When the Mountain Teaches You

This morning, I hiked with Santie — The Fynbos Whisperer — on the lower slopes of Table Mountain and Devil’s Peak. She had invited us to witness something rare: the first spring after a fire.

In March, a massive blaze tore through this part of the mountain. Flames, helicopters, thick smoke. I remember how we could barely breathe being outdoors and we were a few kilometres away.  It was a destruction.

But nature, in her quiet wisdom, had been preparing.

Santie explained that beneath the soil — deep under the ash, long before the fire ever came — there were bulbs lying dormant. Hidden. Waiting. On nearby slopes untouched by the flames, you won’t see them. The bulbs are still there, but they sleep underground, waiting for something very specific:a fire strong enough to clear space, open light, and make room for new life.

And so, this spring, on this very slope that burned, the mountain is covered in millions of Watsonias — a once-in-years eruption of magenta flowers blooming exactly because of the fire.

Next year, there will be fewer. In time, the taller plants will rise again, and the slope will return to green. Until the cycle repeats.

As Santie looked out over the sweep of colour, she said softly, "If ever there’s been a holy place, then this is it.”

And she was right. The mountain was preaching without words.

Walking in the middle of this beauty, I reflected on this:

Sometimes our own fires are necessary – the internal burnings that clear out what no longer serves us. Sometimes they’re painful, but the pain opens space for the beauty buried in each of us — goodness, charity, the eternal light breathed into us.  This was similar to my awakening.  Some of it WAS painful, but now I treasure what has emerged.

Nature carries God’s signs in plain sight. You don’t have to search for miracles. Sometimes they stand right in front of you in bright magenta, growing out of ash.

Mountains are holy places.  They hold the stories of time, and they humble you without effort. They show us what it means to stand, to endure, to begin again.

Thank you Santie, for an opportunity to be present.