loving the fire that burns us
Life is a fire. You and I are tongues within that flame.
As humans, we may fall in love with the shapes and forms rather than the actual fire of life itself. As infants we fall in love with the bottle that feeds us and cannot recognize the same kindness when offered with a spoon. The baby sees weaning as a time of bitter grief rather than as transition to a more stable form of sustenance.
As adolescents, we seek the love of a suitor. We cannot recognize love when offered by family or childhood friends. Each lover we lose (and we will lose them all) seems an irreplaceable loss if we cannot find the one lover behind them all.
Life contains much change and sadness. We would not be fully human if we did not grieve, but loss reminds the mystic to return to life’s center. We despair of life only because we have left the fire burning at the center to clutch after ashes blowing in the wind.