Flammable liquids flow in the veins of Australian eucalyptus trees. Some of these trees drop long thin strips of bark at their own feet making piles of kindling all around. One wet day, when the weather is at its wildest, lightening ignites the kindling and starts a fire that man can not extinguish.
The enormous heat cracks open the rock hard seed pods that fell from branch to ground in years gone by. The burnt bodies of trees become a soft fertile seed bed. After the next rain the forest floor will be covered in tiny seedlings.
Some trees will survive the inferno and sprout new branches from their trunks. They look like a children’s drawing with their dark trunks and brunches at odd angles. But these survivors are the important guardians for the newlings below; they provide much needed shelter from the harsh summer sun and the cold winter winds.
New trees grow and stretch their roots in to water deep below the earth’s surface.
This process has been happening for millions of years and seems to be an honest metaphor for life, for death, for rebirth.
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