The Tom Brown School

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Later that evening, an hour before we're scheduled to partake in a traditional sweat lodge ceremony—a culmination of the week's lessons—I walk into the wrong room at the wrong time. A half dozen students are standing in a loose circle cheering, and in the center a student who hadn't yet managed to get a bow drill fire going is holding a flaming tinder bundle.

They see me before I can back away. "OK, Terry, you're next! You can do it! You've got to do it! Think fire! Think fire!" Before I know it, I'm in the one place in the world I least want to be, kneeling over a cold, hard fireboard, bow in hand.

I start sawing away, back and forth, back and forth. There's a wisp of smoke. I saw faster. More smoke. "Go! Go!" the people in the background are chanting. I push down harder, saw faster. A little more smoke. Back and forth, back and forth, for what seems an eternity. Suddenly the smoke billows and someone shouts, "You've got a coal, you've got a coal!" I drop the bow, grab a toothpick-size twig and gently nudge the coal into the tinder bundle. Carefully, I pick up the bundle, cradle the coal inside the fibers and bring the tinder to my lips. I blow gently. The coal glows red, the tinder smokes. I blow again. It glows redder. I blow again. The coal turns bright orange—and dies. A groan goes up from the cheering section.

But I know what I've done wrong, and I'm already sawing away again by the time my coaches are telling me: "Feed the coal! You've got to keep the tinder all around the coal!" The smoke billows again, I get a coal again, I tip it into the tinder and bring the bundle to my lips again. I fill my lungs with air and blow it out, long and steady. The coal burns orange. I press the tinder inward, take another breath, blow it out. More burn, more smoke. I keep the rhythm going. Breathe in, blow out, more tinder, breathe in, blow out. The smoke thickens and someone whispers, "He's got it, he's got it." Breathe in, blow out, breathe in, blow-whoosh! The bundle bursts into flames!

I am no shouter; at football games, a muttered "All right" is the most I can manage when the home team makes a touchdown. But at the sight of that fire, that astonishing flame created from nothing, something way down inside of me wells up and before I can catch myself I'm standing and shrieking like a banshee, announcing with a triumphant primal scream that I've made fire.

It is a night for profound experiences. In the sweat lodge, there is no light, and in the darkness no up or down, no sense of space or time. There is only the heat—intense, purifying, drawing water from our bodies—and the rhythm of our breathing, of Brown's voice chanting, of ebb and flow. "Every drop of water contains a little bit of the ocean," Brown has told us. "In the sweat lodge you can feel the ancient pull of the tide, reminding you of your origins and of the unity of all life."

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