My stove is teaching me lessons

It may seem strange, in a blog about music and contemplation, that I’d make such a statement as “my stove is teaching me lessons”… read on to find out why! 

We moved over the summer of 2021, to a house with no fireplace. We knew it meant we’d have a wood stove installed, and now we’re in winter with it. Beyond the simple truth that humans have been staring into fire for millenia, not really thinking, not really not thinking – contemplating, you might say! – there’s something more happening in this case.

I’ve always considered myself a patient person, largely because I’ve had to spend so much time waiting for late friends, and this made me feel that I was patient. But I question my old self-assessment, and this statement reflects that. 

Working with a wood stove is tricky: the fire can be starting up great, and I shut the main door too quickly, or turn the damper down too soon, the fire just plain goes out!  Yes, it’ll start again, but it takes a long time to coax it back to an inferno, and sometimes I never do quite get that old flame back. So timing, waiting until just the right moment to make the move – which, if done well, will make the inferno really take off! – is absolutely critical. Waiting long enough is really hard. I guess I’m improving, but so often I just can’t wait those extra few minutes, close it down, have to back up the process yet again, feel anxious. 

The timing, getting it just right, the resulting inferno: so much like composing or improvising music. Put in that great new idea (or log) a few minutes or seconds too soon, and the music – or the fire – languishes. Stay with an idea too long, and the fire is spent. I have come to understand that line in the Steely Dan song very well: “There’s fire in the hole, and nothing left to burn”. Sign of a situation coming to a rapid halt, just when it’s time for it to go big.

So much need for patience, in fire-building as in the many aspects of music. Contemplation, along with experience, is absolutely key to making the move at the right time. Thinking, not thinking, using the inner sense we call intuition: many would call this being “Zen”. That link relates to the concept of flow I mentioned in a recent post, Beginner’s Mind. Sometimes one’s “contemplation” shows up that way, an intuitive move at the right moment.

Contemplative practices help me wait even when I’m not actively meditating: they assure me of my seat, of taking time to act sometimes, of moving immediately at others. So in my thinking, patience is incredibly important: the storehouse of patience in my mind and body is available for use at just the right time, and it’s why meditation is a contemplative practice. Practice it on a daily basis – “I want to get up now… no, I did start that timer, it won’t be long” – and it’s there when I need it.

Practicing patience with things we have control of creates a growing, ineffable sense of learning to do something we can’t quite describe. That feeling of flow, without figuring and thinking, just to know this is the right moment, is an irreplaceable sense.  Yes, we could probably document all the technical information about why a particular move worked, but reading it, let alone fully grasping and doing it, would be a total time-sucker!  And we’d likely have to think, think, think and try, try, try until we almost hated doing the thing if we had to follow such directions.

Patience and the practices which help us develop it are key to learning, teaching, composing – and to building a fire.  Even a person like me who has waited for more people than I can count needs lessons in patience from an unusual source. To quote another rock band whose music I will turn to soon: “Sometimes you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right” (Grateful Dead, Scarlet Begonias)