I am a fire sign. I mean anyone that knows me, knows I am fiery, combustible and prone to flare ups. I mean, I am way better than I used to be...way better. But I am still flaming on the inside. Mostly with passion these days, not so much with anger. Seems I burned that out with my youth. That is not to say that I don’t fly off the handle anymore, but that happens rarely.
I have noticed, somewhat sheepishly, that places I go and live tend to catch fire. It has happened more times than could be considered coincidental. Ojai, Pismo, Maui, Malibu, Santa Barbara, Yosemite and now Lone Pine. I arrived here today to find the mountain behind my Airbnb doused with little fires everywhere.
I know that I don’t cause the fires. But it is kind of interesting, in a fucked up way, that I go places and they catch on fire shortly thereafter or during my visits...
I am pretty sure I am known for my passion, boldness, energy, enthusiasm, courage, and a zest for life that often leads me to grand adventurous, creative endeavors and dumpster fucking fires. I guess you have to take the good with the bad...fires are warm, inviting and beautiful. But they are also destructive and deadly. So I guess it is with me too. I am a force, always have been, and sometimes I aim toward the good and life giving, heat provided. And sometimes I am prone to self destruction or other destruction. It is just the way it is with me.
Right now I am sitting in the dark, fire in the fireplace being warmed and comforted by fire. While on the mountainside just outside, a fire burns the windswept terrain, and I watch a line of firetrucks descend the blaze. This one did not rage out of control for long. This one, so it appears, currently, is contained and managed. But fires have the same elemental power, but they are completely divergent in their existence. The hillside with fire burning and then the line of red lights snaking their way down the mountain. Each firetruck looking like a floating ember as it seems to float down in the dark...It is really something to behold.
I guess fire, like life, gives and takes. And neither really seem to care how you feel about it. Fire brings warmth and safety and comfort. It is so primal. But in the same way that life is primal and brutal, fire extinguishes life’s best efforts at structure, loving and living.
I can sit and watch a fire for hours. Watch the flames dance and play with each other. It is mesmerizing. It feeds something within me that I cannot quite explain...
I see the fire in my life as a sign. It lights me up to help me take notice, pay attention and grow. I am not sure why places I visit tend to become engulfed. I am not sure at all. And I feel awful that my arrival seems to be the harbinger of something terrible that will arrive shortly thereafter. I am not sure of the significance of it in my life, I just know that I see the fire signs and I am paying attention.
Maybe it only has meaning because I attached meaning to it. Maybe it is all antidotal and not something that has any relation to me at all. But, I do tend to light things up and off in the way I live my life. Sometimes intentionally, more often as just a function of my mind and how it tells me to live each day.
This year seems to be all about fire...the mountain side, the birthday candles, the passionate embers that stoke my soul and awaken me from a slumberous period of my life where I remained transfixed to a place and a person that was nothing but harmful, toxic and parasitic. This last year has really embedded a belief in my phoenix like nature because I truly was consumed by a fire of my own making and so I was forced to rise from my own ashes and prevail. And I have. I have prevailed. I have moved fonward and have reached a level of contentment and joy that surpasses all I have ever known before. Not that life is necessarily better than other times in my life, but instead, it is mine. This life right here is mine, all mine and I own it completely.
I am sure that I have never felt more ok being Erin in my life. I do not wish myself away or different or other. I am just here burning brightly and fully and as wholly as I can. Heeding the fire signs external to me as well as the internal ones that blaze on. It is the best life I have ever lived, in these contemptuous times, full of fire and brimstone and threats, real and perceived. I believe it is no accident I am released once more into the fire within my soul that burns brighter and hotter with each passing day...
Again...still.
Comments