There are no square campfires, no rectangle campfires where there’s a hierarchy of seats: a head of the table, a right-hand man, seats at the end for the children who must remain invisible. At a campfire there is community: circled, laughing, and warm. The light burning in the dark draws all life, catches the eyes of the breathing and gradually they gather around the soft crackling of wood, thankful for the sacrifice of sticky, clear blood that gives and gives again.
Our first campfire at HBS this semester was built to the soundtrack of crooning banjos and slow fiddles that floated out from a speaker and melted with the chirping crickets in the night. The voices of my classmates around me became a landscape of comfort, reminding me of late nights in the car as a kid listening to the murmurs of my parents talking up front while I slumped, half asleep, in the back row on the way home from a road trip. When we had arrived at Highlands, we were all strangers to each other, and sitting at the campfire, I couldn't help but admire the ability of fire to repeatedly build communities throughout history.
Earlier that week, we had had the opportunity to hear Dr. Tom Belt, a Cherokee native, tell us about Kituwah, the Cherokee mother town built on a mound where the Cherokee council gathered. On this mound, all of the community could find peace, and atop of it, a fire burned. The fire gave refuge in the surrounding dark unknown, acting almost as a North Star, which you'd follow and find welcoming strangers at the end of — strangers who then become friends. That's what I saw when I looked around our little campfire that first night at the station: threads of new friendship extending and finding each other over curled hair, off-duty baseball caps flipped backwards, girls sitting crisscross on the dirt, and girls sat on cut-down tree stumps.
Those ties of friendship were strengthened when, later, we gathered in the communal kitchen to watch football games, a multitude of food smells wafting through the air and around conversations that followed dinner party etiquette. Quiet new friends stood on the side, making gentle remarks with hands cupped over their mouths and ears to hear each other above the hubbub. Conversations about work happened at the sink, while yelling came from those seated in front of the small TV.
Our time together, from discussing readings book-club style to carpooling to get groceries to spontaneous movie and puzzle sessions in Weyman building, is unpredictable, but always fulfilling. At this point, we’ve grown into a mostly functional family. We’ve celebrated three birthdays and were able to rally all fifteen of us together for each one, which is no easy feat if you’ve ever tried to organize any sort of gathering. I find these moments especially encouraging because in these moments of connection, the Earth doesn’t seem doomed (a perspective we often get stuck on in many a class discussion about sustainability).
I feel a draw and a duty to listen to people’s stories here in Highlands, and wherever I end up next. I think everyone has a meaningful perspective to give and those perspectives can allow you to make connections that elicit change and hope in ways you may have never expected. The idea that everything is interconnected is also something we've learned that many Cherokees value and practice in their daily life, lacing the very building blocks of their language with legends, places, and lessons. In order to not box the world up into neat, labeled boxes, we have to start breaking down walls between ourselves as humans, and start building community. Ultimately, Highlands will be just one step in my journey, but I feel so privileged to have the opportunity to stop here and learn from experts, from my peers, and from the land — and to be in meaningful community with them all.