An ancient mountain, on fire

Please pray/meditate/chant/hope for her

Do you believe a mountain is a sentient being?

Do you believe it has presence … and wisdom?

I believe so, yes—and that’s why my heart is hurting, as I watch a mountain I love go up in flames. That’s also why I’m going to switch, here and now, from “it” to a pronoun more indicative of life.

This is Table Rock Mountain. She is an ancient being, formed by the violent collision of tectonic plates hundreds of millions of years ago. She rises out of a vast green wilderness on the rippling Blue Ridge Escarpment that forms the border of South and North Carolina. According to Cherokee legend, the Great Spirit used the flat dome of Table Rock as a place to eat his meals. The “stool” next to it served as his seat.

In these parts of the Blue Ridge, Table Rock is a beloved icon. Hikers love her, campers love her, daytrippers love her, tourists with telephoto lenses love her.

I live nine miles from this magnificent temple of granite and sky. I have hiked her trails many a time. When I was younger, with stronger legs and supple lungs, I could reach her summit, at 3,124 feet.

Those days are past, but I still visit her. After decades living elsewhere, I moved back to these mountains so I could be near her. So I could honor her as often as possible.

Today … she’s on fire.

Photo by Jim Melvin

This of course is the story of our times. The Earth is on fire in so many ways: climatically, politically, culturally, spiritually. And physically.

I’ve written about the Maui fire in 2023. I’ve written about the Los Angeles fires. Now that heartbreak has arrived here, at my doorstep.

A tinderbox

Two days ago, a small group of teens hiked to the top of Table Rock on a warm Friday afternoon. I imagine it was their spring break and they were feeling free. At the summit, evidently, they decided to celebrate their feat by smoking cigarettes.

Maybe one of them flicked an ash onto pine needles on the ground. Or maybe one of them tossed their still-smoldering butt into the underbrush.

We’ll never know—maybe.

The result, as I write this 50 hours later, is a wildfire that has spread to 1,000 acres, encompassing the entire summit of Table Rock and working its way along her lovely curving shoulders. Here’s a map of the burn area provided by our county sheriff’s office. Each day that red area gets bigger.

Pickens County Sheriff’s Office

It’s very dry here. The whole state of South Carolina is under a burning ban, and our county declared a state of emergency. Humidity is low low low, and winds are gusting. Hundreds of thousands of acres in this mountainous corner of the state are littered with fallen trees and broken limbs—the carpet of debris left by Hurricane Helene.

We are a tinderbox, primed to explode into flame.

Lovingkindness for the heroes

Yesterday, as the young fire started to grow into something much bigger, I had a Silent Hike planned in a state forest down the road from Table Rock. Despite the weather and the fire situation, ten people showed up. We walked a mile and a half until we came to a massive granite outcropping on a ridge.

It’s a serene, windswept place, with a universe of moss and lichens eking out their lives in this mountain/desert ecosystem.

As we sat in meditation—me guiding the hikers to place mindful attention on their breath, to connect with the breathing world around them—a pair of water planes flew over our heads. They had just dipped into Lake Jocassee, southwest of us, and filled their tanks. Now they were heading northeast, to drop their load on the feverish brow of Table Rock.

We sent the pilots lovingkindness and prayers of safety.

What else can one do, but wish the best for those lionhearted humans who fight for our ailing Mother Earth?

Donations and charged phones

Today Jim and I went to town for groceries. I also wanted to pick up supplies for the firefighters. The county had posted a list of their needs.

• snacks and fresh fruit

• bottled water

• safety glasses

• eye drops

• sinus wash

• socks

• bandanas

• batteries

We stopped at our neighborhood fire station and added our donation to the growing pile. Everyone wants to help. It feels good to do something, anything, when your world is on fire.

So many firefighting and emergency agencies have sent personnel to help: S.C. Forestry Commission, S.C. National Guard, Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, S.C. Law Enforcement (SLED).

Table Rock’s terrain is rugged: breathtakingly steep, littered with massive boulders, and now a maze of downed trees from the hurricane. It’s rough going. It will take a lot of humanpower to battle this blaze into submission.

Today they’ve been digging firelines and setting controlled backburns, to try to keep the flames away from nearby homes and businesses. Places we know and love are threatened. The winery we visit on lazy Sunday afternoons. The country buffet spot that’s been there for decades, with bluegrass music and fried catfish. The tea farm where they grow my morning cup of Walhalla Masala Chai.

An estimated 500 more homes are in the “watch” zone for possible evacuation. I assume that includes us. We’re keeping our cell phones charged for the alert.

The story widens

Meanwhile, other fires have broken out in the Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area, northeast of Table Rock. Friends of mine who live over that way got the “voluntary evacuation” notice this afternoon. Two or three other out-of-control fires are blazing in the mountains of western North Carolina, just above us. There are mandatory evacuations there. Homes have been destroyed.

Here is where the situation gets bigger than us. Here is where it wraps into the larger tragedy of climate change, how our entire planet is throbbing in pain. This is the story of nature crying out, an alarm bell ringing ever louder.

Exactly six months ago, we here in the Appalachians were hunkering down as Hurricane Helene approached us, with no idea how that storm would devastate these mountains and take so many lives—human and sylvan. Since then, we’ve had a minor earthquake. Last week, we were under a severe tornado threat.

My heart is weary.

A mayapple is born

But I know you know all this. I know there likely have been disasters where you live, too. You have your own worries, your own fears for the future.

So I want to leave you with something more uplifting. Because it IS spring, after all, here in the northern hemisphere. Despite everything, we’ve arrived at the season of rejuvenation and rebirth. And that brings hope. Ever-blooming.

All over my woods, darling little trilliums are popping up. Tiny violets. Crane-fly orchid.

And mayapple. The miraculous, ever-faithful, mini-umbrellas of mayapples.

While an ancient, sentient mountain burns, there’s also this:

The birth of a mayapple.