The Bonfire That Wouldn't Light

The Possibilities that Come with Awareness

The plan for the day seemed simple: light the bonfire. A pile of autumn olive and buckthorn laced with thorny multiflora rose we had cleared the summer before was waiting, brittle and brown after months in the sun and a winter of frost and thaw. We have a lot of these woody brush piles scattered around the front acres of the park. The area was heavily farmed in the past and then left fallow. Over the past few decades, disturbed and depleted soils have been an inviting habitat for some of Michigan’s most popular invasive plants. 

We have a lot of these woody brush piles scattered around the front acres of the park.

Since there are few established trees, we decided this area is the best place for our Central Gardens Discovery Station, a sunny spot for visitors to grow together and explore what it means to be a farmer. Part of Fellowfield’s work in this area has been to prepare demonstration plots, where we showcase different approaches to agriculture. Today I was working with one of those methods: burning the pile to release nutrients quickly and scorch out the persistent weed seeds and buckthorn stumps.

But nature had other plans.

It was March and the spring air was damp and still, the wind too soft to coax flames into life. Match after match fizzled out. Experience told me that if I could get a small area at the base lit, the fire’s heat would overcome the chill moisture in the air or lingering in the bark. I waited for the sun to get higher and tried again. A few twigs finally caught the heat of a match and gave me false hope before petering out. I added dry grass, snapped smaller sticks for kindling, added a wax covered fire-starter to provide a longer lasting flame, but the fire would only smoke, flame briefly, and refuse to grow. By midday, my gloves were streaked with soot, my patience worn thin, and the pile still sat there, unburned and unbothered.

The air smelled faintly of charred bark and disappointment. The day had become a collection of moments lost to futility. I thought about all the other things I could have been doing. Anything but standing here, trying to light a fire that refused to burn.

But as the hours passed, inspecting the pile so closely I started noticing other things.

What Success Keeps Us From Seeing

The pile itself was alive. Beneath the tangle of branches, patches of damp earth teemed with movement. Tiny beetles scurried between the fallen twigs, their dark bodies glinting faintly in the weak sunlight. Mining bees sat waving their wings slowly as if warming up to prepare for flight. A delicate fungus, no larger than a thumbnail, curled up from a pock-marked branch of fallen oak.

Birds swooped low, darting into the edges of the pile to snatch up insects or forage a stray buckthorn berry still clinging to the end of a branch. One bird paused, cocking its head in that quick, jerky way birds do, before vanishing into the brush. The faint impression of tracks in the damp soil near the pile’s base told me rabbits had been here.

A garter snake, perhaps drawn by the warmth of some half-burned leaves, approached the pile, and then turned and silently retreated when startled by my movement.

The pile, which I’d seen as a job to get done, was suddenly a world unto itself—a shelter, a hunting ground, a stage for small and previously unnoticed dramas.

There’s a temptation to see the land as something separate from us, a backdrop for our actions rather than a community we’re part of. This was easy to do when I first arrived at the park, ready to set the wood aflame. The failure of the bonfire created time for me to notice not just the life within the pile, but the relationships that sustained it. The birds feeding on the beetles. The rabbit sheltered by the brush. The fungus slowly breaking down the wood, already doing the work of releasing nutrients and creating soil.

It also gave me time to observe my relationship to this all. The way my presence changed the snake’s direction. The way my feeble attempts at starting a fire created enough warmth to stir up the activity of the insects. The pile wasn’t a natural feature of the landscape; it was a collection of brush that I’d cleared and stacked. The ecosystem within it was an unintended outcome of my actions.

Attention moved away from my goal to what was happening before me, to the dynamic relationships I was a part of in that moment.

Rethinking Success

When I arrived at the park, success meant achieving my goal. The day’s worth was tied to the accomplishment of that goal, and when it eluded me, the day felt wasted. I had failed.

