The Scar

Up high in the Sierras, I sit, leaning up against a pile of fallen trees burnt to a crisp from a previous year wildfire. Completely alone. The only life around me is a small creek, no more than 15 feet wide, trickling over silt covered granite pebbles and technicolored smooth river rocks.

The surrounding ground is sandy with tufts of milkweed and sage brush. As far as my eyes can see, there are burnt pine trees reaching for the sky like shiny black spikes, most without branches. This particular fire scar goes on like this for miles. Resting against a pile of burnt logs I begin to slowly scan the meadow I am in and I am able to truly capture the beauty that is around me. A testament to Mother Nature's true unwavering strength, and perseverance. In the middle of what looks to be pure destruction and desolation, this small stream continues to flow. Sprouting up around the banks are snow flowers and river grass. Like a vein of life flowing ever so peacefully through a once lush forest that was stripped of its beauty and fragrance. The little signs of new growth around its banks offer the forest a promise which it intends on keeping with no real timeline in place. I can hear the river tell the miles of fallen timber and blackened stumps, “I will bring you back to life.“

As magnificent as the scenery was, the fishing was a close second. Aggressive and colorful brown trout were waiting around every patch of nervous water and deep pocket for their next meal floating down the bubble line. While on average, fish from the 8 to 12 inches class were the norm, every once in a while an aggressive 15-inch fish would come leaping clear out of the water to demolish my size 12 elk hair caddis dead drifted down the current.

Taking a step back and reviewing the day, it was quite interesting how in such a place robbed of life by merciless fires, there remained a stream brimming with life. There never seems to be an answer as to why life on this planet does what it does but in an almost illusive way--I think that is the point.

Scenery like this reminds me of many lessons one is taught along their journey of life, and if I apply just one of the hundreds of lessons that I have learned in my life through nature, I hope it is this one. Had the remaining life in that stream seen what had happened all around it, everything that it had known to be true for hundreds of years decimated right in front of its eyes, scorched and forced to watch? Did the sage brush and snow flowers lose hope as they sprouted up the following spring, noticing the pine trees that had been there waiting for them killed and their skeletons left to fall?

Did the trout surrender and give up when being fully exposed, no longer having the shelter and protection from the towering trees to keep them safe from the eagles and osprey flying above?

The lesson is simple but can be painful to practice. When it feels as though everything has been burnt to the ground and life as you know it has been taken from you, is not when

you give up! But rather face the current of the future head on knowing one thing for certain, no amount of loss is permeant, where there is life there is hope.