It’s been a zany month since Controlled Burn came out. Book launch events. Bonfires. Lent. My day job as a professor of theatre has been especially full. I’m directing a production of The Illusion by Tony Kushner that opens soon. And working on casting for a production of Shakespeare in Love. Last week, I spent most of my free time working as a verger and reader for Holy Week services at my parish. A verger is a kind of master of ceremonies for church stuff. It is theatre of another sort.
And much more to share on other stuff later.
All of it burning. Much of it good. Some of it, not so much. This is the nature of things.
Over the course of the month, several readers reached out to share their own stories, ask questions, and see if they’re picking up what I’m laying down. Hearing from these folks is honoring and magical. In some way, it feels like we’ve made space to belong to each other in some small way. And I am so, so glad for that.
One reader reached out to ask if we can burn alone or if we must, as I suggest in the book, do so in community. Here’s my best response at the moment:
You can absolutely burn in solitude. I do. In Buddhism and some philosophical settings, they teach that we as individuals are ourselves a community -- mind, body, spirit, past, present, future, and all the personas we put on for our roles in life. There is a kind of belonging to oneself that is necessary before we can belong to others. This is the image of the single match or candle doing its thing.
When we don’t have this belonging in place, our lives tend to lean towards what they used to call co-dependency, where we’re hoping other people complete us in some way. Even though I’m a champion of the kind of burning in community I mention as part of the Bonfire Experience, there are bad ways to burn in community, too, and dysfunction and toxicity are key signs that it is worth us taking a step back into ourselves and letting those troubles metabolize — burn up — with time and work.
I think the invitation, however, is always to go back into community with others — when it is safe to do so, when we have something to offer (even if we feel like we don’t), and as an adventure. A box of matches or a big, old campfire.
What do you all think? What are some examples you can think of where you might burn in solitude?