The Burning Time

Sometimes Birth is a Crisis

WHAT LOOKS LIKE DESTRUCTION MAY BE THE FIRST STAGE OF REGENERATION

Lodgepole pine and jack pine forests stretch across millions of acres in North America. Here’s their secret: They seal their seeds in cones that won’t open without fire. The resin holds them shut for years, sometimes decades. Their seeds won’t germinate unless a wildfire sweeps through the forest.

What looks like destruction is the first stage of regeneration. The end is a preparation for a beginning.

Our collective disasters might be doing the same work right now, cracking open what couldn’t open any other way. It’s painful for me to contemplate, but also liberating.

Here’s the biology: These pines produce what are called “serotinous cones,” which are sealed tight with resin that melts only at temperatures around 113–122°F.

The cones hang on the trees, waiting. The seeds inside are viable but imprisoned. Neither rain, nor sunshine, nor gentle coaxing can make them release. Only one thing has that power: When the flames come, the resin melts, the cone scales curl back, and the seeds finally spill out onto the forest floor.

Here’s the kicker: The same fire that opens the cones also kills the parent trees. These pines have thin bark; they’re not built to survive the flames. The fire that releases their seeds is the same fire that destroys them. They burn so their offspring can be born.

But the fire also clears the understory. It burns away the competition, shrubs, leaf litter, and thick duff that would smother tiny seedlings. It returns nutrients to the soil as ash and eliminates the canopy so sunlight can reach the ground. These are the exact conditions the seeds need to germinate and grow.

The fire that kills the forest is also what births the next forest.

The Indigenous peoples who lived among these trees understood this, including the Nez Perce, Blackfeet, and Shoshone. They knew that fire was the engine of regeneration.

When European invaders and occupiers arrived, they declared fire evil and suppressed it for a century. The result: forests so choked with fuel that when fires finally came, they burned with unprecedented fury—too hot, too fast, and leaving nothing behind but moonscape.

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THE CURRENT DESTRUCTION

Now we have done the same thing to our American democracy. For decades, we avoided the difficult reckonings: the conversations about white supremacy that needed to happen after the civil rights movement, the economic inequality that kept growing unchecked, the civic institutions that needed reimagining, and all the truths about our genocidal and colonialist history that needed to be faced and integrated.

We suppressed the small fires. We chose comfort over confrontation, incremental reform over transformation, and politeness over justice. We let the undergrowth accumulate, including the resentments, the unaddressed grievances, and all the broken systems we kept patching instead of rebuilding.

And now the fire has come. The Trumpocalypse isn’t just one man or one administration. It’s the accumulated fuel of everything we refused to burn away when the fires were smaller and more manageable. It’s what happens when a society postpones its reckonings until they become unavoidable.

Let’s survey what’s burning right now:

• our faith in institutions we thought were permanent

• our certainties about unending progress

• our stories about who we are as a nation

• our assumptions that democracy was self-sustaining

• our belief that the truth would automatically prevail over lies

To any thinking and caring person, the current landscape looks apocalyptic. We can reasonably conclude that our republic is being destroyed. And no other event better symbolizes the cluster-fuck of hideous atrocities than the barbaric, execution-style murder of Renee Nicole Good, mother of three, by a masked thug hired by ICE.

One other abomination rivals that villainy: the fact that the murderer has collected well over a million dollars through fund-raising campaigns in his behalf.

LEARNING FROM THE LODGEPOLE PINES

Can we learn from the lodgepole pines?

What if the current American catastrophe is also cracking open what was sealed shut in our collective consciousness? What if the seeds of a genuinely multiracial democracy, an actually equitable economy, and a truly inclusive society were already here, locked tight, and this fire is what finally releases them?

The version of America that carried those sealed seeds is dying. The parent tree doesn’t get to survive its own regeneration. These are all burning: the country we thought we were, the stories we told ourselves about our exceptionalism and inevitable progress, and the comfortable illusions about how democracy works. Major parts of our national identity are dying, turning to ash.

The fire hurts! America is undeniably burning. Real people are fleeing. Immigrants are terrorized. Trans people are under assault. Women’s bodily autonomy has been stripped away. The most vulnerable are bearing the worst of the decimation and devastation.

But here’s what the lodgepole pines know: The fire burns away what was choking out new growth. In America’s case, that includes:

• the comfortable centrist politics that preserved the status quo

• the bipartisan consensus that served the wealthy

• the polite discourse that avoided naming injustice

• the incremental approaches that were never going to be enough

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OUR HOPEFUL BUT REASONABLE HYPOTHESIS

Let’s propose that the fire is creating the exact conditions that the transformative potencies will need to emerge and grow.

