Living close to the elements in an urban environment

Living close to the elements in an urban environment

It’s definitely heading towards spring. And the garden we’ve taken over with our house was left in not much of a garden state. So with the help of my five year old son, I’m gradually creating a garden space to enjoy and spend loads of time in. My idea of a garden joined to our house, is that it is an outdoor place that is always accessable, where we can experience the elements and enjoy being together outside.

So we decided first of all, to create a central fire place, where we can sit and be together. First things first, I made a fire bowl out of half of an old round pressure equalization tank. It stands firmly on a steel ring, and has a number of air slits around the bottom. Into the bottom of the bowl I’ve placed an old stone-cutting disk. a steel disk with Lots of regularly placed round holes in it. This allows a constant air flow to the fire and prevents the air slits in the bowl from getting clogged up with ash.

Next we took the paving out from where we wanted to have our fire place, and built a ring of stones around our fire bowl. Five long sitting logs that I’d saved from being thrown away last year now make a nice frame to sit on.
We then filled the inside of our sitting place with pebbles that we found piled in one corner of the garden.

So now we can sit close to the earth in our own little log circle, with a wonderful fire in the middle. We have spent a few late afternoons and evenings doing just that, sometimes just being there and chatting, sometimes cooking our food on a grid over the embers.
Now we have our central fire sitting spot, we are slowly beginning to design the garden around. We’ll allow it to be a working and living process, letting it grow to what it’s going to become.

I’m experiencing our fire sitting as very grounding and connecting.
Jut two days ago, I was sitting with my son, we had a lovely fire going, it was late afternoon.
There was quite a strong wind that kept changing it’s direction, a bit stormy.
The fire was beautifully warm and the gusty wind spread it’s smokey smell all around us. It was so elemental and beautiful that even my little boy forgot to talk and got lost in this great moment.
Then it began to rain, not too much, just so that it was still comfortable by the fire. We sat there until it got dark, just enjoying being there amidst the elements, feeling the earth we were sitting on, the wind blowing around us, water falling from the cloudy sky as rain, and staring into our wonderful fire.

What a wonderful way to get connected to ourselves and nature’s elements.
I also feel in timeless connection with all our ancestors who sat by fires and get this deep happy feeling of elemental magic and peace. And all this in our back yard!

get outside and move to your roots!
wild-horse 03/2017