Breaking Faith, Cassia Scarborough

The birthplace of fire is under the muddy water of the Amazon river. I know, because I found it. Deep in the jungle, where the air is perfume and the birds are fireworks, loud and bright. When I first stepped onto that plane bound for Ecuador last July, I had no idea that I was to steal secrets from that land of dark and red eyes and claws. However, Prometheus himself could not have found a brighter blaze to return home with. My story runs like most mortal legends. Love, lust, sickness, fear, despair, beauty, adventure and growth, twist like orange threads into a tapestry of heat and light. This is a story about fire, about connection, about morality and about what we all have lost.

A few months ago I was standing on the porch of a boarded up mansion picking roses. The roses were pink. The sky was pink too. My jeans had a small tear in them from where barbed wire had snagged me as I jumped over the chain link fence that guarded the ruins. These roses are beautiful, I said, the way the dew sits on the petals and the way they catch the light. I can hardly find words... oh well, when you think about something too much you forget why you liked it in the first place.

I was with two friends, both girls, red hair and brown hair, brown eyes and green. Pink lips. Brown hair agreed, picked another rose. I wonder, she said, if there is such a thing as universal beauty. Red hair responded that everyone thought different things were beautiful, that it was a cultural thing. What about universal truth? Brown wondered. Is there something that is always true or good? Red hair threaded roses into a bunch. No, she said, that's cultural too. What's good and true to some people is not good and true to others. It's all moral. Everyone has different morals. There's no way to judge without bias.

They agreed with each other and continued their philosophy, content in their intelligence.

Water. I said.

What? They said.

Water. I said. I sat on the stairs that once led to a grand entrance. The stairs were braided by wild grass and fallen petals. The sky was mauve. Clean water is always good. Nothing in this world can survive without clean water. Therefore, if you value life, then clean water is always good and anything that threatens your ability to obtain clean water is always bad.

Brown gave me a withering look. That's biology, not philosophy.

I don't believe that the two can be separated like that.

Some day, Brown said, science could find a way to make it so that people don't need to drink water. We could find something else.

This logic boggled my mind. But, I said, that's extremely hypothetical at best and right now the reality is that everything on this planet needs water and you can't just go around basing your arguments off of non-existent technologies that science may or may not ever develop.

That is biology. They said and that was the end of the conversation.

I am writing this while drinking a soy latte in a local coffee shop. The coffee shop used to be a boarding house. It has antique couches and peeling walls and wooden tables with odd numbers of legs. Each chair is an individual. The walls in one room are dark mauve. The walls in this room are the green of rose stems. Outside, vines flourish. They have overrun the railings.

Many religions teach us that the soul is pure while the body is dirty. Philosophy encourages us to value the intellect over intuition. Science tells us that in order to control the world and understand her secrets we must separate ourselves from it. People who enjoy sex are often viewed with less respect than those who abstain. Disconnection is the greatest achievement of our lives.

Tell me that clean water is not good. Tell me. Give me the reasons. Talk until you are hoarse and your throat is dry as sandstone and then I will answer you by holding a cup of water up so that the moon can snag in the bobbing ice. I will win the argument without saying a word.

Where does fire come from? Does it come from a blue plastic lighter, a book of matches, a kitchen stove? Pause a moment, and seriously consider the question. Faith, is more than religion. It is an intuition, more basic than logic and in some ways, stronger. It is trust, connection, habit. It is the answer to the question: Where does fire come from?

Logically, we know that water comes from springs, rivers, snow, rain. However, when we are thirsty, we know where water comes from and it isn't the polluted local brook. Water comes from our tap, our refrigerator, our supermarket, from the corner coffee shop. We have faith that if we are thirsty, we will be able to get water from these places. We do not have faith in being able to find drinkable water in nature. This is why, when asked where water comes from, we may as well give the answer we believe in: It comes from the kitchen sink.

People kill for faith, live by it, on it, around it. Of all the things humans can feel, it is perhaps the strongest, the most enduring. We have come to put our faith in pipes and heaters. We have pledged our allegiance to technology and magic tricks. Our very lives have come to depend on faucets and plastic bottles, on gasoline and electric stoves. What happens when children are taught for their whole lives that water comes from a sink and fire, from matches? By placing our faith in these truths, what have we agreed to sacrifice? What is the price of ease?

This story began as the summer was born. Skirts were short, coffee was iced, the sky was fire, the ocean was crisp and I had just ditched my high school graduation. I've never been big on ceremony, never looked good in blue, so I skipped the tassels and went to the beach instead.

A pair of men played jazz under a rainbow umbrella. As one leaned back and his sax threw music into the sun, I dipped my feet in a bright high tide. Summer in California. My life was my own now. From all I had ever heard from books and magazines, lives were meant to have meaning. Now that I had one, to what purpose was I going to dedicate it? What did I want to fight for? My favorite author, Derrick Jensen, said in one of the interviews I am always listening to, “find what you love, then defend your beloved.” What did I love?

I could think of a million answers to that question, but none of them seemed the kind of thing one could devote a lifetime to. I loved fire, I loved the way it roared when I danced with it. I loved the deer paths in the redwoods near my house. I loved laying on the hot white sand for hours, listening to the seagulls scream. I loved my friends and the way my boyfriend's lips felt on my skin.

I've never owned a watch. I have, however, developed a sixth sense that rings an alarm after I'm already late for something. This time I was late to meet my best friend. We were going to do some shopping at Longs, grab supplies for a bonfire we were putting on that evening. The fire was to be a combination bon voyage bash and graduation celebration. I was to leave for Ecuador in six days. A single fire seemed a pallid guardian for such an expedition.

“I mean, really, it shouldn't be so hard to find wood. We live in the redwoods!”

“You live in the redwoods, I live on Main Street. Besides, what does that have to do with anything? It's not like you can just go chop down a tree. Did you check the Lumber Company?” Faye grabbed a pack of cookies off a shelf. “Chocolate chip?”

“Sounds good., if we get too much maybe we can burn what people don't eat. A bonfire made completely out of snack foods.”

“I take it they didn't have firewood?”

“How'd you guess?”

“It will all work out.”

“We have an hour before the party.”

“Plenty of time.”

“The procrastinator's mantra. Rockstar?” I tossed a black can of Rockstar energy drink into the fluorescent light-refrigerated air, caught it, tossed it again. We looked almost like sisters as we stood there, two girls in red shirts, spiked collars, eyeliner, gold makeup. Our skirts were short and we were buzzed from the iced coffee we'd had earlier that day. “Isn't it a little weird that we get our food from places like Longs?”

