Not all fires are accidental. Some are set on purpose.
Like the fires burning on the river path where I walk. For weeks, I’d watched the underbrush of the forested trail being cleared away and raked into piles, now ablaze.
Trained workers in orange vests monitored the fires to keep them from spreading uncontrollably.
A “controlled burn” — a fire set on purpose — doesn’t destroy the land. It restores balance and protects it.
Interesting.
That sent me down the rabbit hole of wondering what a controlled burn might look like in a woman’s life.
When she stops trying to preserve what is overgrown, fallen or dead:
Old stories.
Old identities.
Old beliefs.
Not because the past meant nothing. But because the foundation of a truer life cannot be built on top of it.
By now, life has given her some bruises. And it’s given her intelligence. Wisdom. Confidence.
She can trust herself to know the difference between a controlled burn and scorched earth.
Her discernment is hard-won.
The problem is most of us still want renewal without loss.
We want the truer life without the grief of dismantling the old one.
We want to become more fully ourselves while keeping every structure intact, every relationship undisturbed, and every identity we've assumed unchallenged.
But that is rarely how it works.
The new does not rise neatly beside the old.
What We’ve Been Taught (And Not Taught) About Burning Things Down
We’ve been taught that a woman’s fire — her anger — is not “ladylike,” and that women who let something go without leaving claw marks trying to save it are simply not trying hard enough.
We never learned about sacred rage. The protective kind. The regenerative kind.
Like a lodgepole pine that can only release its seeds when triggered by fire — seeds that will ultimately heal and restore the forest.
Women and seeds. Anger and flames. Both are required.
Some Endings Are Necessary
“A woman who is full of herself knows and trusts herself enough to say and do what must be done. She lets the rest burn.”
Everything she built, accepted, or grew into was real. Even beloved.
A life organized around other people's needs, tended carefully, held together by her.
It sheltered everyone she loved — and for a long time, that was enough.
But sometimes old-growth casts deep shade. Nothing tender and new can take root below it.
Knowing a cycle is complete — rather than waiting for it to end on its own — carries its own kind of magic.
Sometimes the burning is what’s prescribed.
End of Accommodation
“Until you cross a line with her and then she burns that shit down.” — Elizabeth Gilbert, The Divine Feminine
A “whole” woman’s natural state is liberated. Wild. Relaxed.
She’s not looking for a fight.
But she’s watching her lines. And she knows when they’ve been crossed.
A sacred circle is drawn. A match is lit.
Women don’t usually burn things because they’ve stopped caring.
They start burning things because they do.
When a woman cares more about what’s sacred inside her than keeping peace with what violates it, her natural power returns.
Agency and Discernment
“It is our task to choose what is right for us to make, how hot to make our own fire, and when to throw out our own ashes.” — Marion Woodman,
A mature woman learns not only that she must burn — but what to burn.
She doesn’t just light the match and walk away…
She studies the wind.
She knows which areas need fire and which need protection.
She manages the heat, tends the edges, stays until it’s done.
She’s not torching her whole life because she is irrational or reckless, she’s just learned the difference between:
What is living and what is dead
What is healthy and what is poisoned
What can be repaired and what has become scrap metal
She is not at the mercy of her own transformation.
She’s becoming a faithful steward of it.
So, what becomes of the ashes?
In nature, they return to the soil — restoring what was depleted, becoming the fertile ground for new growth.
But in a woman’s life, it’s more complicated than that.
The grief. The lost years. The identities she outgrew. The relationships she kept breathing life into long after they flatlined.
Not every experience transforms into something useful.
Some of it will always be scorched earth. And a sovereign woman knows the difference.
At some point, even the ashes must be thrown out.
She is not burning down her life.
She is finally creating the conditions for it to flourish.
Sometimes fire is the only way the living thing survives.
🍃A FEW FAVORITE LINKS:
The world doesn’t want women to be angry for a reason. This is the reason.
Whether you’ve left or done the leaving, this anthem’s for you.
Can something be absurd, theatrical, and good for you? Not only can it — it might be exactly what you need.
📖 WHAT I UNDERLINED THIS WEEK
“When [anger] informs us, it is a drive shaft of compassion and care; when mined for its lessons, metabolize and transmuted, it is the energy that changes the world.”
Elise Loehnen, On Our Best Behavior
Warmly,
