Fire in the Sky

by Sandra Essary | More from this Blogger

02 Feb 2007 04:46 PM

A small coal penetrates the very center of the tipi-shaped stack of small twigs. A few flames struggle, and you wonder if it is going to catch. A few more flames, then through the top of the tipi a blue flame licks at the sky.

Wood, which is really stored sunshine, is added, and each piece of wood in its turn succumbs to the fire. Yellow and orange tongues dance around and under each log. Blue flames peek from underneath a flat piece of kindling. The flames puff and crack in small tornadoes emerging from underneath a log.

Peering past the flames you see the red hot coals. Red, gray, and bright orange, they pulse as if here were the fire's very breath. They mesmerize you.

A log falls, startling you, sending yellow sparks out and up. Whirlwinds of flame twist and blow like a sheet flapping in the wind.The smoke rises like a light fog. Look, and it is gone. Rising ever skyward, a thin veil of smoke hangs over the pines.

A shy blue flame pokes its point from under a log, then quickly retreats. It repeats this over and over, and somehow no two flames are the same nor do they travel in the same path up the face of the log.

This wasn't a description of my last camping trip. This took place nearly 200,000 years ago when the first homo sapiens roamed the earth. It has taken place every year since. People today go on camping trips and stare into the flames, unaware of the connection between them and our ancestors who did the exact same thing so many years ago. I cannot stare into a fire without feeling the presence of those homo sapiens 200,000 years ago - and everyone in between.

We have been an industrialized society only about 100 years. How much longer did our ancestors live with the land and stare into fires? 2000 times 100. Yet we tend not to think of our 190,900 year heritage and where we fit in it all. In the hustle and bustle we forget about it.

We feel invulnerable - until there's a power blackout on the East Coast - or a hurricane that totally disrupts an entire city.

We are not the solution; we are the problem. In the blink of an eye, we have basically destroyed what our ancestors knew for 190,000 years.

We are not invincible. Mother Nature is far more powerful than all of us combined. Ask the tsunami victims. I'm beginning to think we should list ourselves on the endangered species list.

Learn more about Sandra Essary

From an early age, Sandra has been passionate about the outdoors, camping, and travel.

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