“Where else would we get Rockstar? It's expensive at Safeway. Get four of them. You want chips?”

I grabbed three more cans. “Get salsa too. I don't know, I was just thinking about the wood and how even the lumber company doesn't have any. I mean, we could have just gone and gathered some from the forest around my house. And we could just, I dunno, grow our own food or something...”

“We could, but do you know how? How do you make chips and bread and Rockstar? How do you cut down a tree? Besides, there aren't many trees left around here to be wasting on a bonfire. I think we've got everything we need, let's go pay.”

Orange is the color of dance and black is the color of the dance floor. White stars spider under my feet. I dip my poi into a roaring bonfire that smells of burnt cookies and eucalyptus. The two balls at the end of the poi chains burst into hot blooms. Fire petals jump off them. Whenever I dance with fire I imagine that there are two orange dragons snaking circles around my body, dribbling smoke from open mouths, roaring in fierce joy or joyous rage when they pass my ears. Fire draws wings behind my back, fans before my face, disks between my breasts. I touch a flower to my tongue and a new bloom grows in my mouth before I eat it.

Like a phoenix I burn. Like the stars, I am already dead but I am too far away for anyone to see it yet. My mirage still winks at my old world.

“You looked so sexy!” My boyfriend wraps his arm around my waist after my flowers have wilted and I've rejoined the group around the fire. We make an odd couple. I'm wearing jade beads, he's wearing a pair of camouflage fatigues.

“I'm not half as good at poi as you are.” I kiss his cheek.

“But you look a hundred times hotter dancing than I do. You've got the boobs and hips.”

“Aw, don't be jealous, they have push-up bras for people like you.” He would never understand about the dragons. We don't speak of things like that. We watch movies and make jokes, play with fire. We laugh. The perfume I'm wearing was his gift. It's an easy relationship. As long as we don't talk too much. As long as we forget that it will never work. As long as we don't think about tomorrow. Today is wonderful. Today we can smile and run our hands through each other's hair. For us, tomorrow can never exist.

Full moon. I flick a match. The incense is cinnamon. I call on my spirit guides to be with me on my journey. I feel their presence. A red dragon and a blue one. Red, fire, strength, change, courage, grace, purification. Blue, water, renewal, life, energy, creativity, love, sustenance. I call on these elements to walk with me in the life I am beginning.

I hear footsteps on the stairs outside. Someone knocks on the door. My younger brother, Josh, lets the late night visitor in and yells my name. I stumble to the living room. My boyfriend is leaning against the door frame, grinning. I fall into his arms. The difference between us is like a chasm tonight. I'm wearing a ritual outfit, flowing red skirts and runes and silver jewelry and Egyptian eyeliner. A macaw feather hangs in my hair. He is still wearing military fatigues and army surplus boots. His hair is a buzz cut.

“I brought you a gift. Take whatever ones you want. You can remember me while you're off being Miss Indiana Jones.” He hands me a jar of Nuttella chocolate and a folder of photographs. I shuffle through them. Frozen moments. The two of us fire dancing at dusk. Us kissing just before dawn. Faye and Renna and I together on the beach.

“You realize that if you tell me that, I'll take all of them.”

“That's fine,” he says, “I already got what I wanted.” He unfolds his wallet and shows me a photo, torn around the edges. It's of me, laying on a porch, eyes closed, one arm flung over my head, feeling the sun rise.

“I look dead.”

“But you're a very pretty dead person.”

“Necrophiliac.”

When he leaves, I run to my room and watch him through my window. His last words were either I love you or don't look back. I put the photos in my backpack and return to my alter.

I have only one match left, one candle, one chance, one life. I have to make sure not waste it, not to let it burn unused, not to drop it. I have to strike with strength, light the flame, use it well. I will. I light the candle with my dragon guides watching. I light my life. This is it. I am a woman, a leader, a warrior, a writer, a dancer, a traveler, alive. I touch the still red match to my tongue.

In the end, I did cheat on my boyfriend. In the deep night, drowned in jungle stars and hot cold moon air, in the arms of a stranger, I cheated on him. But first, I went to LA.

         I talked with my Grandfather on the phone for at least an hour, whiling away the time before the plane left the international airport in Los Angeles. He spoke in a drawl. We talked-- or rather, he drawled and I closed my eyes and kicked up my feet and listened to him drawl-- about World's Fairs and show barges and floating casinos and old photos and New Orleans and his little boy dreams of becoming a Mississippi gambler and two decker carousals and calliope music and cellphones.

My family was a carnival family for generations. I've always felt a little cheated. I was born just after an era ended. No matter how much I look, the old photo booths, the rickety-broken rides, the pick pockets and train robbers and feathered hats and elephants, the danger, stays in its grave. The graveyard is illuminated by fluorescent lights. The flowers left by mourners are roses.
         That was in LA. That was back. I think his last words were don't look back. The plane roared and reared into the sky, a metal dragon wheeling over the computer chip-ember lights of the city. The plane spotlights flashed white on glass and rivers and roads. Fire from the dragon's mouth. All the city in embers. It roared.
         And now the continent, outline solid against the breakers. And now the ocean, the clouds, the black sky, the moon just past full. The plane tilted and the stars rose from the water and cloud shreds. My view is diamonds.

         The truck did not go over the cliff. Using ropes and the earth mover, the men managed to pull it back onto the scale-stone road. I sat in the back, foot on the tail gate, hand raised to our helpers. The men shouted their salutations. "Hola! Que bonita!"
The wind raked my hair and dust gathered in storm clouds around the truck's wheels. We zoomed through traffic, past cows, down potholes and up roller coaster inclines. The path was lined in eucalyptus. When they cut down the amazon, these trees grew in its place. They smelled bitter.
         The truck dropped us off in the last of the high climate rain forest in Ecuador. By us, I mean my mother and brother and I. The driver pointed to a path and pantomimed directions. Walk to the bus stop, other side of this little hill, beautiful stroll, enjoy, enjoy. We spent the next five hours walking, climbing, crawling, scratching, wheezing, our way uphill.

The rain forest ended abruptly. The vines spaghetti slurped into the trees, the full flowers folded, the green moss, green trunks, green leaves, green butterflies stopped. Two more steps and the tight woven canopy unraveled. I was in a world of endless sky, airless, rolling hills, tall grass, gold.

I sat on a stone and the sun made the grass look like roman candles. Even without air, I felt as if I could breathe for the first time in my life. The bus came five hours later.

