During this time of year when the days grow short and the night’s darkness invades the early evenings, I try to make a special effort to bring light into my life. Whether it is sitting around the Christmas tree with my sister talking about the challenges we each overcame in the past year or venturing out into the woods long after the sun has set and lighting a small fire of twigs we have gathered, I always find a creative way to spend the evening.
This year my sister and I are talking about having a small ceremonial fire out in the woods at our newly built fire circle. We will most likely light the fire using a bow drill. Now, for those of you who have never heard of a bow drill before, it is a device used to make fire by friction.
Once all of the pieces above (see picture) are assembled, and you are in the correct position, you move the bow back and forth in a sawing motion, which in turn spins the spindle back and forth. If you can find the perfect pressure and speed, the rubbing between the spindle and the hearth board creates friction and a fine, dark dust is produced. The dust slowly builds up in the triangular notch and eventually congeals into a hot, glowing reddish-orange coal, which can be used to ignite a bundle of fine, dry materials.
The bow drill was a foreign thing to me four years ago, until I volunteered to help out during a Coyote Trails weekend event. Coyote Trails is a nature awareness group that has its main campus in Ashland, Oregon, but it also has a satellite group of dedicated and passionate people in the central Ohio area. (Who says there aren’t any outdoor enthusiasts in Ohio?!) Coyote Trails (CT) fosters nature awareness through teaching its participants primitive living skills. It was on a cold, wet, early spring weekend four years ago that I traveled down to southeastern Ohio to meet the group and help out in the kitchen for a day. When I got there I expected that the CT folks would move their activities indoors because of the light mist that was falling. Oh, man, was I very wrong! It was as if the instructors and participants didn’t even notice, or care for that matter, that it was in the 40s and wet (the most miserable combination of weather conditions, if you ask me). Because of their determination and excitement to be outside even in this weather, I was a little intimidated. These people must be pretty hardcore! I couldn’t believe that anyone would want to be out in this weather, even if they are nature enthusiasts, which I consider myself to be.
I spent most of the day in the warm kitchen as a sous chef, helping prepare meals. However, for about two hours in the afternoon I was given some free time and I decided to find out what this organization was all about and join in the activity. I figured I would learn a little bit and see what would possess these people to be out in this weather. I was lucky enough to participate in a bow drill kit making session. The CT instructors showed me how to make a bow drill kit using only a knife, which was a feat just by itself. After it was made, I looked at my set triumphantly, thinking, “Wow! This is pretty cool that I just made this!” And then another thought popped into my mind, “You can’t really make fire using this combination of carved woods, can you?” I watched as one of the skilled instructors demonstrated the proper technique to make a fire with a bow drill. Before my very eyes the instructor miraculously created this tiny coal by rubbing two pieces of wood together and then took the coal and slid it carefully into a tinder bundle where, using his breath, he gave the coal life as it ignited into flames. I was very impressed with the instructor and right away, a thought popped into my mind, “There is no way I can do that!” I didn’t dwell on this thought long, but definitely acknowledged it and let it hang in the damp air as I prepared to attempt my first bow drill fire using my newly minted bow drill. I spent around 45 minutes out in the rain and cold working to make a coal. It was a frustrating process for me as I clumsily pushed and pulled the bow back and forth, back and forth. I never got a fire that day, and while working on on my bow drill, I never noticed the cold and damp conditions I was working in. Strange….
Later that evening when I got home I looked at my bow drill set one last time before I shoved it under my bed. It sat there for two years.
I dug the bow drill out from amidst the dust bunnies and clutter under my bed one early fall day when I was invited to join in a CT weekend happening down at a camp in southeastern Ohio. It was my first weekend as a CT participant. Little did I know that in that one weekend my perspective on the world would change forever. That weekend we did a variety of wilderness awareness activities (camo, tracking, snake walk) but the most memorable and impacting was when I revisited the bow drill.
After lunch on the first day all the participants sat around a fire circle and listened as an instructor explained the principles behind bow drill. Sometime during the introduction I was taken away from the present moment by that damn voice in my head that said, “Remember the last time you tried bow drill? You didn’t get fire then and you won’t get fire now.” I tried not to dwell on those words, but they stayed with me as the instructor finished the demonstration.
