The flame-dried figs were on a tree in our garden, roasted by a passing wildfire in 2025. They serve as a symbol of the changing climate systems on Earth and their unexpected consequences. We’ve had wildfires before, but this year there were two in the space of four days that threatened villages, the local university and hospital and destroyed multiple houses and cars around us. And trees, so many trees. The fires were fanned by strong winds making fighting them extremely challenging as they moved so fast, jumping roads and burning all ahead of them. We were lucky, we lost some trees and shrubs, but there was no major damage to our property.
While the fire damaged the tree, the figs became a source of food for myriad birds. I would hear a rustling from my desk and look to the tree to see blackbirds, sparrows, chaffinches, goldfinches, black caps and even a robin rummaging between the dried crunchy leaves to get at the figs. Though we missed out on eating the figs and sharing them with our neighbours, the terrible catastrophe gave the birds sustenance.
It seems like a metaphor for coping with the changes we are seeing in the climate at the moment – to look for the good in a holistic way, not centring humans but including all organisms and even the Earth itself as beings in our evaluation. Perhaps if we considered how interconnected we all are, human, animal and plant and how dependent we are on the planet and its systems of atmosphere, geosphere and hydrosphere, we might begin to make more rational choices for the long-term good of everyone and everything. Idealistic perhaps, but with climate change and the accelerated pace of tipping points, it’s crunch time for making good choices.