The novel was a poem of lust and musk and poison and calliope. I halved it as I sat on the orange bench outside of the run down hotel. A street made of cobble stones cut by purple leaved plants. Across the way, buildings. Some under construction, some mouldered and run over by vines. Beyond these are the mountains, the piles of green kimono discarded by lazy Geisha. The clouds have forsaken the sky. They have melted in the jungle fire. Melted, and dribbled over the mountains as hot icing.
I spent the day reading. Hot rain fell. Cold rain. Clouds moved. Stray dogs roamed. I danced in a black turtle neck with my black silk ribbon poi. Children gathered to watch, grin, gasp, applaud.

         There is a cafe where I live, with see through tables that house collections of gaudy rings and voodoo dolls and neon lights and action figures and little love notes customers have slipped inside while the waiters weren't paying attention. Rock music throbs and the place smells of french fries and veggie burgers.

Faye and I sat slurping vegan milkshakes. It was 2am, an hour before closing. We were reading the notes in our table, talking about love.

“I tried to break up with him,” I said. “I don't want to leave for Ecuador and have him miss me for months and then come back and tell him it's over, how horrid would that be?”

Faye licked ice cream off her straw. “So, did you do it?”

I shrugged and mumbled incoherently.

She rolled her eyes and flicked shake onto my cheek. “I don't understand you! You both know that this cannot last, you said in the beginning that it would never work. You aren't compatible, you have nothing in common, why is it so hard to end it?”

“It just is! It--” I clawed my hair and sank down in my seat. “It works today. In the present. When we are together, I'm not alone, I have someone to go to movies with and dance with and talk to and fall asleep with. I have someone to kiss and... you know.” I flutter my fingers and Faye nods sagely. Yes, she knows. “What if this is it? What if this is all there is? What if he's the best I'm ever going to find? What if, by leaving him, I'm dooming myself to dying old, single and wrinkled?”

“Wrinkles are a problem,” she agrees. “But whenever you're away from him, all you can talk about is how you should break up with him! I didn't want to bring this up, but Cassia, you've changed since you started dating him. You're not yourself anymore. You don't talk about magic and travel and politics, not even to people who have the same views as you do.”

“I know it's not healthy for me to be his girlfriend now, but it's comfortable. It's easier than trying something new. And I do love him...”

We finished our drinks and slid out the door into the black night morning. Sirens wailed somewhere down the avenue. I caught a bus and got home before the sky bloomed. I still had to pack for my trip.

         A candle haunts the table, ghosting dark and bright. Howls, screeches, a high pitched flutter. I deal the cards, red, eight to each. We sit around the candle lit table, flashing knives at each other, joking. I'm without make up or pretense, my fading red hair pulled into a ponytail, my eyes the most ornamental part of the jungle outfit, dark green and bright with life.
         Here, in this moment, at this table, I am alive, I fit, I belong, I hold my own, I am a comrade. Never in America do I feel this, that my skin and eyes and hair and face are perfect without paint and my single silver hoop sums up my attitude and the knee high boots--protection against deep mud-- fit me better than any city shoes.

Here, where the stars are burns in the fabric of the night, the milky way pure, raw silk, the moon heavy in its bed--an over ripe guanabana. Where dusk is passion fruit milk spilled behind palm silhouettes, where bats scream and macaws fly in perfect unison, where flowers grow so heady and thick that they bend the branches of the trees, here I am home.
         "Do you know Ocho Loco?" Ambrosio asks as I deal the cards. The other men listen as he explains the rules to them in Spanish. He taps the ash off his cigarette and scans the table. On one arm he has a mural of black pen and dye-- suns and lizards and spirals and monkeys. Esteban is drawing on the arm with a henna like ink from a fruit.
        Esteban sees me watching. "Want a tattoo? I'll give you one after I finish his."

         I put down spades, clubs, hearts, diamonds, corazon negros, clovas, corazons, diamontes. I look at Ambrosio. "How old are you?"
Our conversation has winded its way through Argentinean firedancers, novels, his plans to ride a motorcycle down the coast of South America, my plans to travel the world, magic tricks, school, art, life. He knows I'm 17, but as the night has progressed and all the tourists have gone to their cabins and our group has dwindled to myself and these three or four men, he has gone from messing up my name and calling me girl, to treating me as an equal. Ambrosio is the head tour guide of this lodge. Esteban is a cook. Esteban is also an amazing artist. Ambrosio is also a man who gave up everything--money, job, friends, home-- to come to the jungle and find himself.
         "How old do you think I am?"

         "Eighty-Six."
         He throws his head back and laughs. "Your Granny, eh?"
         I laugh as well. "Twenty-something then."
         "Twenty-Eight. When is your birthday?"
         I grin at him. "When do you think it is?"
         He laughs, says to Esteban, "she's a quick one, isn't she?" Then, to me, "January?"
         "October."
         "No way! Mine is Octubre the eighth."
         "I'm the twenty-eighth!"
         "Libra?"
         "Scorpio."
         He throws me a high five. "You don't act like you are seventeen. You're too mature, you see the world from a different perspective, you're smart. Maybe because you were homeschooled?"
         "Quien sabe, amigo. It's your turn." I roll my shoulders in a shrug. Esteban comes over and tattoos a moon onto my arm. The ink is dark blue-black. Ambrosio says something in Spanish and Esteban laughs in agreement. I look at them inquiringly.
         "I was telling my friend that I wished there were more women like you in the world."
         "Keep wishing. You won't find many people like me."
         "One of a kind, eh?" He looks at me for a long moment, his dark eyes both approving and speculative.
        "You bet." I drop my last card into the candle light. "I win."

         I sit on the pier, jeans rolled up, black boots discarded, my feet in the water. Ambrosio is swimming, whooping to the people who sit smoking and talking back on land. I kick my feet in the water, wriggle my toes.
         "You coming in?" He calls and waves his bar of soap.
         "My bikini is back at my hut."
         The sun falls and bronzes the trees, casts the clouds in copper. A dark rainbow arches behind the palm silhouettes. A bird screams.
Something brushes my foot, slimy and bubbling. I yelp and jerk my knees up to my chest. The Swede and the Italian cackle, the red tips of their cigarettes bobbing in a haze of smoke.         

        Later, I inspect my toe. There is a chunk of skin missing, star shaped and gaping. I laugh as I imagine some small fish making its get away with my flesh in its spiny mouth.

         We take a canoe through a maze of water and Tolkien trees. Disneyland or a B-Grade Fantasy movie could have come close to the actuality. The water is completely still, black glass dotted with bubbles. Anaconda habitat. Huge, slow moving butterflies. Heavy spiders. Water weeds with yellow flowers that hiss along the sides of the boat and claw at our paddles. Dr. Suess trees with twisted white trunks crowned by a single, green spade bigger than a human head. Black, long necked birds follow us, flitting from shadow to shadow and muttering in sly voices.

