Fire in the Life of Plants

By Dennis Collentine

Awareness of the elements has been a part of my life for most of it (and since I am now 74, that is a lot of years). I have breathed the elements, walked and danced the elements. But somehow fire has always puzzled me. Why fire? Earth and water is what my physical body is made of and I need the air to breathe, to live. But why fire? I understand that the sparking creative energy that we feel in fire is also a part of the spirit of life but I wondered how fire was a part of my physical presence similar to the other three elements. I found an answer last year in plants. I am a slow learner.

In my market garden I watch plants grow over the season. A miracle every time I see how a seed can lead to something nourishing, most of the harvest gets passed on to others at the weekly market here in Germany. This goes on and on, year after year, now ten years on this land and counting. From the soil, the earth with its nutrients (some added in accord with organic standards) and water from the clouds (I don’t use any irrigation, the soil is very wonderful and holds a lot of water), they grow. They also need air, if the ground is too impermeable the roots cannot get the air they need and can suffocate. So I cultivate. So like our bodies, the earth, water and air all bring nourishment and are needed for growth. They also need light. The light of the sun allows them to photosynthesize, to transform nourishment into growth. The energy of light transforms. The sun is the source.

My body has earth, water and air but needs energy to transform. It needs “fire”. When we watch a fire burn we are seeing the transformation of elements by energy. Is this destruction? No, it is transformation. The tree captured the rays of the sun with its leaves and combined this with earth, water, and air to grow. When these stored elements in the wood are released we see light and feel the warmth. Yes, it is fire but it is the energy of the sun and the elements that have been stored. Our food stores the energy of the sun combined with earth, water and air, and whether we are vegetarians or omnivores, everything we eat is stored elements. Our bodies, like the plants, combine the four elements, this is who we are. Our bodies transform the four stored elements that we have eaten into energy and we see and feel fire. The sparking creative energy present when the stored elements are transformed is the fire we see and feel being released. We see this in our bodies in movement and give it off as light, as warmth, as compassion, as love. It helps me to understand fire in this way.