It was my turn this week to select the topic. I had lots of ideas milling around but this one kept landing front and center. So here we are...
I have had, and continue to have, an interesting relationship with fire. I am not sure if that is because I am a fire sign, or if it is just a coincidence, or perhaps me searching for meaning where there really isn’t any. I do that a lot, I think. Search for meaning in places where I might better not.
I think what fascinates me most about fire is how much it comforts me. If I am having a bad day, sitting at home in my living room, fire burning brightly in the fireplace brings about a feeling of joy and comfort that I can barely describe. Sitting in the woods next to a fire, same result. The older I get, the more I feel like I seek warmth and comfort in heat. And fire is a lovely way to get it.
Fire stands representative of so many wonderful things in this life: passion, drive, zeal. I love all those things and am pretty much shot through with them all. I am an enthusiastic person. And feel often like I am a raging wildfire burning through this life. Sure I was more destructive in my youth, but the flames burn on providing heat and just the right amount of danger.
Coincidentally, the places I tend to visit catch on fire shortly after my departure, or while I am still there. It has happened at least seven times. Which is hardly cause and affect but it is weird and gives me pause.
I love that fire’s healing powers are always contained in the same flame as its power to destroy, maim and kill. Each ember holds within it this power to save and level. Its power and all knowingness undeniable.
The recent fires that destroyed Pacific Palisades and Altadena demonstrated one more time that fire is selective in its destruction. It can level out entire neighborhoods but leave some structures remaining. Or it can move through a town, burning some but not all in some sort of random selection process that only fire understands.
This force of nature is commanding in its equal abilities for salvation or damnation. We only kid ourselves into believing that we can harness it and control it. It seems to me that control of a fire is another illusion of man. We think we know, but in reality, fire will always win any battle it chooses to rage.
For me fire is personified. Not in an actual person, but in its power and grace. It is seductive and beckons. Sit next to a campfire for a minute and you will see what I mean. I have spent hours of my life like this and I will tell you that in those moments, everything else ceases to exist. I am captivated and owned.
I think, recently, it is the fire that rages in my soul that has my most complete attention. I know it too has the power to provide warmth and safety and it also can take me out all the same. It is the heat that drives me and also makes me just a little afraid of what I might do next...
Fire is a beautiful dancer set to provide comfort as it destroys which is the most elegant analogy I can think of when thinking about addiction, and as you are aware, I think of that a lot. My character defects are always also providing comfort amid the chaos they are in fact creating. I am the source of all the trouble, but at the same time, I am calmed and comforted by their nearness. How is that possible? How can I be such a force for good and safety and also be one of the most unsafe things I know?
I am not sure either, I just know it is true. I know that I am always near combustion and also a nice addition to an otherwise chilly evening. I am both and...just like fire. I feel the flames all the time, inside my skin, on my skin and burning hotly within my soul. It is the driving force to my life, I feel. And while I have no explanation for my passion and love for fire, I can simple own that I do.
And the older I get, the more I search for heat and stability and find it sitting in my own living room, each night, watching the fire consume log after log, rarely satiated and always searching for more. This too is emblematic of my way of living. Always searching for the next right thing, the next experience that might just bring me closer to God, well, at least of my understanding of God.
I know the devil seems to have a stronghold over fire and all its dominion, but I will tell you that my soul, this badly battered and bruised effort at living, finds solace and comfort in fire that airy sky constellations never could provide.
None of us get to choose what drives us. None of gets to choose what lights us up. For me it is fire, in all its dangerous beauty that calls to me, that charges me with the winner take all attitude, because fire knows no bounds, and if you are watching, my life sometimes my life looks an awful lot like that.
Again...still.
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