From the Ashes We Rise

Have you ever been in the clouds?

High up in the mountains with the snow swirling around you because there is nowhere for it to fall to, because you are IN the clouds?

I have!

Finally!

I've dreamed of being in the mountains since I was a little girl and watched the Sound of Music for the first time. Watching Julie Andrews' skirts twirl as she turned around in the grass, the mountains all around her.

Granted, I am not in Austria, I am in Colorado, but these mountains are their own kind of gorgeous.
They speak (a little too loudly sometimes) if you know how to listen.

The scorched hillside, blackened trees still standing tall, foundations and chimneys all that's left of homes that were unfortunate enough to be in the path of a raging wildfire.

But, if you stop...

If you look a little closer...

You'll see pinecones littering the ground, seeds already deposited with the hopes that fresh little pines will soon grow in the charred soil, grasses and spring flowers poking through the soot covered ground, elk and moose tracks wandering through.

I keep hearing that this spring is all about rebirth and renewal, and I can't help but think that all the destruction had its purpose; that the land needs to be reborn, that the homes had owners with towers that needed crumbling, that communities needed the reminder that they are stronger together than apart. That everything is a cycle, but you don't know the timeline so you can't prepare, you just have to have faith and surrender to the divine.

Sometimes "bad things" aren't as bad as we believe them to be. Sometimes, if we stop and look back a little, we'll see how something we thought was terrible at the time turned out to be exactly the catalyst to something amazing.

It can be a hard thing to remember, but just like *Fawkes, beauty can arise from the ashes left behind.

*for those who may be unfamiliar with this reference...*gasp* *shudder*...go read a book...or 7.