Heat

Heavy dog panting woke me up at 3:42 am. My sweat-soaked Virginia T-shirt startled me as I shook every last bit of sleep from my head. The cabin was cooking.
Heat: the quality of being hot; hotness, or the perception of this. This is the first of Webster's many definitions of heat. Reading this makes heat seem simple. For many people, heat is an afterthought, something constant and taken for granted. Heat is a utility, a bill that needs paying.
Heating a house with wood connects me in a deeper way to heat. I appreciate it more. Coming home to a cold house, my first chore is breathing a fire to life. Heat here is alive, another organism living with me, a welcome guest. Heat requires attention and fuel or it dies. In turn, I require heat or I burn out.
Life here reminds me that everything is cyclical. I live no further removed from this ecosystem than the dogs that protect it, the water that feeds it, or the heat that warms it. We all do our part.