I sit on a hewn timber bench and enjoy the sensation of warmth and comfort. Leaning my elbows on my knees, chin in my hand, I rest without sleeping, compelled to look and gaze, not watching or observing. I am captivated by the flames licking at the air, their movement, unexpected outlines and shapes, flowing, changing, always becoming. Its hypnotic motion captures my mind and I disappear into thoughts that burst like fireworks. Smoke, the trace of its burning, twists and tums in the air – with no master. I think of fire’s misuse: its repressed energy, its sexuality, the industrial furnace, blackened and broken bodies forging steel; labour’s exhaustion. Its movement in the circulation of goods, work, wages, money - someone else’s power. Destructive, aggressive, violent power, and war. In my reverie, anti-authoritarian impulses stir my disobedience.
When I was little, much younger than Ori is now, I used to steal matches from my mother’s bag. Sitting under the table, playing with fire; floor-length net curtains flowing on a light breeze. My failed attempts, my repeated striking of the head, the flash of light as I succeed in making a little blaze, the colours and hissing sound, as it raced to the end, blackening and distorting the wood. The child psychiatrist said it was my way of dealing with emotional blockage. Who knows? In my current turmoil and melancholy, at the sight of this fire,
I am calm.
“Lunch is ready.” The woman claps her hands and people appear with bowls and mugs and sit on upturned logs arranged in circles. From the communal pot, we eat a hearty meal of spiced lentil and turnip, and freshly baked bread. After eating, Kai has a tummy ache, unaccustomed to being full.
Taking her leave, Morgan says: “Everyone will be here tonight for the Parlimoot. You can meet people then.”
When night falls, a generative clipping of a moon hangs low, and people emerge from the quarry, drawn as one down to the fire pit. Someone is doing tricks. The kids come to watch and nestle on my feet. Baby is tucked under my jumper, fast asleep. Larking around, our entertainer walks across the fire. Boot rubber burns with an acrid smell, sparks and sizzles.
They are told to have respect. An apology is made with a low, wide-armed bow.
This place is far from the administered light that disturbs our dreams, yet I can see clearly.
An older woman begins to talk; everyone listens. The flames animate the scene like a flickering candle, in and out of shadows, in and out of substance. Time slows and the mood changes from the functional to the poetic. It’s as if the spirit of the fire has taken bodily form and we are entering a magical realm. The speaker’s features transform in the strobic light. She is young and then old. Forwards, back, forwards, back. Skin dry and wrinkled, snaggle-toothed. Radiant beauty. A hybrid. Something unknown.
“I am the Keeper of the Sticks.” She raises her hands to show us two pieces of notched and inscribed wood that perfectly fit together. People murmur.
“The tally sticks. I have both parts. The two sides of an agreement to pay. A bond united. Once split in two. One half held by the owner of the debt, and the other, transferable, and travelling, a promise to pay with interest; a token of what is due.
“Together, they are the symbolic reminder that we are no longer held in debt. That we no longer accept the debt passed on to us; that we are free.”
Cheers go up and hands clap. Everyone stands, so I do what they do: find a stick and bring it back to the fire.
“We will not be owned by governments, corporations, financial institutions, or banks; insurance companies, universities, organised religions or private individuals. The only debt we accept is the debt to our equal share in our community. The community we make. As fire is indiscriminate, so are we.”
More cheers.
“Remnants of an archaic accounting system, when the Exchequer removed the tally sticks from circulation, they were burnt in the Palace of Westminster stoves, but they burned with such a high flame that fire ran up the walls and under the floors and out through the chimneys, causing the palace to burn. It was a hopeful spark of reform, an unwitting revolution. What others had hoped to achieve was done by the elements, to which we return Earth Air Fire Water. Lest we forget. Fire’s burning releases everything from repression.”
With that, everyone steps forward, and, in turn, drops their stick into the fire chanting “Burn the sticks. Burn the sticks. Burn our debt. Burn our bonds.”
Our speaker continues “Fire is our hero. It sees neither good, nor evil, nor usefulness. It teaches us that no matter what we gain, we have nothing, and everything to reimagine.”
I think of my own life. Every morning, striking the match to light the gas that heated the water for our coffee that woke us up so we could go to work and produce and in turn consume. My indebtedness to a system that decided I was surplus to requirements and burnt my home.
With the symbolic and actual release of energy, I feel a weight is lifting. I feel strength. The old woman’s story makes something rise within me, an urge to do something, fight back. I understand that this disturbance isn’t of our own making, but that we can use it to reset the system, to create something new.
The woman throws dried leaves on the fire, releasing a strong smell of sage. I know sage is cleansing, purifying, and calming, so I breathe deeply. The smoke rises in a hallucinatory montage of fractal shapes. Its transient walls cloister a strong feeling of intimacy. Electronic beats play. I feel a wave of bass. People are dancing, coming together, hugging and radiating tenderness that soars and sings. Strangers have become friends and lovers.
Love comes first. It determines the kind of world we want to create.
Ori pulls on my hand and asks, “Mamma, can we stay?”
“Yes, we can.”
Once again, Morgan is at my side; I turn to her and say: “We’d like to stay. I’d like to help rebuild.”
© 2021 Laura Moreton-Griffiths