grass fire: immanent and transcendent

when i step outside at night, i stand on a paved porch at the comfortable mission i'm living in. when i look up, i can clearly see a band representing the rest of my galaxy stretched across the sky above me.

a week and a half ago i sat on the porch drinking tea with some NGO representatives passing through. a shooting star nearly blinded us. i was tempted to go look for smoldering extraterrestrial ordnance.

two nights ago i couldn't find my remote control. i wanted to take a few photos of the stars, maybe with a moderately interesting foreground element. i went to bed instead.

yesterday i found my remote control. so i went to take photos of the stars.

confession: standing alone in the dark gets kind of creepy after a while out here. i stayed close to home.

as i approached the main road, a faint glow began to penetrate the trees in front of me. by the time i reached the road, i could hear the low rumble of the fire.

here are three interpretations of the fire. to me, they vary along the parameter of immanence/transcendence. on one extreme, the scene is transitory. a temporary flame soars into the sky. it can't last long, but it is liable to burn you while it does. on a different extreme, the scene is timeless. fire is a soft glow, unaffected by the passage of time as the stars carve their courses into the night sky.

i think i like the harsher scene best.