         Mushrooms glowed blue as dusk deepened. Ambrosio leaned over and grabbed one from a rotting log. He threw it at me. I juggled the ball of squishy light and laughed.

         What do I love? The longer I am here, the more I wonder if dedicating a life to fire, deer paths, sand, seagulls and kisses is such a bad idea. I was always told that success can only be found in colleges and sky scrapers, that satisfaction has a monetary equivalent. It took my family plenty of cash to come here. But the things that take my breath away aren't the ones we are paying for. The jungle is free. The freedom is what I yearn for.

        This is what I want my life to be. Talking to people bitten by wanderlust, trading stories, tips, reading a paperback as crickets sing, swinging in a red hammock above a tall white candle. I want to trade books with other travelers. I want to breathe fire with people in Argentina, paint landscapes in Tuscany. I want to sell drinks at bars and coffee shops, sell stories, dance.
         Today, I watched the sun set, an instant mocha between my palms, from the edge of the pier, dock, world, my feet kicking above the coffee colored water of the Amazon river. A pair of scarlet macaws broke the clouds. Macaws mate for life. When they fly, their wings beat the same tempo, their screeches compliment, they wheel on the same dime. I want to believe that humans are not so different from these others. Red, blue, green, the colors of my longing.
        Another rainbow touches the river. The treasure must be piranha teeth, Incan gold, tiger claws, flower petals, dragon scales. Jungle treasures are dangerous. I'm becoming one of those treasures, part of this land, this river my bed. Anaconda eyes, orchid skin.

The last time I had a conversation with my grandmother, I was fifteen. She is nothing like my Grandfather. They divorced because she could not stand his carnival lifestyle. It was too much for her. That night is still so vivid in my mind, her in a floral robe, me in jade and a catchy T-shirt. It was before she began losing the tops to bottles, before names started to get jumbled, before the pacing became a problem.

It was late, and neither of us could sleep. She sat on the edge of my pullout bed and stared through the sheer curtains at the snowy adobe homes across the road. The New Mexican sky fluttered with old street lamps and car headlights. I told her about day dreams, things I wanted to do when I was older. She replied with wistful lists of past passions.

“I'd like to go back to college someday, learn Spanish. My best friend and I had an argument years ago. I haven't seen her since. One day, I'd like to go to Denver and make up with her. I want to see the US, travel.” Her dyed red hair was twisted into pink curlers. She shook her head a little. “Just need to get those walls painted, the grass fixed up, the car under control. Get things done. Someday, though.”

I got up, opened the curtains, edged onto the windowsill, kicked my feet around in the gauze. A car flashed by. “I was reading one of my How To Be A Writer books yesterday. It was talkin about procrastination. How a lotta people never get much written because they have the Refrigerator Syndrome. Every time they sit down to write, they think about all the meaningless things that they could get done instead. Walking the dog, making the bed, cleaning the fridge. Anything, to put off meeting that blank page. Because the empty white is intimidating!” I press my nose to cold glass. “Even if you've written a hundred stories that were good, who knows if you'll be able to replicate that success! And so they put it off and put it off and put it off, and that's why some people never become published writers!”

“Get away from there, you'll break a leg.”

“It's three feet off the ground.”

“Just come on back here now,” my grandmother insisted. I jumped down and plopped onto the mattress.

“Do you hear what I'm sayin though, Granny?” I asked. She walked to the window. “Putting things off until the perfect moment, until there's nothing left to do first, until you have enough money and stability and everything is in place, it doesn't work. Someday never comes. All we've got is now. If you died tomorrow, would you want to die without making up with your best friend?”

My grandmother tutted and snapped blinds over the window. “Don't talk like that, missy. It's beyond late, time for bed.”

I went home to California a couple afternoons later. The next time I visited my Grandma, Alzheimer's had eaten her memory. It got worse with every month. As she paced her house, she muttered about Spanish classes and how her husband had stolen the money she was going to use to travel with. Her best friend, Meredeth, flew in from Denver. It was too late though, my Grandma didn't recognize her. Meredeth cried.

         Rain in the Amazon is unpredictable. When the storm hit, we docked our canoes and ran for the nearest shelter. Our group huddled under the thatched roof of what used to be a high-end lodge. The jungle had long ago reclaimed it, however, and vines broke the order of its walls.
         Ambrosio and I moved to a table far from the others. Our hair stuck to our cheeks and our clothes were soaked. A huge iguana ambled by outside.
         "Your hair's lovely." He leaned close to me and fingered a strand of copper.
         I slapped him away playfully. "Five dollars at Longs."
         His mouth dropped. "I thought it was real!"
        "Didn't you wonder why Mum, Josh and I all have different hair colors?" I tried to raise one eyebrow at him, gave up, and wiggled them both.
         He chewed his cheek. "Not really..."

        "Figures." I rested my chin on my knuckles and watched the rain thicken. “Typical male.”
         Ambrosio pondered me for a moment. "What will you do when you go back to your country?"
         "Dye my hair again.” I tossed him a smirk. “It's faded."
         "You know what I meant."
         "I am in my country already."

Suddenly, he hid his face in his poncho and muttered a question so fast it was incomprehensible.

“What did you say?” He muttered again. I laughed, he'd never acted so awkward, like a boy instead of a man of twenty eight. “I can't hear you over the rain, through the poncho, across the table, amigo!”

He pulled his chin up. “That photo you were looking at in your notebook at breakfast, it was your boyfriend?”

I stopped in my mental tracks. The photo, I drank my mocha staring at it every morning. My boyfriend? I guess so, huh? But... Ambrosio perked up at my pause. “Or maybe just a close friend? Someone you tell everything to? Or maybe--”

Was he really asking me about my relationship status? Was this handsome, intelligent man, this person who knew shamans and was planning a motorcycle trip across South America, was he really asking me if I was single? And was he really embarrassed? Was that real nervousness in his manner?

“He was my boyfriend.” Did I really just say that?

“Oh... was?”

“Was. Well, we don't know where we stand right now. We are... very different people. The only thing we really have in common is that we fire dance. He wants to be a policeman. He's not interested in travel so much as I am. I don't know, we're going to talk when I get home but... I don't know what I want.”

“Firedancing is just a hobby.” He swept the connection away with a jerk of his hand.

“It's an art!” I protested. But his comment rang true. My life may be devoted to art, but his?

“You deserve someone better than that. A cop? I cannot imagine you following rules.”

