee, however, was how all this would invoke within me a deeper sense of compassion.
Simplicity isn’t measured by a lack of object things. Though a lack of material possession is often a symptom of a decluttering mind, the problem was that my mind wasn’t as decluttered as I had thought. Where a calm pond may reflect a peaceful image of calm serenity, fire reflects something else. Fire reflects resilience. Fire reflects the ego, and my ego was certainly cast into the harsh light of realization. I had been too proud to admit to myself just how thin I was stretching myself. Between working fulltime as a beekeeper in the summer and working on the farm, from trying to balance the expectations of others around me along with the expectations I was putting on myself, along with trying to get my life ready to shift gears entirely in preparation for a new career (something I’ve never really had before), I didn’t stop to realize I was cluttering my life and trying to compensate that externally through my minimalism.
That’s not a criticism, by the way. This realization was the key to altering my view entirely on myself, and thus towards others. Yes, leaving the stove on by accident was a stupid mistake, but guess what…I’m only human. You may read that with a sort of innocuous, benign understanding, but when I read that; when I read, “I’m only human”, it's enough to threaten tears of grateful humility from my eyes. With this understanding seeded thoroughly into my mind, I was now able to afford myself the compassion I’ve never offered myself before in light of my mistakes. This isn't pity. I never pitied myself throughout any of this. It's simply a total surrender to acceptance of circumstances without the need to weigh myself down more with guilt, shame, or blame.
The tipi has been a very symbolic structure throughout its history, and I’m no exception to treating it with that same acknowledgement. The tipi was an extension of myself. Every part of it held pieces of symbolic importance, from the rope holding it together, to the help extended by friends to help prepare and raise it, to its dignified strength, to its rounded shape-even to the little critters that moved in to share the living space with me. I was the tipi, and it was me. When it burned down in the wake of my negligence, naturally this took on rich symbolism as well.
You know the phase, “I’m burnt out”? Truth be told, I was feeling burnt out. I was burnt out with the farm, I was burnt out with feeling like I was falling short in my attempts to progress my life thus leading me to dropping projects such as this blog, and I was feeling burnt out on the complaints of other people around me. I was feeling burnt out on holding myself up to the standards that I was to please others. Because of this, I was negligent of how complicated I was making my life, and thus, burned myself to the ground.
With it came a strange sense of peace, however. It’s like working a job you don’t particularly like for so long, so when you catch the flu and have an excuse to miss work, you hang up the phone with a feeling of ecstatic joy and relief. The best thing to compliment the NyQuil would be a bottle of celebratory champagne. Since moving, I’ve felt a pervasive sense of relief having left the farm that helped cushion the stress of everything else I had to endure up until now (more on that later). I was forced to drop an unnecessary load off my back. Yes, it is unfortunate that I lost my beloved tipi, but it’s also imperatively important that I did. It’s gone, but because it wasn’t ever apart from me, it ignited a kindness I’ve not yet known. My compassion is the phoenix that rises from the memory of my tipi as well as from the generosity of those who helped me.
And thus, we enter the next chapter of this story…