When we define the worth of our day in terms of milestones and measurable achievements like deadlines met or projects finished, it narrows our vision to what’s next and what is not yet done, often forsaking what else is in our vision. It seems to me that this way of defining success makes the world smaller and lonelier. The pile of branches wasn’t just a pile of branches. It was a refuge, a feeding ground, a microcosm of life, and I could easily have missed it. How often do our to-do lists keep us from noticing the life around us? Or keep us from recognizing how our actions ripple through the world in ways we didn’t plan? 

In fact, this task-focused way of living seems to run counter to the ongoing and ever-evolving attention that relationships require. True attention keeps showing us more than we expected and inviting us into conversations we didn’t know we were part of. Once we’re aware of those conversations, we have a responsibility for how we respond. The question guiding our day shifts from What can I accomplish? to What am I part of? 

Common Yellowthroat collecting grass for a nest.

Philosophers have long described awareness as an ethical turning point. Simone Weil called attention “the rarest and purest form of generosity,” a moral act that asks us to step outside ourselves and fully attend to another’s reality. Martin Buber described this as the difference between an I-It relationship, where we treat the world as a collection of objects, and an I-Thou relationship, where we meet others, human or otherwise, with respect for their inherent worth. Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas suggested that our ethical lives are tied to moments we encounter another, as awareness of their being draws us into responsibility. Levinas describes this as a responsibility to stay present, open, and responsive to the full complexity of the encounter. “The ethical relationship is not a matter of applying general rules, but of a vigilance, a wakefulness to the singularity of the other” (pg.90). 

The Complexity of Stewardship

It would be easy to wrap up my story here with a neat bow and say that the lesson was clear: leave the pile, respect the life it holds, and abandon the bonfire. But stewardship isn’t that simple.

The pile of wood sat in the middle of a space where we hoped to plant a garden—another ecosystem, one carefully planned to support pollinators and restore the soil. The bonfire had not just been about clearing space; it was about preparing the ground for something new. Burning the wood would release nutrients into the depleted soil, enriching the sunny spot for future growth. Scorching the buckthorn stumps at the center of the pile would help prevent them from resprouting, giving native plants a better chance to thrive. These felt like important steps toward healing the park’s land.

So where did that leave me? Should I honor the ecosystem that had formed within the pile, or should I prioritize the future garden? Was my responsibility to the present life or the future possibilities? Or was it, somehow, to both?

These questions didn’t have clear answers, but they wouldn’t have arisen at all if the bonfire had gone smoothly. If the branches had caught light with the first match, I would have seen only fire and smoke. By forcing me to slow down and notice the life within the pile, the-bonfire-that-wouldn’t-light challenged me to think differently about my plans, my priorities, and my responsibilities.

The goats checking out what is happening with this pile of brush.

Writing this post, I wrestled whether to share how I resolved the tension around the wood pile. Part of me wanted to leave the resolution open-ended, trusting you, my readers, to consider your own solutions. But we want Fellowfield to be a place where we can try things out and share what we’ve done, not as definitive solutions but as models for possible ways we might answer complex stewardship questions. So, in that spirit, I’ll tell you what I did, trusting you’ll see my decision not as the answer, but as an answer.

I decided to transform the wood pile into a hugelkultur bed.

What’s a Hugelkultur?

Hugelkultur, which translates roughly to "mound culture" in German, is a centuries-old gardening technique that uses decaying wood as the foundation for raised planting beds. By layering branches, logs, leaves, and soil, a hugelkultur mimics the natural processes of a forest floor. It retains moisture, builds soil health, and provides habitat.

In contrast to traditional compost piles, a hugelkultur decomposes very slowly and pockets of air within it provide oxygen, so it never needs to be mixed. As the wood decomposes, it releases a steady stream of nutrients and acts like a sponge, soaking up rainwater and releasing it to plants gradually. By capturing and holding storm water, these beds can prevent local flooding during heavy rains and keep plants green in times of drought. 

The activity of decomposing microbes generates heat, which can extend the growing season. The bed itself becomes a haven for microorganisms, fungi, and worms, building thick patches of organic topsoil. This topsoil captures and holds carbon and converts nutrients into forms roots can easily absorb, supporting vigorous plants that are better able to withstand disease and climate instability. 