“Observant.” I chuckled.

“You are a wise woman, not a girl. You will come back to your country even wiser and he will be just the same. He will want to be with you again, who wouldn't? But you will not be the same person.”

And I know that Ambrosio is correct.

         The rain fadeed and we returned to our lodge. I went to the common room in search of coffee. There are no cups at the drink bar. In the kitchen, someone clattered dishes. I poked my head around the door. Ambrosio was there. He must have lost at cards again-- dishes are Esteban's job.
         "Got any clean cups in here?" I asked. He started and smiled at me.
         "Sure, sure, one moment. Here, can you take these out there as well?" He handed me a stack of yellow-red mugs.
         "I don't know, can I? You ask so much of me, I mean, man, what a bully."
         He rolled his eyes. "You're impossible! What is a bully?"
         "It's... you know... Someone who is--" I pondered how to explain and couldn't think of corresponding Spanish words. He offered his own definition. 

         "A stunningly handsome, amazingly smart, besotted guy who is a wonderful card player?"

         "A mean bossy person who makes children do his work for him... But yes, decently handsome." I winked, turned and took the cups out to the bar. He flicked a dishtowel at my ass as I walked out. Three scoops of instant coffee, one of chocolate, twenty steps to a striped hammock, a million drumbeats as another storm hits the jungle.

         In a long motor canoe, my group, friends I had fallen in love with who I would never see again, looked for the tell tale flash of the red eyes of the caiman. The warm, dark water reflected the tangle of stars above. A ribbon of glitter fell between clouds to touch the palm tree shadows.
         Don't make me leave, I love it here. In this moment, I am completely and utterly happy.
         I imagine I can reach up into that jungle sky and claw the stars, cold gemstones swimming in ink that slides through my fingers. I pull down that rich sky and stuff it into my mouth, feel the gemstones settle in my stomach, the satin sky in my throat. It is as real as a vision, as permanent as life.
         When we get back to the candle lit lodge, it is an impressionist's painting, surreal in a canvas of river. I dip my hand in the water and press the Amazon to my heart.
         That night, a large group of tourists arrive to take the place of those departing in the morning. Loud, white faces, gaudy jewelry, idiocy. I talk to the cooks, to Ambrosio, to Esteban. We talked about Shamans, shape shifting, dragons, life, music, metaphors. He tells me about macaws and motorcycles, I tell him that the rain on the river is flowers, the clouds are bronze sculptures, the reflections are impressionist paintings. He says the rain on the river sounds like fire roaring. I agree.
         After everyone has gone to sleep, even Ambrosio, I am still not tired. Tomorrow, we leave to go further into the jungle, to camp. I don't want to waste these moments. I talk to a boy from Holland who is my age. His name is Wolber. He likes history and biology, wants to travel one day. We share our lives as we swing in hammocks over candles. He seems infinitely young.
         I am now in a boat, speeding away from the pretty hammocks and instant coffee. The last time I saw Ambrosio, he kissed my hand and warned me that by the time I got out of the jungle, I'd have no blood left in my body. The bugs can't be as bad as all that...
Part of life is learning when to hold on and when to let go, how hard to cling and how far to push. In four days I had become someone totally different from the Californian girl I left behind. Copper hair, green eyes, boots and jeans. Perhaps it would be better to say, that I had changed and become myself.

I do not have faith in the land where I live.

I do not trust it with my life.

A few months ago, a logging company bought a huge tract of redwoods that stood around a watershed near my home. I sat in my room and wondered how far I would go to stop them. How hard would I fight for the deer that slept under the branches, the squirrels that hid in the bark, the birds that hatched eggs in the canopy, the coyotes that prowled after dark?

Would I get up from the bed, go with my mother to the shanty hotel where a meeting was in progress concerning the potential destruction, pardon me, I mean production? I could do that, did do that. I stood before my community and moved my lips in front of a microphone and gave my name to a local newspaper.

But that wasn't enough. The company had profits to make. Would I go further, raise money to buy the forest from them? My mother did, but I had so many pressing things, classes at the college, parties to attend, coffee to drink. Who has time for bake sales in this world?

And if the community couldn't earn the money, what then? Would I risk my body for these trees when I wouldn't even risk my time? Would I go and climb until the air was thin and sleep with the bird eggs and tie my wrists to the soft boughs and watch the axes march toward me?

Why would I do that? What reason have I to defend this place? I do not live here. I eat at the cool cafe with the neon tables. I drink at the local coffee shop that used to be a boarding house. I hang out with friends on the beach. I sleep in my bed surrounded by red pillows and a stuffed armadillo.

What would I do to defend my bedroom? If men were going to come with bulldozers and knock down my house, would I have the time to bother raising money? And if I couldn't get the money, what then? If I was told that someone was going to leave my family with nothing, no home or food, no pennies or dimes, no way to survive or start over, could I bear the reflection I saw in the mirror if I did not fight back with every ounce of strength I had?

         It had to be the Shaman. No normal person had eyes like those. He was lounging in a fishnet hammock, bare feet, clean brown pants, crisp blue shirt of that style rich college boys prefer- cuffs and folding collars. The shirt was unbuttoned. His chest was hairless. He was fit, not wrinkled so much as distilled, a fine wine aged into purity. Taught. Leathered. He could have been a very old twenty or a very young two-hundred.
         From where I stood, arms crossed, leaning over his porch railing, he looked more like a panther than a human. He was the very image of a feline high up on its kapok branch. I was just waiting for his long tail to twitch at me.
         His eyes were blue-brown. The stark color of fog and the smooth color of garnet. River silt and cold fire. Jaguar spots. I have never in my life seen eyes like those and I will never see such again.
         One of our new guides, an orange eyed man named Andres, elbowed me. "They say he can talk to snakes. Turn into one, too."
         We spent the day at the Shaman's house, petting his scrawny, half wild dogs and watching his chickens snap up huge bugs that should only have been possible in nightmares.
         "Are you a dog person?" I asked.

