Making a Comeback

A few years ago, a wildfire tore through 500 acres of field and forest at the edge of our small town on Lake Champlain. A spark from a passing Amtrak train ignited grass, dry from a three-week drought.

In the twelve hours that followed, volunteer firemen and just about any other able body who saw the smoke and showed up fought back thirty foot walls of flames, carrying metal tanks of anti-inflammitant on their backs. Two neighboring farms were spared, though in some places the fire moved right up within a few feet of farmhouses and barns.

In the end, all that was left behind was scorched earth, and stands of dead trees and bushes. The normally verdant spring landscape, one of wildflower meadows, soaring blackbirds, and purple mountains in the distance, looked like a war zone. As far as the wildlife was concerned, it probably was one.

Yet, amazingly enough, this story does not end badly.

One week after the fire, I forced myself to ride my bike past the scene of the fire -- a place I'd been avoiding because it had looked so very bleak and lifeless. Yet, I was amazed to see green, admittedly small bits of it, but signs of life nonetheless. The fields were already making a comeback.

In the ensuing months, the fields returned, quickly moving from a sea of black with sprigs of green to lush fields in full summer bloom. Here and there, burned, dead brush sticks up, a reminder, like nothing more than scars on a child's knee. The comeback of this acreage is nothing less than miraculous; it teaches us a lesson about ourselves.

How often have you suffered through a devastation, convinced that some significant part of your life was now over and you would never, ever be healed? And then, through the miracle of time, you did heal.

Things slowly began to go right again; wounds were licked. Life began chugging along again in third gear. And over time, the remaining bumps and scars became part of your lore -- the essential truths that define who you are. 

Think of this the next time your dream lets you down (and it will, sooner or later, for dreams usually do as they unfold.) Remember that this, too, is part of your cycle of growth. Just as a field reseeds itself and gives way to the grasses of summer once again, so can you.

If nothing else, the crisis has left you stronger, more capable of knowing just what you can do, ready for tremendous growth.

Tags: Creativity, artist's life, motivation

Comments

[Jim White]

Thank you for sharing this story. I would add this thought: Could it be that the healing energy comes from love and it is always there, but it just takes us some time to notice it.

Jim White