On Wednesday of this week I spent much of the unseasonably warm and gorgeous afternoon gathering, cutting down and burning some of the tree debris that has been on our forest floor since Hurricane Helene in 2024. It’s a chore with particular urgency for us after a wildfire crept within 3 miles of our home about a year ago. My strongest memory from the day we spent panicking about the wildfire is the crushing futility I felt while hosing down the area around my home. There was so much, too much to adequately cover with my measly spray. Since that time we have brought keener eyes to the brush and debris on the ground that would act as fuel should a fire ever get close again.
We, like many of our neighbors, use burn piles to dispose of all the brush, clippings, tree trimmings, whole logs that a forest creates. We also have branches and trees chipped and use those wood chips rather than mulch and we leave felled trees either down on the ground as mushroom habitat or standing as spurs for insect and bird habitats. It’s a multi-pronged approach to managing life within the forest and it’s not perfect and it means some days I need to feed branches into a fire for hours.
It’s work that I always enter with good vibes, even enthusiasm and then eventually remember how effortful it is. Managing a burn pile (at least our version of it) is hands-on and brains-on work. A fire has to be tended, monitored, fed, rustled and spread. You have to draw close to its heat and smoke. You’re sore the next day.
AND that’s the really good stuff in the whole enterprise! The elemental nature of the work is a siren song to feel FULLY HUMAN! When I’m doing it I’m not just a set of eye balls and swiping fingers, but a whole body lifting wood into a crackling fire. I’m not simply an imagination being shaped and mediated by screens and their algorithms, but a focused attention in the shadow of smoke and in the glow of flames.
With only moderately less drama I can say that the same impulses and rewards are present to me when I bake bread. I use a bread machine; don’t be overly impressed. It’s not much more than measuring and dumping in a pan EXCEPT the minutes before the final rise cycle when you reach in, pull out the dough ball and remove the mixing paddle. In that snippet of a moment when I’m manipulating ingredients into something that will feed my family, THERE IT IS! TA-DA! a few of the frayed strands in my heart are once again knitted together.
What I’m telling you is that I’ve been listening to my life and the parts that sing do not happen here where I am sitting right now in front of this screen. There are arias and harmonies aplenty in my garden and with the various animals we care for and as I sketch and paint and chop veggies and bake bread and tend the fires of a burn pile. Who knew that in the year of our Lord 2026 feeling fully human would be the shooting star we crane our necks for, but here I am with my eyes skyward looking for every flash.
Are you?
(Shameless pitch time.)
Last month I invited folks to write letters to a stranger AND THEY DID. Cards and notebook paper, stationary and art trucked across the country because a bunch of people sat for a while with their own thoughts and then shared them with someone. My particular view of this experiment was a privileged one. I received the messages after people wrote their letters expressing both their enjoyment and relief in the doing of it. Versions of “How lovely!” were the primary response. It wasn’t magic, but it did feel a little bit like it. That’s what being fully human is, though: a little bit like magic.
The invitation is open again! YOU too can write and receive letters. You can take a few minutes to get all up in your humanity AND connect with other humans. What a thing, huh?!?
Last month I suggested folks write about what they’re paying attention to these days. Some people did and some people delightfully ignored me on the way to their own aims. Because I know it helps lots of folks, I’ve got another central focus for this month for you to adopt or ignore:
I’m wondering about the activities in your life right now that help you feel fully human? I tend fires and garden and cook, all efforts just north of mediocre. What are you up to? Do you know why it works for you? Should others know about it so they can try too?
All the details for our letter writing project are here (and also a little here). Read those and/or reach out directly with questions. The long and short of it is, that if you want to participate this month:
-Send me a private message with your first name and address. If I have your address from last month, just send me a note that you want in again.
-On Wednesday or thereabouts I’m going to respond to you with someone’s name and address. Write that person a letter and get it in the mail within a week or so.
-Sometime in the next couple of weeks you’ll receive a letter from a different stranger. (I mix everybody up so that you send to and receive from different folks.)
That’s it!
What are we up to with these letters? Nothing short of being human in all our stuttering, awkward wonder. Won’t you join in?
Know someone else in your life who is great at this being-human thing? Share this post with them! The more strangers, the better!