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Although our days have been quite warm the past few weeks, autumn arrives on Sunday and the nights are cooling off. I have been turning on the fireplace in the evening, and even if it is not a “real” fire, it does warm up the room and I enjoy the extra light it casts.
In Scotland and Ireland, peat (a bit like turf) is still harvested from the bogs, dried and burned for fuel. When we travelled around Ireland, we were fascinated by the stacks of freshly harvested peat waiting beside the country roads. It keeps their homes warm and the food cooked. To save resources fires are not extinguished, rather they are “put to bed.” Peat fires are covered and smothered to keep the home warm overnight and to make it easy to stoke in the morning.
Like you, I have a lot of metaphorical fires that need to be tended. They aren’t the sort of fires I want to put out, rather things in life that need care and attention. When there are too many fires in life, I find myself feeling as if I am scrambling to keep them all tended. There are always some fires I can let go cold. However, most of them honestly need constant care.
With a limited amount of energy, money, time, each fire we tend not only spends resources, it also takes up head space as we mentally track which ones may need an extra log. Instead of keeping ALL the fires burning, there may be some that could be “put to bed” for a time. Putting a fire to bed means assessing priorities, asking: Is this what I really want to do at this time in my life? Could they be moved to another week, month, year?
Realizing which commitments can be put to bed does not mean that we will never do the action again, rather it means we are lowering it on our priority list for now. Putting some of our fires to bed is not getting rid of them or ignoring them. It is creating margins in our lives. It is a shift of temporary priorities. It is deciding how many fires we can tend well, and which ones are the most important in this moment. It is creating healthy boundaries around all the things we are called to do.
Putting of few of our fires to bed frees us up to participate in our other commitments more fully, with more ease and with greater presence. We can be creative and spontaneous with the rest of our life. Everything can flow with movement and grace.
Some fires can be put to bed for a day, others for a week, a month, or a year. Choose a fire or two, nestle it down, keep it warm, leaving it to be tended at another time. This practice will open space to be more present in the now.
Blessings, Kathi
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