Timelapse - Los Angeles Wildfire from Dan Blank on Vimeo.
This movie brought to mind the imagery in the movie Koyaanisqatsi, Life Out of Balance, which silently exposed us to errors of our ways and the destruction we've left in our path. The trilogy continues with Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi, translated to Life in Transformation and Life as War, respectively.
The result of the fires raging in California is unfortunate and terrible when it consumes human life. Yet they serve as a reminder that our existence is not one of superiority. While we maybe able to use urban spoon to find an Indian restaurant on a budget in New York, we still cannot control our relationship with nature.
The fire has also hit close to home on numerous levels. The first being the thought that the house I am living in was on fire as I came home from work Monday evening. The smoke billowing from the backyard definitely put me on alert. Thankfully for me and my firefighter roommate who owns the home, it was our neighbors burning trash in their backyard. Trash, like plastic, not paper. Zach made the ride around the block on his fire engine red townie bike to dowse their mischief. It was too late though as the smoldering trash heap managed to drift right into my bedroom and I drifted off to sleep with the smell of burnt plastic in my nose.
Then Colorado got hit with a little neighborly smoke in the wee hours of the morning with the California fires' smoke drifitng westward to the front range. I awoke for an early ride before work to find a blood orange sun creeping above the clouds and more have then enough haze to block out the sky. Escaping up Flagstaff Mountain did little to relieve the air quality and more then likely worsened it as I sought air at the high elevation.
A life out of balance and an effect shared by all. It serves as a poignant reminder that ripples can become waves and our lives have been trumped by something bigger then our existence.
We must seek a balance.
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