As I write this, our state burns. Lightening has started some 1200 fires and the skies above Northern California are gray and the light is strange and the air smell of soot. People with any sort of breathing irregularity are instructed to stay indoors. The rest of us do so voluntarily, as it is not pleasant out there. We are all housebound and missing the out of doors. This morning there was a breeze and Te Twins and I walked into the park and played in the grass some before we need to settle back indoors for the afternoon.

As a pagan, it is easy to romanticize the power of fire. Nature itself set these trees ablaze. So many of the Sabbaths have elements of fire in them. Fire cleanses and we use it for burnt offerings and looking into a fire can show us visions. Moreover, we know that for millennia fires have come to clean out the forest – to burn the fallen, dead trees and the detritus of the forest and left everything cleansed and better. The forest that is left is stronger and better after the fire does its work.

For years, I felt that Paganism taught me to look at the world as our ancient ancestors did - to see and do things in the Old Ways. However, I am coming to see that as a romanticized and simplistic view. This is a modern world and there are houses and campgrounds and cabins in the forest now. Those are burning too. It is cruel to think that those structures deserve to burn as well – that is what people get for building where nature might come along and burn things down.

My religion needs to evolve – the Old Ways need to account for The New. All religions try to make us into the person that we should be –to make us more ourselves. Some years ago, a dear friend and I worked a spell in the park that surrounds the state capitol building, hoping for just that. She lay on her back stretched out on the Great Seal of the State of California with its picture of the Amazon Queen Calafia and its motto Eureka – Latin for “I have found it.” I walked in a circle and we chanted and prayed to be made better, to become more ourselves than we had ever been.

This year, our Governor asks us for a Fourth of July sacrifice, in hopes of appeasing the fires and the gods that brought them. He asks us to give up our personal fire works displays. Do not buy the fire works, do not set them off, he asks. It is a shame, as the booths that sell those fire works often provide the primary fund-raiser for hundreds of small organizations. However, I do love the simplicity and the truth of this particular sacrifice. Every year, hundreds of fires are started on Independence Day during front yard fireworks displays. Our already over-taxed fire departments deserve a break this year.

So I will heed his advice. I will offer up a sacrifice of a fourth of July without the setting off of the Mad Dogs and the Crackling Cactus and the Purple Rain. It is fine to buy the fire works and to support the group that sells them -but only if you are strong enough to complete the sacrifice. Do not light them. Save them. Look at them and understand what you are giving up.

It seems so pagan, this request from our Governor. It involves fire and a burnt offering and sacrifice. It is a community of believers coming together for the greater good of that community. So we will gather together and roll The Twins in their wagon for the Independence Day parade. But come sun down, we will look at the horizon. The smoke in the air has caused some spectacular sunsets of late.

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Biography – Troy lives in Sacramento with the cat Roxy and three redheaded Scorpios – Jess and The Twins, Julia and Jackson. He can be reached at citywhich@sbcglobal.net.