babe, pass me the lighter

new seasons of ash & fire

i’ve been starting fires, all spring,

in the yard, in relationship to myself & others, and in the house, too, the smell of cedar leaf & lavender smoke wafting through corridors and out of my windows. of all the elements, i’ve always been awed by the principle of fire, that promise of instant transformation—from wood to ash, metal to molten, raw to delectable.

the blaze is a point beyond which, for certain things, there is no return. ash cannot be molded back into wood, & your 3-egg morning omelet (for more reasons than one) cannot be revived into cheeping baby chicks. there is an irreversibility of certain things, certain doors through which we must walk, knowing that in crossing the threshold, we are altered, as in,

changed or caused to change in character or composition, in a comparatively small but significant way.

fire sustains all human life. evolutionarily & mythically, it is counted among our oldest relationships. it is through fire that we learn the principle of impermanence and destruction. a child holds a piece of paper to the blaze and gasps as it curls into ash. another holds a smore a second too long and watches, in awe and disappointment, as the sweet skin blisters irreversibly to charcoal.

thousands of years ago, we huddled around bonfires & hearths & candles, eating, singing, praying, being, whole, human, alive.

fire reminds us we are alive, and it does so through reciprocity. we tend to fire, and the flames, in turn, tend to us. there is so much care and reciprocity in every warm blaze:

hands gathering, stacking and triangulating the wood just so, breath from lungs displacing embers, leaves and kindling catching each other in a dance of heat and light—until fire.

i think of creative life as a similar dance, one that needs many hands and many breaths to inspire and sustain. sometimes we are spark-full of new ideas and projects, other times, everything we’ve ever made or written feels dull, dead, ashen. it is in between these beginnings and endings that we most need witnessing—for someone to show curiosity at a project we’re half-tempted to abandon, or a new idea that needs the excitement and attention of others to move off the ground.

i’ve been lucky enough so far to have found spaces and people that keep fueling my desire to bring new and beautiful things into this world. my work now often feels like a prayer of gratitude towards all the love and inspiration i’ve ever received, every small note of encouragement, every breath gifted to the pyre and hearth that is a life, my life.

if you’re here with me, thank you for being a part of this mosiac. whether you’re full of sparks, all ashes, tending a hearth or blazing like a wildfire these days, i hope you’ll join me in welcoming this new moon in Leo, and a new season of fixed fire:

the link to sign up:

creative unravelling: new moon in leo

and in place of a poem, here’s two wildly different songs that were in my head while i was writing this post:

Arsonist’s Lullaby, Hozier

We Didn’t Start the Fire, Billy Joel

thanks for being here, & if this sparked anything(hah) in your body,

come, and let me know.

with breath,

angel