Conrad SatalaAugust 18, 2025

18 August 2025 - Monday The Fire That Remembers the Land - Part 4 A Ceremony of Perception, Memory, and Renewal within Kimoon K’uxlaal

Conrad SatalaAugust 18, 2025

18 August 2025 - Monday

The Fire That Remembers the Land - Part 4

A Ceremony of Perception, Memory,

and Renewal within Kimoon K’uxlaal

“I Carry the Mountain in My Breath”

A Ceremonial Introduction to Living Within Two Lands

from the Earth Remembers Series

The Fire That Remembers the Land

A Ceremony of Perception, Memory,

and Renewal within Kimoon K’uxlaal

I am Conrad, Nab’eysiil —

keeper of the Bundle of the Martin,

weaved within the heart within light

that remembers the way of the Fire.

The Fire that lives inside the land’s own knowing.

The Fire that carries the instructions of the forest,

whispering how, when, and what to burn

so the soil awakens,

the seeds are freed,

the animals return,

and the forests become full with life again.

This remembering is not my invention —

it is the inheritance of the Earth itself,

and it lives in the heart within the land,

the heart within the forest,

the heart within the waters,

the heart within all living beings.

Remembering the Eleven Hearts of Fire that is part of this larger weaving

The heart within the land.

The heart within the soil.

The heart within the water.

The heart within clouds, sun, and moon.

The heart within the animals.

The heart within the buildings.

The heart within the humans.

The heart within human possessions.

The heart within the crops.

The heart within the forests.

The heart within the Fire itself.

All these are threads.

All these are weavings.

None can be removed without the whole becoming less.

⸻

The Old Ways of Fire

I have walked in Maya villages where the old ways still breathe.

I have seen the smoke rise from low, cool fires

set in the hours when the wind is still,

the air moist,

and the heat of day softened.

These fires are not rage;

they are medicine.

Maya farmers have tended their forests like this

for over five thousand years —

since the last ice melted and the tropics were born anew.

They burn not to destroy,

but to nourish the soil,

to encourage plants that heal and feed,

to create habitats for animals and pollinators,

to keep the balance of the forest’s diversity.

In California, the Chumash, the Mono,

the Karuk, and hundreds of other peoples

lit fires as carefully as one would tend a child’s first step.

Some burned brush every fifty years

to invite meadows where elk would graze.

Others burned every two or three years

to open the conifer forests

so berries, roots, and medicinal greens

could grow in the dappled light.

The smoke would drift, carrying spores,

seeding life across the land

as ocean currents carry fish.

These were cultural fire regimes —

fires shaped by human hands and ancient eyes,

woven into the land’s cycles

until the land itself came to depend on them.

Here is where the truth lives:

pyrodiversity is tied to biodiversity.

The many forms of fire

nourish the many forms of life.

Conrad Satala