On the Brink of Life

What Fire can teach us about Rebirth

One day, the winds blew the wrong way.

Usually, the winds preferred to travel upstream, but this day, they flowed with the river, faster than the valley had ever seen.

It’s hard to say why the winds were so restless that day. The people of the valley loved the wind and the water, and all the gifts that they brought.

But that day, the wind brought fire.

The relentless wind was too much for an old and tired tree. It creaked and groaned stubbornly, and with a final crack, it fell.

A cord of copper and rubber, made by man to harness the lightning was in its path.

Sparks danced in the impact, embracing the grass and the branches, as new life burst forth. Wind carried the newborn flames with unpredictable zeal, and soon the valley lit the night sky.

The next morning, I woke up to skies so grey you could look right at the sun without pain—a mild, orange disk in the sky. Ashes piled up in my garden while friends considered evacuation. The local internet clamored about watering your roof just in case live embers were to land on it, and set your house ablaze.

In three days, the Holiday Farm fire had burned nearly 170,000 acres of forest and homes along the McKenzie River. In the following week, firefighters brought it steadily under control, and the smoke in the sky gradually dissipated.

A few months later, I joined one of many restoration crews sent to bring some much-needed love to the River, the Valley, and their people.

I had never seen such devastation.

I had never heard such a profound, all-enveloping silence.

I had also never seen such incredible resiliency, community, and dedication to helping those in need. Together, we spread native seeds over dozens of acres of burned hillsides. We stabilized river banks and installed sediment fences to prevent toxins from leaching into the water.

We learned from ecologists and veteran firefighters just how important fire is to this ecosystem.

See, fire is actually quite necessary to maintain balance in many forests. Over time, too much flammable debris builds up naturally. This creates perfect conditions for fire. In forests without too much human interference, fire tends to burn fast and relatively cool. This means that while the brush and debris burn away, mature trees will often survive the flames.

Fire is not just a force of destruction. It is a force of change. Change begets destruction and creation in equal measure.

After a wildfire, the ashes acidify the soil at first, (which is why my brussel sprouts died as ash rained upon my town) but they quickly become fertilizer for the soil. Pine cones crack open, or even explode from the heat, spreading their seeds across the forest floor.

Within a year, life starts to return, often more vibrant than ever.

Within three years, there’s hardly any signs that a fire was here at all.

The valley is green again. New life is flourishing.

And, of course, it’s a bit different than before.

And so it begins…

July is the month of my birth, and the topics of rebirth and new beginnings have been appearing frequently in my life. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I certainly don’t have to believe in the astrology of my Saturn Return to know that I’m stepping into an entirely new chapter of life.

Of course, every new beginning comes with endings to match.

So, I’ve decided that the theme of Wandering Cloud for this month is Rebirth.

Let’s kick it off by talking about the first step of Rebirth.

Which is Death, of course.

How could Re-Birth come without it? It seems obvious for something to be reborn, it must have died. But I want to take careful consideration in defining archetypal Death (capital D) separately from biological death.

Death, as an archetype, represents the end of something.

Pretty simple, right?

The missing context, however, is that the Universe operates in cycles and patterns. This means that every end will herald a beginning and every beginning will be birthed from an end.

It may not always seem that way, but I assure you it’s true.

Even that new exercising, water-drinking, or article-writing habit you’re starting proclaims the end of an old you that lived differently, and sparks the beginning of a new you that is actively emerging into life in every moment.

I’ve witnessed (over the past few years especially) that human society is quite afraid of Death. We fear biological death to such a great extent that we unwittingly sacrifice the exuberance of a life well-lived just to stave off death a little while longer. We run and hide from living our fullest lives out of fear that it will lead us to death, despite the fact that death is the only place that life could ever lead.

Death is the cost of life that we all get to pay, gratefully or not. Whether or not we recognize the beauty of the space it creates for new life to blossom, it will come, sure as the Sun will rise again.

This fear of death, when absent from our conscious awareness, leaks into our everyday lives. It becomes a fear for all kinds of endings, big or small.

We fear ending relationships, ending a chapter of our lives, and ending our time in bed before we have to get ready for work. We want to hang on to what feels good, and never let it go, but we don’t realize that Death is ever-present, whether we like it or not.

Change is an inescapable constant.

The agents of change —Death and Creation— are walking hand-in-hand at the forefront of Time, and we are clasped between.

So when we cling to those good times instead of letting them die, Death takes its toll on us instead. We miss out on the ever-unfolding, infinitely-abundant magnificence of Life that is constantly presenting itself, and begging us to dance along.

One key to a healthy life, then, is finding a balance between what you create and what you let die.

Like you, I’ve been through a lot of phases in life. I used to joke with friends about how it feels like I’ve died and been reborn five or six times since I last saw them.

My identity kicked the bucket and found new life.

From a very young age, I struggled with my identity and how others perceived me. I wanted to be loved by everyone, the way that my family loved me. So when I didn’t receive that love from my friends and classmates, I felt like a failure.

I tried so hard to get people to like me, without ever liking myself. My unchecked mind would repeat terrible, deprecating words about myself until I no longer wanted to live.

And then one day, when I was lost in the throes of anguish, I had an epiphany:

“What if I just let the old me die, and choose to be someone new instead?”

The question shook me like an earthquake and cracked the jaded shell around my heart. A world of limitless possibility flooded in.

It would take me many years to bring this idea to fruition.

But of course it would. My mind was a forest overgrown with weeds and brush so thick that there was hardly any room for new life to breathe.

I knew that to become someone new, I would have to burn away the patterns and habits that were keeping alive my old, tortured self.

I had sparked a new passion to change my life for the better.

Now all I had to do was fan the flames a bit, each and every day.

Eventually, a phoenix would rise from the ashes.

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Thank you for reading this unusually long post! It’s a topic that is very close to my heart, as it has been a huge part in shaping the path of my life. In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing more about the actual Rebirth, and a bit less about Death. But if you’d like to read more of my thoughts on Death, I have another article here:

Fear of Death is Fear of Life

If you have something to share about your experiences with Death and Rebirth, please leave a comment!

And if you want to wander with us, you and your friends will always be welcome in the Cloud 🌤

Stay lofty 💙