The Cycle of Destruction and Rebirth

In 1988, Yellowstone National Park was ravaged by a conflagration of wildfires that laid many areas of carefully preserved beauty to waste. In the early part of the last century, prevention of fire was thought to be good stewardship. Many people thought it was a terrible loss that ancient trees burned and meadows were charred and that the beauty would be in some way lost forever.

I remember those fires, and having spent many summers in the Tetons, I had an appreciation for what was burning there. But my grandfather told me, "Yes, it looks bad now. But you wait, and get your camera ready, because next Spring there will be more wildflowers there than you have ever seen in your life." And he was right.

Many of Yellowstone's plant species are fire-adapted. Some (not all) of the lodgepole pines (Pinus contorta), which make up nearly 80% of the park's extensive forests, have cones that are serotinous sealed by resin until the intense heat of fire cracks the bonds and releases the seeds inside.

Sometimes people are like that. What looks like the destruction of everything may in fact be the only thing that can crack open the tough seeds of something new and unexpectedly beautiful. Yes, it hurts to watch it burn, and to count the costs and mourn for the old familiar things. But destruction can also make room for creation. What looks for a time like a barren landscape and the charred remains of cherished childhood safe havens, could in fact be the place where beauty will flower next. And not just an ordinary spring beauty, but a riot of color that could not be possible in any other way.

I am going to hold that image in my mind as much as I can in the months to come. If I can survive the fires, then I can be the one that blossoms. Dying in fire and being born from ashes are one in the same. Life finds a way. What seems like destruction now is merely making way for beauty so rare, a life in rebirth.