The RISE AND FALL of the Fire Nation
The sun is pink from all the smoke — no one wants to go outside. At the time of this writing, on the West Coast, we are in the midst of a devastating fire season. It’s unfortunate that in the last few years this annual event has started to feel somewhat normal, but this year is the worst we’ve ever seen.
And since we all breathe the same air, we are paying attention. It has shaken many people out of complacency and into a forced reckoning with the role we play in our changing climate. (It’s a bit simplistic, however, to pin all the blame for these fires on ‘global warming,’ as there are many complex and intertwined factors, which I will note at the end of this essay.)
We are reckoning, too, as a global community, with the power of the elements. The fire, burning up this dry coast. The water, flooding the valleys. The air, flinging itself into tornadoes and hurricanes. The earth, destabilized by deforestation, sliding down onto villages. Natural disasters show us our insignificance against the power of the elemental earth.
We may also bear witness to the sacredness of the elements as we experience them in their corrupted form and realize what we have taken for granted:
Clean air, unspoiled by smoke or exhaust.
Clean water, unpolluted by oil, lead pipes or disease.
Fertile earth, not leached of life by extractive agriculture.
Sacred fire, kept contained, the sustaining warmth of life itself. ***
In this country, and much of the world, the mainstream culture is wildly out of balance: it is the Fire Nation, spreading rapidly, consuming indiscriminately, burning all it touches. Its extractivist, infinite-growth economic model has infiltrated most cultures around the world in its globalist reach, forcing them into its fiery ways: ‘Compete or die.’ We have been indoctrinated to believe that this is normal, and that our fire-worship will not have devastating consequences.
We burn fossil fuels, fire weapons, light fireworks, smoke cigarettes, burn out from overwork, engender violence, block out the stars with streetlights, worship youth and summertime, and dread old age and wintertime.
And how could we not love fire? A lit woodstove on a cold night is deeply cozy, even life-sustaining, and it can be easy to lose ourselves while watching the flames. Yet when we are unable to turn away, the fire requires more of us to keep itself burning. In life we are taught from a young age to transfer our sovereignty to an external authority (be it church, state or online echo-chamber) that will care for us if we comply, but quickly punish us if we step out of line. If we’re lucky, our lives may flare brightly in the public eye for a brief moment.
When the fire has done its work — when the woodstove is full of ashes, when the forest has been turned to charcoal, when the last drop of value has been wrung from the land — repair is up to us.
***
In the animated show Avatar, there are four kingdoms: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. They once lived in harmony, but the Fire Nation decided to use its coal-burning technology and unstoppable fire-bending to conquer the world. Of course, it ruined countless people’s lives and degraded all kinds of ecosystems along the way. The other three nations put up a fight with their respective element-bending abilities, but were ultimately defeated. Their last hope is the Avatar, a reincarnated being who has mastered all four elements (as well as the spirit element) and lives to keep the world in balance.
Whenever the Fire Nation ships appear in the show, their arrival is first heralded by plumes of black smoke on the horizon and ash falling from the sky. As I look at my own sky today, this is all that comes to mind. We are reaping the karma that our own Fire Nation has sown, experiencing the consequences of the many systems and decisions we unknowingly (or uncaringly) participated in that made this happen.
***
Still, it isn’t a question of ‘us vs. them,’ or even of who deserves the blame for this mess we find ourselves in. It’s not solely the fault of the capitalists, the Americans, or the guys who drive huge pickup trucks. There’s actually no specific group we could single out as the literal Fire Nation — because more than anything, it represents a philosophy, a way of seeing things, that happens to drive the machinery of our modern world. From the first coal-burning engine to the Bakken tar sands, the entire industrial process hinges on the belief that the world contains only dead, disconnected elements that are most valuable when they can be extracted and consumed. It takes no responsibility for the messes it leaves behind, or the collateral damage caused to both human and other life-forms. No one’s children should have to drink carelessly polluted water.
***
So how do we heal ourselves and our land; how do we even start to think about defusing the Fire Nation?
Certain counter-cultural factions might say, “burn it all down.” The urge towards destruction can be strong, especially when confronted with the entirety of the damage this system has caused. Doesn’t it deserve to die? Yet this is an immature response; I would argue that we cannot fight Fire with Fire. Yet we can deny it fuel.
Nor can we counter it with Air, the element of intellectualism, ideas, and logic. Fire needs oxygen to survive, and with enough Air it can become a firestorm. Air has been the language of Fire Nation, and we must use it with discretion.
We must become Water: fluid, adaptable, soothing. Quick to de-escalate enflamed situations. Like martial arts masters, turning the opponent’s energy against them. Taking many forms, filling any container, yet able to wear down even the hardest stone over time. Nourishing all life, bringing new growth to the dead places. Holding Water as Sacred Sacrament, cyclical sustainer.
We must become Earth: grounded, embodied, present. Enlivened in our senses, connected deeply to each other, witnessing and becoming models of abundant, biodiverse interdependence. Embracing the mycelial networks of ground-up, place-based organization, and resource-sharing. Living in right relationship to the Earth beneath our feet, and all who share our space.
***
We live in mythic times. Apocalyptic, even, as the Doomsday Clock edges closer and closer to midnight. Deep ecological and cultural imbalances are darkening the sky, demanding to be accounted for. I acknowledge the great losses being experienced now by our human and non-human relatives. I honor all the species that have vanished in my lifetime, with habitats that can no longer be Home. Yet I trust that the crises we are facing will activate us to choose a New Way, and that the forests will grow back with bountiful biodiversity, being stewarded with sustainable care. As I rise to the grief of this moment, I make the most sense of it all from a zoomed-out perspective, examining our cultural relationship with the Elements, that which is Sacred.
I pray now for rain.
***
The dehydration of Cascadian ecosystems, increase in desertification feedback loops, build-up of fuel load and subsequent catastrophic wildfires that we tend to lump together for comfort and call ‘climate change,’ is systemically complex and involves a lot of factors, all of which have been playing out for the past few centuries. Climate alteration pushes these factors over the edge, blowing bioregional gaskets and attributing to the overshoot of planetary boundaries.
These other factors include:
- Genocide of indigenous peoples and their vast, deeply rooted and invaluable ecological knowledge, cultural traditions, and ways of life which were intimately tied to regenerative land-tending and management practices
- Fire suppression (directly linked to the oppression and attempted eradication of indigenous peoples and their cultural practices, like controlled burning)
- Clear-cutting for lumber and interrupting the biotic pump, changing micro-climates and local hydrological cycles
- Replacing diverse, fire-resistant forests with mono-crops of trees more prone to disease
- Draining of wetlands and damming of watersheds, decimating salmon spawning habitats and salmon populations that provided essential nutrients to forest ecologies
- Extirpation of native grazers like massive herds of tule elk, as well as their predators mountain lion and bear, leading to destructive trophic cascades
- Hands-off, leave no trace attitude toward forest management and lack of ecological participation ~ again, no prescribed burning or thinning of undergrowth with holistic grazing and/or other approaches to large-scale regenerative forestry management.”
(List compiled by Taylor Bright; excerpt)