Through the Fire: Becoming the Jack Pine
I stand here, rooted like the trees around me, firmly planted in this chaotic world. But can I move? Can I escape the fire creeping closer, the heat building beneath the surface? No. I am a tree, like the Mitigokaa, surrounded by countless others who sway with the wind, rooted deep in the earth. We grow, stretching toward the sky, not knowing how much we can endure, until the flames come.
The fire—it always comes, doesn’t it?
I used to think I could flee it, escape the scorching flames that turn the world to ash. Like anyone who feels the heat at their heels, I thought I could outrun the inevitable. But how could I? I’m rooted, like Okikaandag—the Jack Pine, immobile, planted. And yet, I realize now, as the fire approaches, that I’m not meant to run. Some trees, like me, don’t just survive the fire. We need it.
It’s the pain. It’s the agony of those flames licking my skin, those disasters that sweep through life with no warning. People run from them, fear them, like a wildfire in the night. They fear the destruction, the loss. But for me? For us? We need the fire. Like Okikaandag, we are made for it. The Jack Pine, standing tall and silent, knows that it cannot open its seeds unless it’s burned. Its cones are locked tight, waiting for that spark, waiting for the heat to force them open.
And so, I stand here, watching the fire. I let it come.
I let it consume.
It hurts, doesn’t it? That searing pain. It feels like everything is ending, like the world is caving in, collapsing under the weight of that heat. You feel it burning you down to nothing. But we need this. We—like the Jack Pine—are designed for this moment, for this fiery transformation. I may not have known it before, but now it’s clear. The fire is what frees me, what releases my seeds, scattering them into the wind to grow anew.
I am Okikaandag. I burn, yes. But I grow where others cannot. I thrive where others falter.
It’s not a question of how much can I endure. I endure everything. The fire, the destruction—it’s what makes me, me. It is through the fire that I find my strength, my ability to rise from the ash, to help disturbed places thrive. Where others wither, I take root. It doesn’t take much for me to grow again. Just a crack in the earth, a patch of soil, and I rise.
My branches stretch out, giving shade to the bineshiinyag, the birds that come and nest. They sing their songs to the sky, filling the air with messages of the land’s resilience. Their songs remind me of who I am, of what I’ve survived. The land tells stories through them, just as I tell my story through the way I stand, through the way I grow back, even after the fire.
I am like this tree. I have been burned, scarred by life, by the disasters that tear through everything I thought I knew. But I stand again. I grow again. I am resilient because of the fire, not in spite of it. The fire doesn’t defeat me. It transforms me.
And my roots—oh, my roots—they are my foundation. Like the roots of the Jack Pine, they hold everything together. They run deep, tying me to the earth, to the people, to the moments that define who I am. In the fire, I find out what I’m truly made of, what really matters. These roots don’t let me fall. They keep me connected, even when the world above me is chaos. They stitch together the pieces of my life that the fire tried to unravel. They hold me firm.
But a tree isn’t just a thing that stands. It’s a being, alive with purpose, with meaning. A tree is someone that holds space, that grows into its own, that listens to the wind and sings along with it. I, too, am someone that stands tall, rooted and purposeful, even when I don’t yet know why. The Jack Pine grows because it must, because the fire demands it.
I grow because I must, because life demands it.
I think back on the fires I’ve walked through, the infernos that nearly broke me. But, like the Jack Pine, I don’t fall for no reason. I don’t burn without purpose. There is respect in what I have become. And just as the Jack Pine stands tall, uncut unless for a reason greater than itself, I know now that I, too, am sacred. I, too, must be respected.
The world may not understand this at first. They see the flames, the charred remains, the scars left behind by fire. But what they don’t see is the life that’s waiting just beneath the surface, ready to sprout once again, ready to turn the burned ground into a thriving forest.
And so, I stand here, Okikaandag. The Jack Pine. Resilient. I’ve walked through the fire, and I will walk through it again if I must, for it is my nature. I am like this tree, not afraid of the flames, not afraid of what they’ll take. Because I know they cannot destroy me.
Instead, they reveal me.
I watch the bineshiinyag as they soar overhead, their songs filling the sky, and I know that someday, I too will find my song again. Even if now, in the ashes, I cannot hear it. Even if, for now, I still feel the heat from those flames. The fire was not my end, but my beginning.
Just as the trees stand here for a sacred purpose, so do I. Even if I had to go through the fire to discover why.
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