         The Shaman replied, "I prefer Jaguars."
         "Cat person, then?"
        "Jaguars are not cats."
         That evening, canoes ground themselves into the mud outside the house. Ecuadorian tourists tumbled out in a cacophony of neon and noise. We all sat in a large, windowless room-- empty save for the benches that lined the walls. No one seemed sure what was going to happen. Suddenly, a curtain of beads parted and He entered. I had grown accustomed to the magic of his appearance in Western garb. My breath was stolen by his ritual clothes. I don't know what I expected, but it never occurred to me that he would change his costume.
         A blue tunic, macaw feather bracelets, rainbows on his wrists, polished jewels so thick around his neck his chest was lost in them, shells and seeds, a chain of teeth that must have once belonged to a tiger or a heard of peccary. Huge and white and sharp.
         "The tribes of the Amazon have lived here forever, in one form or another. We are the trees and the rivers, the birds and snakes and fish. We are the plants we eat and the animals we eat. We are what the plants grow from and the animals eat.
         "Our homes have been taken from us, our territories made smaller. Some of us have sold our land to the oil companies. Those who remember how, are doing what we can to save our way of life. It is a battle, and right now we are losing.
         "A Shaman is a healer. Shamans from different parts of the jungle use different things to heal. Sometimes plants, sometimes rocks, sometimes animals. My tribe's Shamans use only plants. I know 550 different kinds of medicinal plants and their uses, where they grow and how to prepare them. I have five apprentices, two of them are my sons, one is from France, one is from the United States, and one is Ecuadorian. Many people try to become Shamans, but right now there are only thirty true Shamans in all of this country. One must undertake a vision quest after a certain number of plants have been learned. Few can stand the visions and many give up Shamanism after their first attempt.
          "Now, to demonstrate to you the practices of my people, I would ask for volunteers from the audience. Is there anyone here who has an ailment of the mind or body, of which they would like to be cured?"

         The more he talks, the more I begin to understand what it means to live with the land. He does not know what plants he could use to cure people if he had to use North American ones, or plants from one hundred miles upriver. And he doesn't suggest that the way he cures people is the one right way. But he knows the jungle where his tribe lives and he is wise here. His feet are tough and his toes are wide because he never wears shoes. He doesn't like dogs or cats or chickens. He talks to the spirits of the forest, is a part of the forest, is the forest. He is a doctor who uses drugs in their original forms. He is untamed. He lounges a lot. He has never had a job. He has no need of money. He bathes in the Amazon river twice a day, wears crisp clothes. What teeth he has are a clean, strong, yellow. And his eyes, god, his eyes.

         "Los estrellas." I point helpfully. "Bonita, si?"
         The young man sits down next to me, his feet dangling off the edge of the Shaman's porch. In the ink black of the night, the stars burn hot white. Our conversation is fractured, filled with half understood concepts and lots of pointing and laughter.
         Ramon is younger than Andres, only a year older than me. He has the seriousness of youth. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin. He is native to the Amazon. His community lives slightly upriver from Ambrosio's lodge. He doesn't speak English and my Spanish is horrid. I hate my inability to communicate. We are reduced to vocabulary words, substantial topics. The stars, cats, spiders, macaws. Sit by me. Have a cookie. Don't fall off the hammock. Let me pour that for you. I hate spiders, why are there spiders in the jungle!
         We sit on the porch for a long time that night, watching the constellations rise.
         Now I am sitting in a canoe. The river is narrow, dark. Always the birds scream, sing. They fly across the water, pirouette around my cheeks, scream. A cayman splashes. I take off my boots and wash my feet, dipping them over the rim of the boat, one at a time. My hands and back are mottled with insect bites. My fingers are so swollen that my rings will not come off anymore. I toss Ramon a shy smile. Dark clouds roll in. I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with orchids and passion flower.
In the amazon, life is either pain or beauty. There is nothing else. You laugh as insects tear your skin, because if you don't you'll give up and lay down and pour out your blood to more deserving creatures.
        I laugh.

        My boyfriend is our world.  He is our pavement and the corvettes that zip along the highway and the gas stations at the turn offs and the oil wells that feed the gas stations and the chainsaws that chew the wilderness to build the wells.  He is the man who works at the well and the money in this man's pocket that feeds the family that drives the corvette.  He is the program on the evening news that tells us how much to fear and how much to pray.  He is the feeling we get when we think of tomorrow.  Nothing can survive without clean water.  If there is any universal beauty, it must be the sight of pure water after days roaming the desert.  

        The relationship is no longer healthy.

        Last night I almost lost it. Andres pulled the canoe to a stop. We floated in the middle of a black lagoon, surrounded on all sides by dense jungle. "Welcome to Puerto Lopez!" He waved his paddle in the twilight. "Where would you like to make camp?"
One patch of jungle was swarming with army ants, another with conga ants. Army ants travel in groups of millions and eat all organic material they encounter. Conga Ants are solitary travelers. They don't need the protection of a group. One inch long or bigger, these black monsters leave a bite that feels like you've got a jagged piece of hot metal wriggling under your skin for days. That's what Andres told me, at least.
         The sky poured rain.
         Wet, bitten raw, dirty, smelly, hungry, sleepy, without shower or toilet or bed or clean water or dry clothes or fire or anything to keep the bugs at bay, a rash creeping up my stomach, blisters across my feet, hands, breasts, neck, shoulders and face that had formed where poison from sunfly bites had gathered, stingers stuck in my ass and right ring finger, no where to sit and no where to sleep, I finally snapped.
         I turned to Mom and growled. "That's it. I am going to go insane. I want to go back. I can't. Fucking. Handle. This. If ONE more bug takes ONE more bite out of me I am going to scream. There is no way I can camp out here. Where the FUCK is the camp site? This is a patch of mud on a bank of a muddy river. There is no port here!"
Mom took out her camera and snapped a photo of my face. "Your expression right now is priceless! Haha, don't worry, you'll live. We can't go back now."

The next day...

         Warm water wraps around me, dark bubbles and small scissor tail fish. I pull my arms back, Chinese fans of water following. There are no bugs on the small patch of sunny white sand I just dove from. Although a few hours ago we saw an X Snake fly across the river ["Deadly poison!" Says Andres.] and three gray dolphins spinning and before that we heard the crashing of a caimen in the water, at this moment the river is still and dark and satin and comforting. I surface, shake my hair, ripple the stillness. My little brother is whooping and stumbling into the tides. I grab Ramon's hand and playfully tug him toward the river. He grins and dives, surfaces behind me a moment later. We laugh. The three of us see who can hold their breath the longest-- a friendship of the moment, the real, the fact. No past or future, nothing abstract.
        I cling to that moment of respite as we make camp for the night amid a humming cloud of vampires.

That night...

         Pain has become like air-- almost always present, only noticeable when there is a lack of it. I pushed thoughts of chiggers squirming into my thighs and wounds weeping infection, to the back of my mind. I leaned into my arms, tilted my head and drank in the jungle night. Stars tangled in the branches of dead trees, dew on spiderwebs, fireflies, flame. On the riverbanks, red caimen eyes glared out at our canoe. Andres pointed and said that, "this one must be about twenty, thirty meters long!" By now, I had learned to take Andres with a grain of salt. A fish jumped over our boat, black ripples. Piranha slept in the tree roots. Bats brushed my hair into knots.

