Out of the Fog

As you are hearing and seeing on the media, this summer of 2021 the Western United States is on fire. There were several years when forest fires were all around where I lived. In the Central and Eastern states there were a day or two of heavy smog caused by the fires. The smell may have filled your nostrils and even burnt your throat. There may have been air quality alerts in your area.

That is a small fraction of what it is like to live in a town where the mountains all around can suddenly be up in flames. Some of the worst fires — like the one that devastated the Santa Clara Pueblo ten years ago — left permanent scars on the people. The mountains have yet to grow new brush and trees.

The smoke from forest fires is visually similar to being in a fog cloud. Daytime driving is slower with smoke so thick that it is like driving through fog. The air coming in automobile window cracks and air vents smells of smoke. Air conditioners in buildings can barely keep up with the smoke filling their filters.

The smell of a world on fire hangs in the air. It is oppressive and grates on peoples’ nerves. It lasts a couple of days or longer after the fires are put out.

Even the local atheists pray for rain to help put out the fires, but not enough to wash away the mountainsides. That is what happened in Santa Clara Pueblo and continues in many other places around the West.

During fires there is only one color in the smoky kaleidoscope. Grey.

Our lives depend upon our view. We can live in the kaleidoscope or we can live in a grey fog.

It’s up to us.

There is more to life than black or white or shades of grey. There is a whole spectrum of colors. If we wish to see them, the colors exist. We decide what we want to see, how we want to live.

There is more than monotone to our lives if we are willing to be colorful. It’s not just putting on a brightly colored shirt or jacket. It’s letting our souls free to show the colorful people we truly are inside.

We spend our lives on the sidelines. We wait to be amazed by somebody or something. We want someone else to do the work. Someone else has to have the guts to show up for life and show their inner selves to make us happy.

There comes a precise moment in time that we can stop brewing about who we’re supposed to be. We can stop wondering what we’re supposed to do with our lives. We have to be courageous enough to actually go out and live.

That doesn’t mean running off to the wilds of the Amazon or the Antarctic.

It means living in place without spiritual or emotional crutches.

If I stop using you for an emotional and spiritual crutches, if I stop hiding behind work and responsibilities — walls that I say define my life — in an instant I can see colors.

Other humans can see the colors inside of me that make me more than a blank wall. More than someone hiding from life. Whining and complaining or just running to isolation make us less than ourselves. We are so much more.

Think about some of the people you’ve met who appear to be on top of the world, alive and waiting for the next challenge. Yet, for reasons that can never exactly be explained, they always seem to be holding back. Or something holds them back. They may appear happy while something underlying never quite frees them to fully appreciate their lives.

Every hermit I’ve ever known has had to come back into the world at some time. Every hermit I’ve ever known has always been found by somebody else looking for a spiritual gateway.

Never have I met a bland, boring hermit. They are some of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. Most are outgoing, full of life and ready for a good laugh. I can assure you, also, the entire world sees their colors. The colors of their souls.

It’s simply up to the rest of us to follow their lead.