The First Fire: Making Warmth When the Cold Moves In

The fire took on the first strike.

A flicker, then a curl of flame around the kindling. I sat close, listening to it catch. The quiet crackle. The shift in temperature. The way the room slowly softened.

There’s something ancient about it, lighting the first fire of the season. Not just for heat, but for something else.Something older than comfort.Something like belonging.

A Threshold Into the Next Season

Outside, the world is changing. The wind bites in a way it didn’t last week. Mornings linger in mist. The trees have let go.

And inside me, something’s shifting too. Not a collapse.Not a crisis.Just a cooling. A slowing. A need to gather closer to the core.

This fire becomes a kind of ritual. A way of saying: I’m staying.A way of choosing warmth, not just temperature, but presence.

What We Choose to Tend

In therapy, I often ask clients: What helps you feel anchored when everything else moves? Because we all need something to return to, something that holds us through the dark, without asking us to shine.

The first fire of autumn becomes that for me. Not dramatic. Not loud.Just steady.Just enough.

It reminds me that tending to something—anything—can be an act of self-respect. That lighting what matters, even in small ways, is a kind of resistance to the numbness that sometimes creeps in with the cold.

The Fire Doesn’t Rush You

It burns slowly. It asks for patience. It teaches you to feed it little by little, not all at once.

And maybe that’s how we rebuild ourselves, too.

One small act of care.One honest conversation.One pause between the chaos.

You don’t need to blaze. You just need to burn true.

Let yourself be warmed by what you can trust. Let yourself tend what’s still alive.

Sarah x