As Superstorm Sandy made landfall in the Northeast last week, a wood stove was being installed at our home in the Pacific Northwest. The timing of the wind, rain, floods, and power outages on the opposite coast helped to reinforce my resolve to become more energy independent and carbon neutral in heating our home, which was helpful as I took a deep breath and wrote a big check out of my little family’s savings.
If harvested sustainably, wood burned in one of these new-fangled EPA-certified wood stoves is said to emit as little carbon as would a tree decomposing in the forest. That surely feels good from the standpoint of reducing our contribution to global warming. The particulate emissions (i.e. airborne crap) can still pose a problem, especially on poor air quality days, so while we were at it, we got a stove that was especially low in such emissions.
Unlike living in Texas where solar was the obvious source of alternative energy, we have a 5-acre woodlot here on our land in Eugene, which yields many downed trees and branches each year and looks to be adequate as a sustainable and free source of fuel. About two-thirds of our energy costs this first year were due to heating our home (we have no air conditioning). That’s with using the heat only when absolutely necessary, and never at night once we went to bed. I hadn't realized that even energy solutions are quite local in character, depending upon what renewable resources you have on hand and your principal energy needs.
What sealed the deal for the wood stove, however, was a freak snowstorm that left behind nine inches of snow on the first day of spring this year, knocking out our power, and leaving us stranded at home for three days. Ian loved it at first — especially the sledding and the snow — but began crying around 3pm that first day for something warm to eat. We sat under blankets, huddled around a battery-powered Mickey Mouse radio for entertainment and news, until we went to bed at 7pm, too cold and weary to stay up any longer. We were awakened just a half an hour later by my father banging at the door, yelling excitedly with the news that our power had just been restored. As it turned out, we were among the luckiest in the area.
With this stove, we can not only stay warm, but we can cook, as the weather becomes ever more unpredictable and as energy costs continue to rise. But what I missed, completely missed, was the gift that this stove would bring to our home in terms of warmth. I don’t mean physical warmth, but the emotional quality of a fire, how it makes cold and damp weather feel cozy, how it helps remind you to glow inside, to be grateful, and to gather with others in simplicity and beauty in a way no electric heater ever could.
While people in New York State and New Jersey worked to clean up the mess from Sandy last week, I took Ian to have three teeth pulled at the dentist, went Trick-or-Treating, spent a day in a hospital with my Dad, voted with Oregon’s mail-in ballots for the first time, continued to hack and cough with my mate as we tried to get over the flu, and filled the house with smoke as we tried to temper the stove for the first time, which led to still more hacking and coughing.
As I have pondered what the common theme of these strange and disparate events might be — natural disasters, stoves, surgery and illness, Presidential elections and holidays — warmth is what shines through as significant to me. The warmth of love, the warmth of doing the right thing, the warmth of this majestic natural world, the warmth of being alive in whatever condition.
All about us there is warmth, perhaps most powerfully enfleshed this week by those who lost someone, or lost a home, or lost a means of financial support in Sandy's wake, yet still managed to care, to help, to reach out, or attempted to embrace it all, for better or worse. This is nothing less than the power that keeps the world spinning on its axis.
Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe Me."
Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.
- Hafiz, from The Gift, trans. Daniel Ladinsky
As fall becomes winter, consciously shine out your warmth. Do it because you can. Do it because in shining warmth out from your self, you exercise your innate strength and power in ways that build up, rather than tear down. Emotional warmth is one of the most vital energy resources we have available as we make our collective way through loss and new beginnings. Don't let it go untapped.
