Fire Ecology Mural
Before and After
"The ecological benefits of fire include: habitat improvement, fuels reduction, species regeneration, increased nutrient cycling, and reduction of wildfire hazard. In addition, fire can create a mosaic of burned and unburned areas, resulting in natural breaks and diversity in the landscape that reduce the potential for large scale catastrophic wildfires.
Fire reduces accumulation of vegetation that can inhibit plant growth. By suppressing all wildfires, fuels begin to accumulate to unnatural levels setting the stage for future fires that are larger, more intense, and more dangerous to fight.
Many plants and animals depend on fire for survival. Periodic fire stimulates growth, plant reproduction and provides critical wildlife habitat.
In summary, natural fire is a vital process to maintain the diversity of habitats available to all species in the ecosystem."
Since the time of the industrial revolution humanity has been driven primarily by economic motives. In our creation of this "advanced" industrial, technological society we have set off on a destructive path that is killing not only our Earth but ourselves. We slowly poison ourselves with toxic food and we endlessly consume, consume, consume - dumping our unwanted byproducts into water supplies and burying them in hopes this toxic waste will simply disappear. We watch our precious oil spill gallons upon gallons into the ocean, devastating life there for decades, altering it perhaps forever. We are held captive by an economic system that does not account for the true COST of our exploits. We've long strayed from the heart path, if we have ever found it in the first place.
I won't take it upon myself to explain the severity of our global environmental and social crisis - there are people who dedicate their lives to making this information available. Instead, I'm more interested in personal reactions to this crisis. My rational mind is giving way to my emotional body. I feel like I've shed more tears in these last months than I have in a lifetime. Selfless tears that ache and moan for mama Earth. Tears that escape my heart and fall violently from my eyes, heavy with the weight of empathy for our present condition.
But these tears do not fall idly into a bottomless pit, they drop from my eyes, forget they are tears and flow slowly, slowly to join the sea; carrying with them my fears and desperate prayers. This raw emotion becomes a catalyst, kindling for the fire beginning to burn deep within. I feel more awake than ever, for all the positive and negatives of eyes propped wide open. Its not a fluffy, bright awake where everything shines with unexplainable beauty. More like a wide ray of clarity that is spreading across my vision, giving me the gift of insight. Some information I receive with great joy and with some I feel the blood pumping through my veins and my inner ear begin to burn and vibrate.
Inside I'm screaming. Enough! Enough! Enough! We've gone on like this for too long. Somewhere deep inside of me i imagine another way of life. A way of harmony and balance. But also I know that the road leading there is treacherous. I don't imagine its paved with rainbows and dotted with butterflies, but rather that it will be a path of destruction that will tear through humanity, ultimately breaking us down farther and farther until only our core remains. This materialistic world will burn before our very eyes. It might feel like our own flesh is on fire, like we ourselves are burning up. The flames will burn down this grand illusion and maybe then will we realize the falsehood of our beloved economy and the true value of life. In nature, fire regenerates as it burns. It clears away the debris and makes way for new life.
May wild fires sweep grandly and rapidly across our consciousness clearing away the constraining thought process of dominant culture, stimulating our growth and creating space for diversity and ingenuity of thought.
