The Value of Spaces

Fire

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of fuel
together, that makes fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.

A fire

grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

- Judy Brown, Teaching With Fire (2003).