Let it Burn

This morning I read about a $200,000 barn fire in a nearby community. I thought back on last week’s conversation with a client whose house had burnt to the ground and was starting over from scratch with their home. Before I was born, my family’s cabin was burnt to the ground from arson. When I lived in Montana, I experienced my first wildfire and the soot and ash that took over the town of Missoula. Now, I remember the recurring nightmare I had as a child of a fire at our home, and not being able to get away.

What about fire instills such a fear? It can kill, it destroys, but did you know it also recreates?

Sciencebuzz.com explains it best “The forest fires of today lead to the forests of tomorrow. The heat and pressure of the fire explodes cones filled with seeds that start the growth of a new forest days after the fire has stopped.” Forest fires are SUPPOSED to happen. It is a natural part of the environment.

But what about personal fires? Fires and arson to homes. It destroys a lot of things: material possessions, your home which symbolizes so much in everyone’s lives across the globe, but also a deep sense of trust is broken. Nature and evil become a powerful front in your life, unlike you have never experienced before.

Natural phenomenon has always been fascinating to me. As a Hurricane approaches the eastern seaboard, I can’t help to feel a bit exhilerated at the fact that I’m heading to beach this weekend and that I may be able to experience a bit of its’ power. I had this same feeling in high school after watching too many tornado movies and thinking I wanted to become a tornado chaser; then later, during an earth science class, a volcanologist. I have always had a pull towards the destructive qualities of nature.

We really are minions in this big scale of earth, mother nature, our environment, the universe. What we build here physically is in a sense, nothing. It will not last. It may burn, it may blow away, it may flood, and if none of those things happen, eventually it will rot away and may only leave a stain here on this earth, on the environment.

Our lives, however, can leave much more. Thousands of years of history proves that. While some things still stand, such as the beautiful roman buildings, and the egyptian pyramids, they are slowly but surely wasting away. But the history of the stories behind those structures last.

Our presence here on this earth, and the legacies we leave here are what will last. Our earthly possessions will burn, and we should let them. What we “have” really means nothing here on earth, but what we give, what we devote mentally to leave behind, that will last.

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Comments 3

  1. Brenda- Loved this one too…
    re- motivate me to let ever more ‘stuff’ go!!!! Less physical stuff frees us to devote ourselves to a more real endeavours of life.
    I too love natural powers, enjoy the beach!

  2. Great blog brenda. I also have always been drawn to the destructive forces at work in our world. When we nearly lost our home in the San Diego wildfires in 2007, it was intresting to see what we packed up and what sudden was no longer important.

  3. In emergencies such as those, you really realize what is important and what is not.

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