Sleeping over the Fire

Even our most primitive ancestors were not so dense as to build a fire in their cave and then take up sleeping above it. Well maybe a few did, but their lineage died out very quickly. Sleeping above the fire was one of those innovations that did not get revived until the nineteenth century when we became convinced that we knew what was good and not good in residential construction practice.

Soon every house that had a basement also had a furnace there that burned some fuel or other and conducted the heat to the rooms above. So confident we are that we allow ourselves to easily fall asleep with the fire down below. "The Fire in the Night" is an all too oft occurring tragedy that results from a primitive understanding of a very modern Vulnerable Geometry.

A Vulnerable Geometry

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We all are precariously perched on a ledge that sits high above the urban streetscape below. Many people and things act upon us that conspire to make us fall. The wind blows, our attention wonders, the precision of our movements become erratic or sloppy. It is then that we are most vulnerable.

Our relationships with other people, too, place us in a vulnerable geometry where heartache and failure become commonplace. Just as admitting that one has a problem is the first step in solving it, recognizing that one is in a VG allows us to begin to remedy the situation and avoid them in the future.