After the introduction we were sent out to give it a try. The only thing that was different this time compared to the last was that I had a “coach,” an instructor named Nick, who stayed near me, always watching me and my progress. Even when he was helping someone else with their form, I could feel him watching me out of the corner of his eye. (That sounds kind of creepy, but he was just monitoring my progress.) Often he would stop by and give me helpful tips on how to improve my form. I took his tips to heart, and each time I made adjustments I got closer to making a coal.
After what seemed like an hour or more of working at the bow drill my muscles in the back of my arms ached, my back hurt, and my leg muscles were fatigued. I put so much energy into it and I had only seen small streams of smoke coming from my hearth board. I had to stop and take a break. I looked around and saw that other participants were getting a coal and lighting their tinder bundles on fire. They made it look so easy! I listened as people celebrated with whoops of joy and watched their celebratory dancing with envy. Again my voice said, “They can do it, but you can’t.”
With those last internal words of rejection I decided enough was enough! “If they can get fire, why can’t I?!” A fire began to grow inside me. It was a belief and a desire to prove that little voice in my head wrong. To show it and myself that I could get fire! I went back to work and right away the smell and appearance of the smoke changed. It was no longer a thin wisp of white smoke. The smoke was darker and it came bursting out from underneath the spindle. There was no coal but the smell was very clearly that of burning wood.
Tired enough to say this was my last attempt, I purposefully set the spindle onto my hearth board groove. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and visualized fire. With my coach standing there I started to slowly move the bow back and forth, engaging my arm muscles. I got into a rhythm. Back and forth, back and forth, like a pioneer woodswoman on a two person saw, back and forth. It turned into almost a meditation, back and forth. I began to push and pull faster and shift my weight so that I applied more pressure to the spindle. A thin stream of smoke crept up from under the spindle and then as I increased the pressure the smoke began to bellow out. Through the haze of smoke I saw Nick on his hands and knees bending low, watching the hearth board intensely. He told me to go as fast as I could and he started counting down as I pushed and pulled the bow. 15, 14, 13…. 3, 2, 1. By the time he reach 1 I was huffing and puffing and my muscles were screaming at me to stop. I paused, refusing to believe there might be a coal waiting for me in the notch. I picked up my spindle and bow, set it to my side, and took a peak at my notch. Inside sat a glowing, red small nugget of a coal! My heart leaped in joy! I was almost there! I carefully picked up my hearth board and it let go of the coal it had cradled. I quickly grabbed my tinder bundle that was waiting patiently by my side. With my other hand I carefully picked up the leaf the coal was resting on and positioned it over the tinder bundle so that the coal slid into its final home. Like swaddling an infant, I folded the tinder bundle so that it completely consumed the coal but still allowed air to pass through. Grasping the bundle with my finger tips, I slowly and carefully breathed life into it. I could see the glowing coal as I fed it a slow and steady breath. Before I knew it smoke started to pour out from my bundle. I held it up, giving the wind a chance to aid me in my quest and with one last breath, the bundle burst into flames. My mouth dropped as I let go of the flaming bundle and it fell onto the dirt. I fell to my knees and my negative thoughts that began two years ago left me as a cry of joy escaped from the very core of my spirit. I did it! I proved that little voice in my head wrong! I love it when I do that!
The CT folks have come to mean so much to me. Two years later after my first fire and my first full weekend with them, they have become a second family to me; a family I prayed to find for many years as I searched for people who viewed the world in a similar light; a group of people that see the miracles of our natural world every day in a passing flock of geese, a small skunk cabbage peeking out of the icy ground, a red fox track left in the newly fallen snow, a chilly, wet spring day, or in a flaming tinder bundle shedding light on the darkest day of the year.
The Caretakers were graced with a lovely 12 or more inches of snow up here on the mountain this week and while out on a hike/tracking adventure we happened across a Bobcats dinner plans. Apparently he invited a snowshoe hare to dinner 
. We came across the kill site first where two distinct lines of tracts converged. One the Bobcat, the other the hare, and where they met there are the signs of a struggle but also a swift and skillful kill by the Bobcat.
