September is the time for the Chinese festival of Zhongqiu Jie, or Lantern Festival.  Next to Chinese New Year it’s the most important dates on the Chinese calendar.  It celebrates the harvest season and Chinese families traditionally gather together to admire the harvest moon, eat mooncakes and pomelos, and carry brightly lit lanterns.  That got me thinking.   Because Autumn is when we need a little extra light in our lives to counteract the shorter day, why not use eco-friendly lights and lanterns to brighten up our evenings instead of heading for the light switch.  One such eco-friendly light source is the Firewinder.

The Firewinder Wind-Powered Outdoor Light harnesses the wind to create a beautiful upward spiralling light.  When the wind blows at night the Firewinder  creates a silent mesmerising wind-powered firework show, illuminating an amazing ‘never-ending’ twirl of light.

Tom Lawton developed the Firewinder to bring to attention the power and endless resource of the alternative energies that encircle us,  and hopes that it will become an international symbol of sustainability throughout the world.

A Buddhist teacher who took interest in the Firewinder’s creation suggested that the Firewinder be made to turn clockwise ‘to evoke the good spirits’.  Tomo Tom re-engineered the mechanical design so that every Firewinder now spins in a clockwise direction to call forth good spirits every time the wind blows.