Why Celebrate the New Year with a Bonfire?

Marty Maneck on the bagpipes leads the procession through the woods. 
This celebration is partly tradition and partly very new.

To Celebrate the Return of the Sun – and Life?

To feel humble as we face the overwhelming power of fire and climate as forces of nature?

Yes, yes, for all these reasons. But there are more.

Let's start with a taste of the fire itself. People have stood in awe of that power for thousands of years. Click here for an example (a pale example - since you aren't in its real presence) but a taste:

Let’s start with the five easiest reasons:

1. Truly to celebrate the fact that, after the solstice, daylight hours will increase for 182 days in a row. Longer, lighter days seem like a blessing. By January 1 the days are getting longer by about one minute each day. 

2. To relax, to escape the malls and shopping and "tiz the season" responsibilities. To see friends and be peaceful during a crowded season.

3. To celebrate woods, trees, wild animals, and the planet and - of course - the workings of the solar system. To be conscious and appreciative of it all.

4. To thank the Somme forest preserve stewards for another year’s generous work. To thank the neighbors and the public generally  – for patience and support.

5. To get rid of a huge amount of invasive brush  – invasive trees and shrubs  – cut and piled to restore health to the ecosystem  – and teach people why burning brush and replanting natural diverse seeds are good. (The brush we slay is often so thick that to leave it heaped everywhere would just stress the ecosystem in yet another way.)

You’ll notice that there’s no strictly “religious” reason above. This festivity is not exactly “faith-based” although it is “faith friendly.” Somme Woods Forest Preserve is owned by the people of Cook County, Illinois and is situated in the Village of Northbrook. Somme Woods is owned and appreciated by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Bahais, people of other faiths, and fine citizens who aren't interested in religion. To the ancient Druids and Celts, solstice bonfires may have been directly religious. In some current religions, 'festivals of lights' and 'good will' are said to have historic connections with the general time of the solstice. 

The solstice and New Year today mark something that's fundamentally science. They are an opportunity to explain to curious kids what the sun does and how the tilt of the Earth’s axis works. Our solstice is a day when religion and science can relax together.

Stewards cutting brush often say, “Let there be light.” There’s joking and interesting discussion throughout the year as the Somme Woods volunteers slay invasives to let in the sun. One day a boy said to his dad, “Oh, I get it. You need the ‘photo’ to have the ‘synthesis’.” 

Death by shade is the sad fate of many woods. Stewards work to bring biodiversity back.

There’s a parallel between “ecosystem death by shade" and shortening December days. But getting up and coming home in the dark is only temporary. Ecosystem death can be permanent.

The oak woods and prairies of the American Midwest are fire-dependent natural communities. Thousands of species are declining and going locally extinct because, in the absence of controlled burns, invasive trees and shrubs shade out the understory. Ecosystem extinction is like what would happen if after 182 days of darkening, the sun just kept shutting down. Ecosystem recovery after brush clearing is like spring. At the bonfire, we celebrate "the return of the sun" in two senses.

Thriving natural woodlands need stewardship and community support.

For five million years, the lightning-lit fires that swept the prairies and oak woodlands followed rhythms somewhat like the seasons. Vegetation would burn off, grow back, and burn again. When the “Native Americans” here arrived from Asia, following the retreat of our most recent glacier, those new Americans started burning the landscape, as people did over much of the temperate world. Thus our major ecosystems evolved with fire for millions of years (and, as tweaked by people, for the last few millennia). Without fire we lose the species, resources, and heritage of that long evolution. 

Somme Woods has celebrated this season with a bonfire every year since 1999. It started small. These days hundreds of neighbors show up. We don’t advertise beyond some Facebook posts and a banner by the entrance. People come by word of mouth. They relax about it. 

After the procession and bagpiper, the pile is lit. People study it as a looming, dramatic curiosity. The initial billowing white "smoke" is mostly evaporating water. Over five or ten minutes the conflagration grows, and people move back, and then farther back. Every year we feel awe for its power. When the flames are going up thirty feet or more, they make a roar and a wind that shakes the nearby trees. It becomes a power of nature. Like an earthquake, lightning, hail, or a tornado. It humbles us. Going below the surface in religion or science humbles us. Feelings of peace and good will may be facilitated by that humbling power.

After the fire peaks, generous people serve home-made spiced cider, hot chocolate, and baked morsels. We watch the aesthetics and physics of the fire, and talk, and think. Some sing or play music. We all just talk about whatever people talk about.

Kids line up to master the art of climbing a tricky tree - and then perform.

Parents let kids play. In these  woods creative youngsters consistently discover a giant playground. Every year in different ways they mine the opportunities. Big old downed trees look festive as kids in their bright colors drape themselves over every limb. They make snow sculptures or turn over logs to check for creepy crawlies. Streams and ponds lure them. Parents supervise but treat them with holiday indulgence.

As the fire dies down, the drama draws to a natural close. People move closer to the flickering embers, especially if the day is cold. We and the ecosystem are ready for another year.

Photo credits: Carol Freeman, Lisa Culp, and Tina Onderdonk

A different blog on this event, written mostly for stewards, is at: http://woodsandprairie.blogspot.com/2015/12/solstice-bonfire.html