In late spring, we make dozens of bonfires in a specific area of the woods, a different area each year. This event is similar to the First People’s practice of setting fires to clear dead wood and some of the understory from the forest floor. One goal of the First People, who grew crops of corn, beans, and squash in forest clearings that had been burned over was to increase the fertility of the soil. In perpetually damp woodlands like ours, these sorts of fires do not harm larger live trees., Our practice is not to set an uncontrolled fire but to build many separate fires close together. When these are ignited as twilight is deepening, the effect of a world on fire is achieved.