Here’s what’s already sprouting:

• mutual aid networks forming at unprecedented scale

• communities organizing to protect each other

• people discovering they’re braver than they knew

• coalitions building, gathering different groups that might not have previously aligned

• young people refusing to inherit their elders’ fatalism

• artists, writers, and cultural workers remembering that their work matters

• ordinary people becoming extraordinary in their resistance

Maybe the seeds of our next becoming were already there, locked tight and waiting.

The catastrophe is liberating what was trying to be born.

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SAY NO TO TOXIC POSITIVITY

Please note: This isn’t the same as the toxic positivity that chirps “everything happens for a reason” while people are caught in the conflagration. Fuck that. Sometimes terrible things happen because hideous bullies ans thugs seize power and cause immense harm. The Trumpocalypse is real. The cruelty is real. The evil is real.

But it’s also true that human societies, like lodgepole forests, sometimes have a mysterious capacity to metabolize catastrophe into fertility. We wouldn’t be the first to take the ash of what burned and grow new life from it. Not because the fire is good, but because we are built to regenerate both individually and collectively.

The question isn’t whether we will face this fire. We are facing it. The question is: Will we let it and help it it do its work? Will we allow what needs to burn to burn—the systems that were never going to save us, the stories that were never true, and the institutions that served power instead of people?

Or will we spend all our energy trying to restore the rotting system? Will we seek to rebuild the structures that brought us here, futilely striving to return to a “normal” that was only comfortable for some and intolerable for many, many others?

The lodgepole pines have been doing this for millennia. They don’t resist catastrophe but instead actively use it. They carry the future inside themselves, sealed and waiting, knowing the fire will come.

Here’s the shocking truth we must fully acknowledge: We are in the fire now. The old forest is burning. And somewhere in the ash and smoke, millions of seeds are cracking open, ready to reach toward light they couldn’t access before.

What will we grow from this debacle?

The author of the above prayer is Alan Paton, South African activist and author of Cry, the Beloved Country. Art by Michelle Possum Nungurrayi.

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Reminder: I’ve written four sets of horoscopes that preview the Big Picture of your life in 2026. Read them here: tinyurl.com/BigPicture2026

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

For the Week of January 22

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You are a spy from the future. Thank you for your service! I love to see your boldness as you smuggle innovative ideas into a present that may or may not be ready for them. Your feelings of alienation are sometimes uncomfortable, but they are crucial to the treasure you offer us. You see patterns others miss because you refuse to be hypnotized by consensus reality. Keep up the excellent work, please. May you honor your need to tinker with impossibilities and imagine alternatives to what everyone else imagines is inevitable. You are proof that we don’t have to accept inherited structures as inevitable.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Your unconscious mind is extra communicative, dear Pisces. Hooray! Take advantage! Pay attention to weird images in dreams and songs that linger in your head. Be alert for seemingly random thoughts as they surface. Bypassing logic, your deep psyche is trying to show you ripe secrets and provocative hints. Your duty is to be receptive. So keep a journal or recording device by your bed. Notice which memories rise up out of nowhere. Be grateful for striking coincidences. These are invitations to tune in to meaningful feelings and truths you’ve been missing.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Master astrologer Steven Forrest understands you Aries people well. He says that the riskiest strategy you can pursue is to constantly seek safety. It’s crucial for you to always be on the lookout for adventure. One of your chief assignments is to cultivate courage—especially the kind of brave boldness that arises as you explore unknown territory. To rouse the magic that really matters, you must face your fears regularly. The coming months will be an ideal time for you to dive in and celebrate this approach to life.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You are an ambassador from the material world to the realm of spirit—and vice versa. One of your prime assignments is the opposite of what the transcendence-obsessed gurus preach. You’re here to prove that the flesh is holy, pleasure is a form of prayer, and the senses are portals to the divine. When you revel in earthy delights, when you luxuriate in rich textures and tastes and scents, you’re not being “attached” or “unspiritual.” You’re enacting a radical sacred stance. Being exuberantly immersed in the material world isn’t a mistake to overcome but a blessing to savor. May you redouble your subversive work of treating your body as a cathedral and sensual enjoyments as sacraments.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Everything that’s meant for you is trying to find its way to you. Here’s the problem: It can’t deliver the goods if you’re in constant motion. The boons trying to reach you are circling, waiting for a stable landing spot. If you keep up the restless roaming, life might have to slow you down, even stop you, so you’ll be still enough to embody receptivity. Don’t wait for that. Pause now. Set aside whatever’s feeding your restlessness and tune into the quiet signal of your own center. The moment you do, bounties will start arriving.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Artist Louise Bourgeois said, “I am what I do with my hands.” I will adapt this declaration for your use, Cancerian: You are what you do with your feelings. You are the structures, sanctuaries, and nourishment you create from the raw material of your sensitivity. It’s one of your superpowers! I understand that some people mistake emotional depth for passive vulnerability. They assume that feeling everything means doing nothing. But you prove that bias wrong. You are potentially a master builder. You can convert the flood waters of emotion into resources that hold, protect, and feed. I hope you will do this lavishly in the coming weeks.