Late, late that same night, back on land...

         We built a fire.
         Actually, Ramon built a fire and I watched him build the fire. How strange, that I don't know how to build a fire without lighters and matches and store bought wood. It is so easy, here in the jungle. There is no campsite, why should there be? Ramon and Andres put up tents, used machetes to cut wood for poles to support a rain tarp. Ramon burned a piece of a termite nest and like magic the clouds of blood-suckers thinned. Our food was served on leaves. Our dishes were cleaned in the river. Our bodies were cleaned in the river. Our lives were cleaned in the river.
         We ate by candle light, salsa danced by candle light, our booted feet clunking on thick roots. Monkeys rattled the branches.
         We built a fire.
         Ramon ran his hands through it. He had watched me play with the candles that way each night. I grinned and traced patterns in the blaze, my fingers skimming the blue heart, my nails charred black. When one of us burned our hand the other took the opportunity to touch our fingers, our wrists, our arms. We exchanged shy smiles.
        I was rubbing antiseptic lotion over my hands when the word ALCOHOL jumped out of the ingredients list. My eyes strayed to the tall white candle that Andres had set out for dinner. It burned low now. I grinned.

         A few moments later, I was waving at my audience with a blue-flame hand, bright in the amazon night. I showed first Andres, then Ramon how the magic was worked and we laughed and screeched and fluttered blue fingers at each other, smelling of cheap dime-store soap. As a finale I ate fire from my fingers, dipping one blue flame into my mouth at a time to the horrified approval of my friends. From the way Ramon looked at me, I could tell he was feeling more than approval.

        The Amazon is a harsh teacher. It demands respect from its students. In return, it gives strength. From pain and desperation, to beauty and love and back to pain all in the course of a day, an hour, a moment, a lifetime. Even when you feel like you cannot go any further, there is no reason why you cannot lift your foot just one more step. When you go beyond unbearable, there will you find the scarlet macaws wheeling, the ice cream stars, the hopeful smile, the hand open, waiting to help you up. And when you must again leave all these behind, you can have strength in the knowledge that you are strong, that you will be able to walk alone.

        I dreamed that I was in a canoe, asleep, my white net tent a dome around me. The canoe tilted dangerously. Ambrosio righted it, laughed. I imagined falling into that dark river, among caimen and leeches and X Snakes and spiders, the protective net a prison pulling me down. My fingers brush water. I cling to the canoe.
         I wonder what macaws talk about as they fly.

        

         I dove from the pier, shook water from my eyes, climbed out, dove again. Ramon dove in as well, then sat on the steps watching me and commenting in Spanish. We are back at the lodge, all hammocks and chocolate and showers and so few mosquitoes that I scream at them to do their best as I dance around in my bikini, barefoot, bared. I could dive off this pier all day. Esteban and Ambrosio are here as well. We arrived too late for the last boat into town, so we get to stay an extra night at this lodge for free, courtesy amigo Ambrosio. A troop of yellow squirrel monkeys are playing in the trees to my right. Esteban names one Cassia and I glare at him.

         I will not let myself sleep tonight. I will see the sun rise one final time over the Ecuadorian rain forest.

         I walk down the pier, hot coca in hand, black boots thunking. The trees are dark around me. Flecks of gold fall like flowers from the canopy. I pause to watch the lightening bugs fly-- so, so beautiful. A jungle star falls. I wish on it. I step through an archway of gold dust, drink chocolate on the bank of the Amazon river as the dark dawns.

        Alone with my chocolate, I think back over the past day. My family went with Ramon to visit his community, earlier, before the fire flies. There is a security there, a wholeness there that is unfathomable in the US. No one lacks access to life. If they need a home, they know how to build one. If they need food, it falls from the trees or jumps from the river.

         I saw a documentary once on the television. Television, what a weird thing. It was about a plane crash and the sole survivor who was lost in the Amazon for weeks. The story made it sound like it was so impossible to find the means to survive here. I wonder at how insane that is. Everywhere is food, water, shelter, if you just look. Ramon and his people know where to look. Could I survive in the redwoods without help? I feel so blind.
         Ramon can navigate in the jungle by looking at the sun. He knows the best wood for fires. His tribe knows the rhythms of the jungle and when something is wrong, they know how to help. They have made mistakes, hunted too much or cut too many trees, but they know how to fix their mistakes and they have no choice but to fix them and care for the jungle, because if they don't they will die.
         Ramon is like the Shaman, wild, a panther in western clothes, whole. But the generation that is growing up now is not. They are not learning the plants, the old religions, the way to make baskets, the best wood for fires. They are forgetting. Ramon's generation is the last of a way of life that works well for humans, a way of life that is connected to the land that they live with, a way of life that must be preserved. His generation, my generation, we must fight back.
         The river turned to frosted glass, the clouds silvered, the dusk antiqued the trees. I finished my coca, and walked back to the lodge.
         In the common room of the lodge, I sat at a long wooden table and Ramon gave me a new tattoo in the blue henna like ink. He drew a star, a lizard. Estrella to remember the Shaman's house, Dracaena to represent my spirit guides.
         When they heard that I did not want to waste my last night sleeping, the whole troupe of men stayed up to keep me company. Enrique, a new guide who wore a white shell necklace and was friends with the best fire dancer in Peru, Andres, the one who always had to be taken with a grain of salt, Ramon, the panther with kitten eyes, Ambrosio the charismatic card playing businessman, Esteban the artist.
         We sat in the open air common room, drinking rum and coke and playing cards by candle light. Enrique brought out a small, staticy radio and turned the volume up. Nickleback sang in a strange language. I realized it was English.

        Andres did not drink. He sat across the circle from me and I knew that he was only there to make sure none of the men tried anything inappropriate. I took Ambrosio's hands and we danced.

Nickleback changed to something slower. My head spun with alcohol. We walked to the edge of the room and dangled our feet out the windowsill. I leaned against Ambrosio's chest. His lips pressed against my forehead. I looked up at him, traced his cheekbones with my fingernails. He kissed my eyelids, my nose, my lips. Fireflies landed on our arms and the rain started up again. He wrapped me in an embrace and his lips slid down my neck.

