twig bundles

these twig bundles don’t make for the best photo, but they are part of a series of revelations granted to me over the past year.

last october i met a friend who showed me the art of making fire using a twig bundle. i had never before seen a fire ignite so quickly without the use of any human-made substance such as paper (or in my dad’s case, gasoline) – one match and our fire made of damp driftwood was lit on a cold evening near all hallow’s eve. to make the bundle, this friend spent awhile in the forest behind the house we were staying at on the sunshine coast, walking and collecting the dry and fine branches from the ground. emerging from the forest with a large bundle of spindly branches, my friend proceeded to bend them into a horseshoe shape and tie a knot around them with a piece of live branch – making a rounded mass of fine starter and kindling.

watching this seemed like remembering to me, a lost art brought to life in the simple doing.

while away this past week, i had occasion to prepare the fire while nathan took photographs in the evening woods for his research. i was in search of paper to lay out in preparation, when suddenly the memory of this fire miracle came upon on me and instead i went on to hunt for twigs – to see if i could replicate this ancient fire-starting technology.

the first bundle i made was of thicker wood with not so many fine spindley branches shooting off the main stem of each. i was not sure if it would work the way my friend’s had because of this lack of fine mass and so i went on to make a second bundle using twigs that were smaller and lighter, and which proved easier to bend into the bundle in the end. i put them both in the fire reasoning the the finer one would get the coarser one going – and both my twig bundles combined were about the size of the single bundle my friend had shown me.

i had to light the first one twice – but when it caught, it erupted in flame and within moments caught the second bundle – sending it up as well. quickly i fed the fire with fir bark and mid-sized sticks – and then built it from there into a nice little ring of warmth to throw off the night chill. such a simple and effective technology, and yet one we never use preferring instead to use the byproducts of industry.

as i gathered the twigs in the forest, wandering trails made by animals before me – a number of things occurred to me not the least of which were the twin lessons of patience and abundance. i realized what my friend shared with me last year was a reminder that we have the ability to return to our land-based roots in simple ways each time we reach outside for something other than what industrial society limits us to work with.

i am thankful for such lessons, i am thankful for the people and the land i learn from.