When Green Breaks through Ash

Finally, the raining ash and smoke are clearing away.

My fire-ravaged state has stopped bleeding. Hills covered in sycamores, walnut, oak, cottonwood, and pine are now graveyards of burned matchstick forests and ash. It took everything inside of me for my heart not to break in half, just looking at what was left of the drive up into the Sierra Nevadas.

As I drove under the clearing skies, I couldn't help but feel grateful for knowing a place that was once unscathed by death and conspiracies. The smoke had cleared, and the clouds parted, and for the first time in a long time, I saw blue. That certain kind of blue that birds, flowers, water, and skies have that no Tesla or iPhone will ever illuminate.

Many things crossed my mind like animals scurrying across the road. I stopped at the cemetery and placed flowers on my grandmother's grave. To ward off the thick blanket of death, I picked up a bag full of acorns that had fallen from the trees in the hopes of planting them and giving them away to all of the people in my neighborhood. Maybe we could grow the same number of trees that perished, I thought. As I made my way across the rolling golden hills out by Kettleman City through Paso Robles, I found myself teetering on death's despair and the beauty of life. I got home, peeled off my clothes, brushed my teeth, washed off the sin, and slept without feeling anything more.

Today, that same kind of blue greeted me through my bedroom window, and life had won. I bounced out of bed at 6 a.m. like it was Christmas morning, walked outside, and caught the bright fiery sun coming up over the Santa Lucia mountains, and I couldn't help but notice the string of ravens sitting on the telephone wires. I walked barefoot back inside and grabbed a bag of day-old bread and fed it to them.

After some yoga and tea, I am about to start writing for the day, but I felt the need to carve out a page of reflection for life, death, and our short time on this planet.

No matter what may come, or burn to the ground, it's all part of life's dance. Please take time to connect with yourself, the elements that give life, and those who care about you.

I spoke to one of my best friends the other day, and he told me how one day he wanted to help the world be a better place, and it got me thinking. You don't have to be a Nobel Prize winner to do great things. Beauty comes in small acts. It's saying thank you and taking out the trash when the garbage is full, so somebody else doesn't have to. It's letting someone cross the street instead of driving past them like they didn't exist. It's saying a kind word instead of a few cruel ones. We all rub off on one another, and it matters that you sparkle a little every day.

I thank Daniel in China for making his bilingual podcasts, Juliette in Australia for doing her master's degree, Tai out in Colorado building his family and mentoring young people, William reciting poetry and studying his love of philosophy at Harvard, Kristina building a sustainable commune out in Portugal, Kasey kickboxing and building her tea empire in India, Hugh covering stories for Rolling Stones and surfing in Vietnam, Alina perfecting and teaching yoga out in Canada. These beautiful people remind me that life is what you focus on and what we generate from inside.

Take time to focus on regeneration, whatever that may be—health, self-esteem, dreams, friendships, anything that feeds a better you. The trees have burned, but with time, the forests will come back. Seeds will drop into the ground and slowly take root deep in the ground. After being covered, immersed in darkness, and left to survive on their own, they will grow with nothing but pure grit and someday sprout and blossom into the majestic green beings they always were.

No matter what destruction has been dropped on your happiness and dreams, it's never too late to plant flowers inside of yourself.