The Nature of Fire
"Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan the flames." - Rumi.
The air right now is filled with smoke from the many wildfires we have burning here in the West. The sunsets are redder, the scent of a campfire greets your nose when you walk outside, and a helicopter with a large bucket hanging off a long rope is moving back and forth between the river and hills. This set of events has made me wonder about the nature of fire. Fire needs three things to grow: fuel, oxygen, and a spark (heat). Fire occurs when heat causes a fuel to release flammable gases that combine with oxygen and combust, producing heat and light.
"Fire is obviously not alive in the sense that it doesn't have DNA, but there's a reason we use so much language of life to describe it, because it feels alive when you're around it. It's breathing, it's eating, it's moving." - Jordan Thomas.
We do talk about fire as if it were alive, using some of the same words we use when talking about each other. We feed it, fight it, play with it, are warmed by it, burned by it, and even devoured by it. Writers use fire to describe desire, anger, ambition, and love. It is described as being found within us; in our eyes, hearts, bellies, and souls.
"If I were the devil, the first thing I'd do
Is come off like I ever gave a damn about you
I'd let you catch a peek at all your greatest desires
And I'd watch the flames in your eyes burn like hellfire." - Lyrics to If I Were the Devil, by Colby Acuff.
So much has been written about humans and fire that I fear there is nothing that I can say that is enlightening (the word fire appears 550 times in the King James Version of the Holy Bible alone), but I would like to explore four ideas about how the action of fire can be used in our lives. Fire can be used to create, to destroy, to transform (like a phoenix), and to purify.
To create: Once humans learned to use fire, it became a tool that advanced our society. It is used to soften foods, allowing us to extract more calories to fuel our large brains. It hardens metals into tools and weapons, and many of our power systems still rely on combustion. When it is burning, fire moves in a continuous upward direction. The heat that it produces radiates out in front of it with great intensity and can travel at the speed of light. Likewise, when a fire is lit within us, it can carry us upward and forward- "Carry the spirit of a child. Just keep getting really excited about things and see the world as massive and unending in inspiration, color, and dreams, and spread those sparks around so everyone is on fire too because wonder is a contagious burning thing that fuels adulthood like the slingshot of an arrow. The rush it brings." - Victoria Erickson, Rhythms and Roads.
To destroy: Wildfire is a fire that cannot be controlled. Certain conditions must be met for a wildfire to spread. Without fuel, fire cannot live. The chemical make-up of cellulose in plants makes perfect fuel. Add dry conditions and some wind to fan the flames, and Whoosh!, you have a dangerous entity capable of great destruction. The same applies to our own paths of destruction that we leave in our societies, families, and personal lives. Our desires are the fuel, our environment provides the conditions, the people around us become the wind, and a single trigger supplies the spark.
To transform: "In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn." - Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents. Since plants are a source of fuel, they had to make adaptations to fight being exterminated by fire. Some developed thick fire-resistant bark; others developed pine cones that would not release seeds until heated by fire, and a root system buried underground where it cannot be burned. Fire comes through our lives and burns away the way things were, leaving us tender and raw, maybe even dead to the life we knew before. This allows us to adapt– to transform our destruction into a better version of ourselves.
When we have transformed ourselves, we can help strengthen others as they recover from their own fires. This is how we, like the trees, evolve as a species. "If no one has told you today that you are a beautiful soul that radiates love and light and touches and enriches many lives, then let me be the first, and I hope I am not the last. You are a burning flame with incredible gifts. Go set the world on fire." - Suchi Kumar.
"It's ok if you fall down and lose your spark. Just make sure that when you get back up, you rise as the whole damn fire." - Colette Werden.
To purify: The refiner's fire is a biblical metaphor that compares how God purifies his people to the process of melting metals like gold and silver to burn away impurities. In our own lives, the fires we endure are meant to burn away pride, bad behavior, and bad habits. The fire is not meant to destroy us, but to purify us of our impurities, to refine our personalities so we can shine. Anytime that we can survive the burning and walk away with a better perspective or attitude- it's a win. "I used to think healing meant forgetting, but now I know it means remembering without drowning, revisiting the ruins without needing to rebuild them, walking past the wreckage and still choosing to plant something beautiful where the fire once was." - r.m. drake.
The nature of fire is to consume until there is nothing left. Like many of the topics that I have written about this year, it can be seen as both a curse and a blessing. You might be tempted to want to tamp out your desires until there are none, as the Buddhist might recommend. In certain cases, this is a valid choice. Desire, like fire, is a consumer. It drives us forward, down into the gullies and then raging up the hills. Whether it destroys your life, transforms it, purifies you, or becomes the force with which you create something meaningful is ultimately up to you. "Keep a little fire burning. However small. However hidden." - Cormac McCarthy.
Love and Hope,
Big Sky Baby