STRONGER TOGETHER: Why fire still matters

"STRONGER TOGETHER" is a weekly column where Tanya explores key issues. This week, Tanya discusses the magic of sitting around a small fire and how simple rituals like this can help us to unwind and let the weight of the day gently settle.

By IMPACT Community Services Managing Director Tanya O'Shea

While attending a weekend event recently, I was reminded how mesmerising, and unexpectedly safe, it can feel to sit around a small campfire in the presence of strangers. There is something about this kind of fire that softens edges, quietens noise, and creates a shared sense of ease, even among people who have only just met.

Fire is one of the four elements, alongside air, water, and earth, that has shaped human life since the beginning. Long before it was something we turned on with a switch, fire was essential to survival. Alongside earth beneath our feet, air in our lungs and water to sustain us, fire brought warmth and light, protection, and possibility. It was where people gathered to cook, to rest, to talk. And to make sense of their world.

There is something deeply calming about sitting around a fire. Not the kind of calm that switches your mind off, but the kind that steadies it. Conversation softens. Silences lengthen. No one rushes to fill the space. The fire becomes the centre, and everything else seems to settle in around it.

A tended, contained fire asks nothing of us except attention. Its movement is constant but unhurried. Flames rise and fall, embers glow, sparks lift and fade. Watching it is a reminder that not everything needs to be driven, measured, or resolved. Some things simply ‘are’ in the moment.

In this setting, fire also creates connection. Chairs draw closer. Stories emerge that might never surface in a meeting room, in a hallway or across a table. Fire creates a shared centre, a place where people can simply be together, without expectation or performance.

In a world that prizes speed, certainty, consistency, and output, sitting around a fire can feel almost radical. It is a quiet act of resistance, perhaps even an antidote to busyness. It reminds us that rest is not laziness, and stillness is not wasted time.

In my workplace, we often talk about innovation, leadership, and change. But sometimes the most important thing we can do is slow down enough to reconnect with ourselves, with each other, and with the elements that have always grounded us: earth, air, water, and fire.

We don’t need elaborate rituals. Sometimes it’s just a small fire pit, a few people, and a simple conversation that allows the weight of the day to gently settle.

And perhaps that’s why fire still matters. As one of the elements, it reminds us that calm doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes it’s as simple as sitting, watching, and allowing ourselves to be present.