Whether planted or left to grow wild, each mound becomes part of the living community, supporting soil life, sheltering creatures, and storing water and carbon for the years ahead.

Logs and branches form the foundation of a hugelkultur. Carboard underneath helps prevent stumps in the ground from resprouting up into the garden bed.

Layers of leaves and grass clippings cover the wood, topped by compost to finish the mound so it is ready for planting next spring.

Why This Felt Right

Rather than thinking of awareness as a burden, we can look at the way it creates possibility. By noticing life in the brush, I wasn’t just confronted with a complex dilemma; I was offered an opportunity to rethink my relationship with the land, to question my assumptions about what success looks like, and to explore new ways of gardening with nature.

The hugelkultur wasn’t the easiest or fastest solution, and it certainly isn’t the only answer. But for this time and this place, it felt like a good way to respect the ecosystem that had already formed within the pile while still working to grow our garden. The beetles and mushrooms wouldn’t lose their home, and the nutrients from the wood would nurture the garden for years to come. It wasn’t just a compromise; it was an improvement. By leaning into the complexity instead of fighting it, I ended up with a design that supported more life, more learning, and more beauty than I’d first imagined. 

In the end, what began as a practical fix revealed itself as something larger, a living metaphor for Fellowfield itself: when we approach care not as a trade-off but focused on building respectful relationships, we open the way to discovering solutions that sustain everyone involved.

Awareness is Action

Observing the brush pile may seem like a small act in a big world, but it gave me one real moment to practice something essential. Observing is more than looking or listening. It is an act of witnessing, with all the responsibility and new possibility that carries. It’s one of the most powerful tools we have for making thoughtful, intentional choices.

The kind of witnessing I did that day isn’t fundamentally different from the witnessing we’re asked to do each day as global citizens. When we pay attention to what is alive around us, we’re also practicing how to stay awake to the world’s broader interdependence. The same awareness that helps us see life within a woodpile can help us see the life within our global systems, to see how choices ripple outward, how care and neglect travel across boundaries.

Practicing attention on a small scale builds the inner steadiness we need to face the vastness of the world’s challenges without turning away.

These moments also put me back in touch with something that can be forgotten in the weary exhaustion of so many disturbing news headlines: awareness of the beauty, resilience, and sheer wonder of life itself. When I pause to notice life, my respect for it deepens. Attention to that vitality reminds me why the world is worth caring for and replenishes the balance I need to stay engaged. 

It would sound odd for me to put "achieve a relationship" on my to-do list for today. That’s because we don’t check off a relationship as something we’ve successfully completed. We co-create relationships through attention and response over time. They are not something we have but something we do, and they are ongoing. Each moment offers a small opportunity to renew and rewrite the quality of our connections.

Our task-oriented culture doesn’t often reward this kind of attention. I can get caught up in measuring progress by what’s finished rather than staying present to what’s unfolding. It takes intention and practice to make that shift, but it is worth the effort because when I do, I begin to feel part of something larger, more connected, and vibrantly alive.

Perhaps that is how we build better days for ourselves and the wider world: by practicing the kind of attention that helps us respond not with frustration or despair when our bonfires won’t light, but with sensitivity to the life around us and the creative possibilities that attention inspires. That is where we may find solutions, like the hugelkultur, that grow richer and more nourishing than anything we would have imagined if driven only by our need to get things done.

References

Buber, M. (1970). I and Thou (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Charles Scribner’s Sons.

(Original work published 1923)

Levinas, E. (1998). Entre nous: On thinking-of-the-other (M. B. Smith & B. Harshav, Trans.). Columbia University Press. https://books.google.com/books?id=9VWgRdb7w-UC

Weil, S. (2002). Gravity and grace (E. Crawford & M. von der Ruhr, Trans.). Routledge.

(Original work published 1947)

Whyte, K., & Dotson, K. (2013). Environmental justice, unknowability and unqualified affectability. Ethics & the Environment, 18(2), 55–67. https://doi.org/10.2979/ethicsenviro.18.2.55