Like a Diamond

“The blackest despair at the heart of them gets pressed to diamond.”

I read this line in Richard Power’s book, The Overstory this week and it struck a chord.

It was a beautiful reminder of resilience.

Diamonds are formed deep in the earth when carbon, the chemical element fundamental to life, goes through an incredible transformation. Molten heat plus the enormous weight of the overlying rock bearing down turns the carbon into a diamond which is then pushed to the surface.

Under extreme circumstances, beauty arises.

The reminder made me think back to last September when I visited a friend of mine. She was guiding a forest bathing walk on International Forest Bathing Day in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and I attended. After the walk, she drove me around the park showing me the popular viewing spots. We stopped at one and as we got out of the car, she explained how this particular mountain in our view had burned during the devastating 2016 wildfire.

Three years later, the mountain was still scarred from the flames, yes, but it was also covered with green new growth.

After a forest fire, life doesn’t just survive, it thrives. Bound up nutrients in the trees and plants are released back into the soil in the form of ash and the resulting rich soil becomes fertile ground for new growth. Nature has an amazing way of regenerating after a disturbance. It’s able to absorb shock to the system, and then, if given the opportunity, recover. It may not recover in the same way it was before, but it recovers. Life is persistent with a determination to survive and after disaster, it often comes back with more strength and vigor than it had before.

We are nature and nature is us. That means that same resilience is baked into us, too.

This is our opportunity for growth. This is our opportunity to branch out in new directions.

What will you create from the ashes?

Forest Love,

Julie

My barn having burned down,

I can now see the moon. 

--Mizuta Masahide