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LET’S IMAGINE WHAT INTERESTING STORIES AND MYSTERIES MIGHT BE COMING YOUR WAY IN THE YEAR AHEAD

Who do you want to become in 2026? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? Would you like some inspiration as you muse and wonder about your upcoming adventures?

My EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, offer you a three-part survey of your long-term, in-depth destiny in the coming year.

To listen to your BIG PICTURE horoscopes online, go to

https://RealAstrology.com

Select Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3 of the Long-Term Prediction for your sign. Each part is different.

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The cost for the Expanded Audio Horoscopes is $7 per sign if you purchase 7 tokens for $7. (You can get discounts for purchasing larger token packages.)

Each forecast is 8 to 11 minutes long.

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LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Admiring writers often say that the Balinese people have no traditional word for “art.” Making things beautiful is woven into everyday life, as if everything should be done as beautifully as possible. I aspire to carry out this approach myself: infusing ordinary actions with the same care I’d bring to writing a story or song. Washing dishes, answering emails, and walking to the store: All are eligible for beauty treatment. I highly recommend this practice to you in the coming weeks, Leo. It’s true that you’re renowned for your dramatic gestures, but I believe you also have an underutilized talent for teasing out glory from mundane situations. Please do that a lot in the coming weeks. For starters, make your grocery list a poem.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Some American Indigenous cultures have “potlatch” ceremonies. These are elaborate gift-giving rituals where hosts gain prestige by generously and freely bestowing their riches on others. Circulating wealth, instead of hoarding it, is honored and celebrated. Is that economically irrational? Only if you believe that the point of resources is individual accumulation rather than community vitality. Potlatch operates on a different logic: The purpose of having stuff is to make having stuff possible for others. I invite you to make that your specialty in the coming months. Assume that your own thriving depends on the flourishing of those around you.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Sufi poet Rumi wrote about a “treasure in ruins.” He meant that what we’re searching for may be hidden in places where we would rather not look. Your life isn’t in ruins, Libra, but I suspect you may have been exploring exciting locations while shunning mundane ones that actually hold your answers. What do you think? Is that possible? Just for fun, investigate the neglected, ignored, and boring places. Try out the hypothesis that a golden discovery awaits you in some unfinished business or a situation you feel an aversion to.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Your capacity for intensity is your superpower. I love it, I celebrate it, and I hope to keep nurturing it in you for as long as we’re both here. But not everything deserves the full force of your passionate engagement. Some things are meant to be touched lightly, held loosely, and released easily. The question isn’t whether to feel deeply—that’s who you authentically are—but whether to act on every deep feeling as if it were sacred revelation. Some emotions are weather patterns passing through, not permanent truths requiring upheaval. These are especially key understandings for you to act on during the coming days.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): As I have promised you a million times, I will NEVER exaggerate. And though you may wonder if the statements I’m about to make are excessive and overblown, I assure you they are not. The fact is, dear Sagittarius, that everything you have always wanted to enhance and upgrade about togetherness is now possible to accomplish, and will continue to be for months to come. If you dare to dismantle your outmoded beliefs about love and deep friendship—every comforting myth, every conditioned response, every inherited instinct—you will discover new dimensions of intimacy that could inspire you forever.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In Renaissance painting, chiaroscuro refers to the use of strong contrasts between light and dark. It’s a technique that enhances the sense of depth.​ I believe your life may be in an intense *chiaroscuro* phase. As your joys grow bright, your doubts appear darker. As your understanding deepens, your perplexity mounts. Is this a problem? I prefer to understand it as an opportunity. For best results, study it closely. Maybe your anxiety is showing you what you care about. Perhaps your sadness is a sign of your growing emotional power. So find a way to benefit from the contrasts, dear Capricorn. Let shadows teach you how to fully appreciate the illumination.

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