THE BURNING FIELDS

THE BURNING FIELDS

“Fall burns favor the flowers”…that was Steve’s response to my inquiry on a clear morning a couple weeks ago when I was tasked with preparing the implements of inferno for our annual burnt offerings. Last winter we’d scorched the fields between Millennium Grove and the compound and I was amazed how quickly the fires consumed it all and how the flames rose to impressive heights as soon as the sun peaked out behind the clouds and then died back down as the cloud cover returned. It’s amazing to work in these fields and see the plants reach up and grow higher day by day from spring and through summer as the sunlight and days grows stronger and longer and then watch the flames do the very same dance in just minutes and lay the scorched grasses and dried thatch low to the earth. I think about all those fleeting things I used to think were so important and how quickly they burnt up and evaporated away.

That particular morning a couple weeks ago, I filled up the drip torches with a 50/50 mixture of diesel and gasoline. Regular gas provides the combustion and diesel sticks well and burns long. Steve and I had been preparing fields for these burns for a couple weeks by mowing fire breaks into the large meadows and away from tree lines. He’d showed up the morning of this year’s burn in his nomex suit with a fair amount of seriousness on the surface that was meant to contain some underlying excitement. It is a fun day for us anytime we get to set some fires and as terrible as the scorched earth looks initially, I’ve seen with my own eyes the amazing difference it makes to the health of the meadows.

Much of the invasive woody shrubs die instantly from their sap being boiled but it’s not without some risk. Certain invasives like white sweet clover will thrive after a prescribed burn so we spend weeks spraying, pulling and cutting to prevent this. Also, if one isn’t restrained and burns the same fields each year, diversity of healthy flora will be lost. Like everything it seems a good amount of discretion and skillful means is key. Steve chose the giant hill encompassing the treeline trail this day for a prescribed burn to begin the season of the dying sun.

Most of the species in these fields have extensive root systems and the majority of their intelligence and life is burrowed deep within the earth, safely insulated from the harsh elements of winter and the prescribed fires used to clear out the land and replenish it with ash and carbon. The black and scorched surface attracts sunlight and warmth which greatly assists the plants through the cold winter. The surface invasives perish from the fires too, but the deeply rooted natives flourish and return in greater numbers and healthier for it.

Steve checked the weather and the wind and relative humidity and when the conditions seemed ideal we dampened the grass along the edges of the fire breaks with piss packs and our fire hose attached to a pump and then lit the drip torches and began the blaze. Gus and I assisted the fire by directing it with backpack blowers and in a matter of minutes, the meadows that were once filled with cascading colors of green, purple, yellows and blues through the seasons are lit up with the intense oranges and reds of ten foot flames and turned once again into a smoldering char of ash and patchy, scorched-up grasses. I got caught between two walls of towering flames and had to hold my breath and run blindly through the smoke to safety.

After a prescribed burn, the fields appear desolate and devoid of life but I know if I could just see with xray vision deep into the ground, the vast interconnected root systems would tell a different story. There’s always so much more going on below the surface and I’m pretty hopeful about the spring and excited to see those fields grow and bloom again. Beneath superficial vanity and expressions of ego, one of the very few things I like about myself consistently is watching plants grow and nature change in a park with a measured excitement, steadily and surely through the seasons. Maybe one day I’ll finally be quiet about it all for good. Even writing feels like so much of an actual subtraction from what simply is and requires no elaboration.

This past week, we’ve worked really hard at clearing honeysuckle along the treeline of the park’s entrance at Shafter road. There is now a giant wall of cut honeysuckle bushes ready to season and hopefully burn on a cold and snowy winter day to come. This work is cathartic to folks like myself who’d rather hurt physically than psychologically and maybe go home completely depleted with something to actually show for it.

Steve emerged from a thicket across the road bloodied and bruised up and down both arms Friday afternoon. He’d been sitting and scooting along the forest floor with a saw all week and whacking and cutting the shoots of grapevine that are slowly and steadily climbing and killing the trees…pulling mighty trunks and branches to the earth and toward their eventual demise without the salvation of an intervention. Some of the vines are as thick as a tree trunk themselves. Few people understand how much work it takes to keep a natural landscape looking natural and that’s a good thing. Most of us recognize that it’s a privilege to stand back and see the product of a hard days work and find the changed view as more than enough reward. My view changes to pessimism often enough and I don’t really trust it, so maybe there’s hope for me yet. People seemed to like me better when I didn’t take care of myself. I think subjugating my mind to inebriation perhaps made me friendlier to others or at least let me avoid the painful work. It’s amazing how slippery the mind is at projection and moving accountability around. There are so many aversive layers to cut through. The truth is I’m sort of an asshole about how I see the world most days. Admitting that probably brings a lot of joy to some. Acceptance isn’t a passive practice it seems.

Steve drove his truck across the road to the piles of honeysuckle that Cartier and I had cut and dragged free of the trees. The work had revealed the hills and open spaces of Schoen creek and the burnt field in the far distance over the exposed ravine.

“Go home Ben!” he hollered accompanied with a thumbs up and smile.

“I’m headed that way…I’ve got nothing left in me today.” I said and limped back to my truck, exhausted and emptied of all my troubles, worries, concerns, and misdirected energies.

“Yeah, but it’s a great feeling isn’t it?” he said and drove back up to the service area.

“It really is” I replied with honesty.

I looked back at the cleared tree line and smiled as my back and legs and arms and neck burned and ached. All that burn and ache empties me a little more daily of this small sense of self and pain I carry around and scorches the earth of unimportant or futile thinking and it fills my time with purpose and that doesn’t require acknowledgement. Much of the time I’m standing at the treeline of life, looking on from the outside. I’ve got a lot of ignorance to shine a light on.

Those burns and aches in my body favor the inevitable flowers of spring and summer. I’ve got a lot of this self left to burn through and cut down and lots of space to open up but feel hopeful about the future and perhaps knowing people living with some courage, selflessness and heart from that very deep place where we’re all so intricately connected; like the root systems growing quietly beneath the burning fields in this season of the dying sun.