Look into the bonfire.
As you gaze into the flames, you feel time slowly melt away. That peculiar sense of comfort has a source.

Fire dances at a rhythm known as “1/f” (one-f). Irregular, but not too much so. Such exquisite fluctuations appear when waves crash on a beach, in the murmur of a stream, or in sunlight filtered through trees. In nature they are abundant.

The human heart is also said to beat close to 1/f. Nature and body – when these rhythms reverberate, people feel comfort…or so they say.

Fire possesses another peculiar power.

Humanity first sat around fire around one million years ago. Fire allowed humans to come together, talk, and tell stories even at night. For us humans, the bonfire is our oldest image of harmony.

TVs and smartphones ceaselessly bring us new information. Bonfires, however, show us nothing. Nevertheless, we continue to gaze into their flames.

Surely it’s because we have done this again and again for a million years. Perhaps that memory is engraved in our very bodies somehow.

Tonight is for fire-gazing. Gaze deep. You may find your burdens gently sway and flow away along the dancing flames.