         Our boat to town was set to leave at 4:30am. I left the common room half an hour before that. I brushed my teeth. I washed my hair. I drew eyeliner around my eyes. I pulled on a black turtle neck. I dabbed perfume on my wrists. When I went back into the room, my family and the tourists who were taking the same boat as us were there. The men had hidden the alcohol, turned off the radio. Esteban was in the kitchen. Ambrosio was gone. Ramon was throwing bags into a boat. Andres was talking in his sleep.
         It was black outside. The breakfast table was lit by candles. Every person sitting there was white. I sat down. I felt like a vampire, red hair, pale skin, black clothes, dark queen, bloodless. I sipped red juice.
         I hugged my friends goodbye, exchanged e-mails, kissed cheeks to the horror of the other tourists. My family didn't notice. I didn't care. I was no longer a tourist. The jungle, harsh, deadly, perfumed, gorgeous, romantic, surreal was not foreign to me. It was my home.
         I got into the boat.
         The motor started.
         In the darkness, lightening bugs were reflected in the spilled ink river. I fell asleep and dreamed. The boat tilted and water brushed my fingers. I woke up in time to catch myself from falling over the edge. Pink stabbed the sky, burned into my cheeks, planted roses there. I was alive.

         I'm sitting here at home, even more confused than ever. I realized I won't be able to be articulate over the phone and I'll not see you again until camp probably... So I'm writing you a letter to try to explain what's going on for me. I love you so much. All I can think about when I'm with you is how much I want to feel your arms around me, how much I want to feel protected and loved. I love laughing with you and joking with you and listening to you and watching you fire dance and the way you lift your eyebrows when you're about to be sarcastic and I love your family and how caring you are and how brave you are.

         My god, I wish that I could travel with you, it would be so fun to show you the Amazon. But, it hurts me to be with you when I know it cannot last, when I know that in the end whatever happens I'll lose you. I need to be with someone who is willing to come with me, not necessarily to South America, but somewhere exotic. I guess this is just a long way of saying that I don't need forever, but I need possibility. I can't handle the certainty of 'in six months I'll lose him' or 'this will only last until he's eighteen.'
        But even as I write this, I think, oh god, what am I doing? When I send this letter that's it, I'll lose him. I feel like I'm just tearing apart my own heart needlessly. But it isn't needless even if it seems that way.

         I guess that I've kind of figured out what's going on for me now. I don't need forever, but I need possibility and there is no possibility in our relationship if we are anything more than friends. And that lack of possibility is eating away at me and however much I love you, it's just too painful. The longer I'm with you the more I fall in love with you and the more that lack just gnaws at me. So I guess that's it then. I love you, but I can't be anything more than a friend to you as long as things are the way they are in our lives.
         I'm sorry,
         Cassia.

         I look out my window.
         The jungle is dead. How do you kill a jungle? It looks like someone came along and wove their fingers into the web of roots and moss and vines and the threads of ants and the storms of butterflies and the tangles of tree flowers and they gripped this web and pulled until they snapped each silk strand, cut through it the way I cut through the nets the yellow-black spiders cast over the trails. Someone snapped the web and put it-- Where? Where do you put all those trees? Where do you bury a million birds, a thousand rainbow caterpillars, a million, million dripping flowers?
         The ground here is red, the color of old blood, clay. Nothing can grow. Rows of palm trees, acre after acre of palm trees, evenly spaced, isolated palm trees. Outside my window, the world looks just like the agricultural fields in Southern California. The air is stuffy in the bus. The palms march, seamless. Fences guard them. Trash clogs up the fences. Hours of palms. Then half that long of bananas trees, then palms again.
        A hawk circles. The sky belongs to the Amazon. The sky has been broken, torn from its moorings. The sky can no longer seek refuge in the land. There is no place for the hawk in the refuse. The jungle has been killed. They had no right to kill it.

         I look out my window.
         There is no beauty here. This city is dirty, gaping holes, dirty buses, coughing taxis, a stop but not a destination. Pus in the wound, red clay, a child barefoot in the trash by the fences. She waves.
         I look out my window.
         A traveling carnival is just setting up outside. Six ferris wheels, bumper cars, side shows, pennants. Frozen horses, calliope music, mirrors. An old photo come to life. There are no gates anywhere, no ques. Paint is flaked. There is danger there. I press my nose up against the glass, happy that the danger has survived. There is still time. Not much time, but it is not too late. There is something here to save. I wonder how deep a hole one has to dig to keep danger buried. Can tree flowers find the sun from beneath a tomb of clay?
         I look out my window.
         Given time, the palm trees will spill seeds into their rows. The weeds and bamboo trees will impale the dead order. The fences will be broken. Rain will bring life. Leaves will fall and cover the clay. Fences will fall and papers will rot. Birds will drop their food, promises of sunrise. Life will come back. It will never be jungle here again. The jungle has been murdered. We have killed the tree flowers, the hummingbirds, the macaws that mate for life. We have killed the caimen and the card games and the candles. We have killed something so much more than we can even begin to name. The danger is dead. A web of life, a way of life, a million million ways to be alive, are gone.
         There will be something else. The spider knows how to mend her web.
         But I love the Amazon. I want to save what is left, because it is old and beautiful and it deserves to continue. I will do whatever it takes to stop the spread of the palms, the banana trees.
         I look out my window, and I see only black.
         There is no beauty here.

This story ended as the autumn was born. The airplane landed, the bags were claimed, college was about to start and I had just broken up with my boyfriend. I've never been good at hurting people, never liked being alone, so I went to watch clouds gather on the beach.

I kicked sand into the ice water sea. I loved fire and dance and lips on mine and the feeling of just-washed-in-a-river clean. I loved late nights and candles and hammocks and carnivals and danger and movement. I loved being alive. I would not wait until tomorrow to live. What better thing to dedicate a life to, than life itself? It seems so simple it borders on idiocy, but then most things are like that. I dedicate my life to the cause of sustainable life. I love it, and will defend it to the death.

What have we lost in exchange for lighters and AC? When we wash off all the mud and dirt, organize the spaghetti vines, put the jaguars behind bars, we are no longer standing in the jungle. The fire that I brought with me from Ecuador is not something that can be put into a simple axiom. It is there, glowing between every line of text. It links the stories. It is a dream, something too wild to print. It skulks between sentences. It is the underlying hinting, the something that ties all this together. I don't need to point it out. Like a light seen from the corner of the eye, it burns.

Something is happening in this world. Changes are happening. Our faith in stoves and power lines and plumbing and politics and voting machines and churches and teachers is shaking. The question we must ask ourselves is, can we see the palm trees march and still meet our own eyes in the bathroom mirror?

cassia scarborough.  http://fireopal.awardspace.com - for more stories, essays, info on cassia's fire dancing performances and photos from her travels