It is December and fires are burning again in California.
This past summer, I traveled to Northwest Washington, in the U.S. and then I ventured further North to Canada to see Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia. These are beautiful places.
As I arrived in B.C., fires were burning in the interior of the province. It was described as the worst wildfire season in the history of the province. Over just a few days, though I was some many hundreds of miles away from the fires themselves, I experienced the effects smoke and haze spreading to the ocean and beyond. The views of the nearby mountains were blotted out.
The fires burned and burned.
As I often write of the celebration of breath, I think now about inhalations full of smoke. I try to understand natural fires versus fires that occur from the misuse of land and the manipulation of climate.
I think about the need to seek space where breath can be clean. Is this our plight?
I send hope for clearing in the air in the skies and the forests and the cities, everywhere.
In Vancouver, the mountains are usually a very prominent feature of the vistas. I knew the mountains were there but I could not see them. I could not see them at all. it was eery and frightening. I hoped the air would clear, for the sake of the land and the trees, the homes.
News of the devastation of the fires to the land and to people's homes was ongoing and terrible.
July 31, 2017
Photograph By Via B.C. Wildfire Service
Engulfed in the news of this fearful time, I began to think about the symbolism of what we can see, and what we can't as we travel through our lives. What do we know is just beyond the haze? Where are the fires that burn? Where does the smoke envelope us?