Surt's Lesson: Creative Spark and Destructive Flame
by Corbie Petulengro
You want the secret of Fire? I
ought to tell you to stick your hand in a flame. Still, I can't guarantee that
you'd learn anything from that, could I? If observing the nature of Fire - and
that includes Sun and light and all things that give vision, it includes the
warmth in your body from the chemical fires, the sunlight that the leaves
devour to grow, the magma under the earth, all of that - won't tell you the
secret, then I'll have to set it out plainly. Fire doesn't keep deep secrets,
not like Water or Earth, or even changeable Air. Fire doesn't care who sees,
who knows. Fire writes it plainly in huge letters, all over Creation, all over
Destruction. I was here. I did this. You only miss it because you're not
looking.
This is the secret. You mortals, you always want to separate creation and destruction. They are two different forces, you say; they are opposing, they cannot be in the same space at once. This is because you would really like to have the one without the other, or so you say. You think you would, but if you could, it would be disastrous, of course. The truth is that they are not opposites. They are not even different sides of the same coin. They are the same thing.
This is what fire teaches. If it can create, it can - and will - destroy, in the same breath. Every choice that begins also ruins the choices that might have been. That which brings forth light and heat must devour something else to do so. The life that is you might have been someone else, someone that may never be given birth because you exist. At the very least, it will lead inevitably to a death - yours. There is no having one without the other, because they are the same stuff. You don't really understand this with all your being; you think that things are linear. I can forgive that; your lives are short, and broken up by forgetting deaths. I argued with Urd about that, but she seemed to think that it was important, the continual forgetting and starting over, so here I am teaching you about it again, and again. Let this be the last time for you, eh?
So when you sing this song I've put through you, remember that every act of creation you put that spark to will also be an act of destruction, and you'll have that on your hands. That's no excuse not to use it! After all, I started these worlds, and you know what my job will be, if things get old and tired and too far out of balance. Does that mean that they were better off never happening? Bah. No regrets. The burning will have been worth it, every moment.