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Ashes to ashes, roots to branches

Fire burns; fire kills. Fire reduces wood and bone to ashes. From the ashes grow new forests which in turn are consumed in fire and fall to ash. The forests have learned to subsume this cycle; the ashes feed the next generation’s seeds. There’s even a sort of tree termed a fire-climax pine: the Obsipo pine not only survives fire, but depends on the heat to open its cones and release its seeds.

The phoenix is a fantasy, a dreamed-up bird that burns only to rise again. We humans aren’t so lucky, are we? The firebird sees his perennial reinvention simply as part of his nature. It’s simple for the phoenix to rise up from the embers. We humans, though: we really have to work at it. Reinvention and rebuilding are born of necessity but they ain’t necessarily easy.

I’m pushing the metaphor too much here, of course: fire is our enemy, but ever since Prometheus earned his life sentence fire has also been our tool. The trick’s in putting that fire to its best use.  But rest unassured: you’re not going to avoid getting burned.

Car crash, cancer, bankruptcy, prison; bereaved spouses, torched houses — only a few among us will escape disaster, and honestly I’m not sure they’re truly the ‘lucky’ few. Resiliency’s such a useful capability and if you don’t learn it sooner you may regret it later. What gives some people the knack to rebuild themselves from scratch? Or, what makes some people unable to rise after a fall?

Part of it is that luck, or that unluck: crush a man to pieces and maybe he’s reduced to rubble. I won’t venture to guess why that fate befalls some; I’ll just note that in the end none of us escape it. But there’s a whole lotta bad luck that’s not mortally bad. When this submortal luck chooses you, how do you see it? As defeat and despair? As a challenge to rise above? Or even as an opportunity and a second (or third, fourth…) chance?

Reduce the tree’s trunk to ashes and perhaps its rootstock will survive. It may remain a ruined stump, technically but not practically alive.  It may shoot out a few sucker branches stabbing forth green but really not a tree now, we must admit. Or it might, just might, grow to full height again. But look: the tree that grows from the ruined stump will not be the same tree that stood before. Not a leaf, not a branch, will remain in place or grow as it once grew. It’s the same tree, but not the same tree.

I don’t quite understand it and I’m living inside of it; but then I’m not a phoenix, just a man.

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Prometheus: From thoughts of death I freed the minds of men.
Chorus: What medicine finding for this malady ?
Prom: Blind hopes I gave them, in their breasts to dwell.
Chor: A priceless boon they have received from thee.
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