Happy Free Money Day!
And a warm welcome from the beach at the end of a week of metaphors in the woods.
For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor, cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel and Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society.
In this newsletter, I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.
Sometimes I light a fire.
Five Minute Fire
On Friday afternoon, I lit a fire.
A spark to catch tinder. Tinder to catch kindling. Kindling to catch fuel.
There was something a little special about this fire — it was one of 91 competencies assessed for my Certificate in Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Approaches. (Forty-one down, fifty to go…)
As this was an assessment under pressure, I was given a strict time limit: twenty minutes.
It took me less than five.
Kinda.
I actually got that fire going during my second shot at assessment that afternoon.
I spent the whole of my first twenty minutes going around in circles: a spark to catch tinder, tinder to catch kindling, kindling to catch — nada.
One moment I had flames licking a foot high and was all ready to celebrate; seconds later there was nothing but cold ash on my stump hearth.
Try as a I might, five times round, I could never make the next step. My fuel simply wouldn’t light. My fire wouldn’t burn bright.
Twenty minutes up.
Despite an arm around the shoulder — ‘It happens. All of us struggle sometimes’ — I felt downcast by my failure. Especially when everyone else’s fires seemed to ignite in effortless and spontaneous combustion.
I trudged back to my friends (A Tribe Called West) and they brightened me up: ‘Have another go, we can film you.’
So another go I had.
The lesson from round one was simple: preparation.
Second time around, I used a fist-sized ball of resinous fatwood as tinder. I prepared a whole bowlful of hazel shavings and a thick bundle of cinder-dry bracken stems for kindling. Lolly-pop splinters of hazel were my starter fuel.
Second time around, with the right preparation, my spark caught, fire flames high, a steady burn I could leave untended. All in less than five minutes.
As you might have noticed, this is more than a fire. This is a metaphor.
Prepare yourself for success.
Also — it’s Free Money Day!
Free Money Day is a social experiment that is meant to explore people’s attachment to money and remind people that it must freely circulate in a successful economy.
Ahem. I’ll just pop that there…
Three Tiny Big Things
1. Fatwood is AMAZING
I can’t believe you actually get white hot firework sparks off the innards of a dead branch.
2. One Thing I Knew, One Thing I Didn’t: Both Blow My Mind
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Horse’s Hoof fungus, often found on Birch, takes an ember real nice.
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Fire pistons are an ancient Malay device that suddenly compress air to generate temperatures of 260 degrees and they are freaking awesome.
See them both in action here:
3. And This Is Just Silly
A man making fire from a few reedy twigs of Dogbane and a couple of flat rocks. In the comments, he says that Stinging Nettle works even better.
Shocking audio — mute if you’re sensitive.
Thank You
Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this story possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚
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As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.
Big love,
dc:
