Flames

It is said that we all get a chance to take a truthful look at ourselves as our death approaches.  That all the layers of doubt and fear and pretense and greed peel away in that moment, and we are left seeing the creature we were born as, the creature buried under a lifetime's accumulation of stories about ourselves.

As I stoked the fire in our woodstove tonight, I rested for a moment with the door ajar, the flames spellbinding in their dancing life.  I'd only placed that log in a few moments before, setting it on the embers, but already it was in full flame, brown wood giving rise to light and life.  It seemed the layers of growth in the wood were being pulled, one by one, into another form.  The certainty of the wood, the expectation of its appearence, transforming into an otherworldly creation, sacredness.

What if we start the changes now?  What if, instead of waiting until we can't stand it any longer, or until we are looking death in the eye, what if we peel those layers off now?  Take a deep breath and let go, and look inward, and accept what we see there.  And on, and on.