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Fires pervade human rituals. This is because fires sustain human life, shine in Paradise, and burn in Hell. Since archaic times, people in cultures the world over have gathered around fires for purification, celebration, healing, blessing, devotion, communion, transformation, ascension, and more. In these contexts, fire is believed to propel communication with Divine entities, the underworld, nature-spirits, and the deep self. But reenactments of fire myths and fire rites of passage have waned throughout the industrial world. Current interactions with fire have moved from the hearth to the combustion engine. Instead of augmenting human devotions, fire now supports human ambitions.
The traditional use of fire may have changed, but the traditional use of fire rituals survives. Some contemporary artists, concerned about the sustainability of current human practices are reviving fire rituals because they guide transformation and help redefine the relationship between humans and their world. Fire is an elemental force of nature’s order. It is instructive and inspiring.
But the clash between competing priorities and contrasting goals presented by intelligent and well-intentioned environmentalists has caused these artists to reflect upon the environmental impact of ritual fires. They are concerned that the ceremonial use of fires should be halted because they discharge CO2 into the atmosphere!
I asked my friend Skip who crafts fire as an art medium his opinion. Skip’s repertoire of fire techniques includes flames that provide light, which differ from those that give heat, or repel insects, or condition soil. He can create purple fires with crimson sparks, and orchestrate the sounds of the flames’ crackles and sizzles. Some of his fires are designed to be contemplative. Others are rousing. His goal is always to burn a fire so completely, it creates no smoke and leaves no coals.
Skip raised some interesting observations that may seem elementary, but they are also thought-provoking and relevant to the discussion of CO2 for artistic and ceremonial purposes.
He noted that fire ceremonies, like burning ethanol and fossil fuel, emit C02. But refraining from burning the wood does not eliminate the production of C02. The wood that is not burned in a fire ceremony will oxidize as it decomposes even if it remains in the forest. In the process, it will emit CO2. Thus, C02 is created whether the burn is immediate as in a wood fire, gradual through a compost heap, or slow in the form of mulch.
The carbon cycle is inescapable: plants absorb C02 while all the rest of the ecosystem kicks it back (unless the organic molecules become stored in a fossil storehouse under layers of geology). Humanity’s challenge is to measure the rate at which it produces C02 against the rate at which the plants in its ecosystem can absorb it. It also entails deciding which kinds of burnings are wasteful and which are beneficial.
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