The Green Fire

This summer we went to the movies. The previews were filled with explosions of billowing orange. We do love to stare at exploding orange. I had this image of movie theaters as temples where we go worship the god of orange fire. I tend to avoid such movies because they usually communicate a message that spectacular, fiery destruction is the culminating step in the triumph of good. Which got me mulling about the constructive opposite of orange fire which led to the phrase of the god (or goddess) of green anti-fire.

Several images derive from this phrase. Foremost is wondering what would the growth of a jungle or kelp forest or grassland look like if it could be filmed in hyper fast motion? Would it look like green flames rising? Scientifically, fire is the consumptive oxidation of fuel, usually biomass. The green anti-fire is the photosynthetic-driven creation of that biomass in the first place, a far more energetic process but spread over far longer time so as to become almost invisible. Anti-fire doesn’t quite capture the image because I like the visual image of green growth rising like a fire but it’s a different kind of fire developing in a different direction. Instead of leaving ashes in its wake, it leaves tree trunks and soil and animals.

In the movies, the bright orange is richly intertwined with black smoke. The contrast with the black smoke makes the orange more glowing (like Halloween). That got me wondering what kind of smoke the green anti-fire gives off. It gives off a plume of blue smoke (oxygen) that billows tens of miles into the sky, filling the lower atmosphere with its haze. So, look at the world as burning in reverse with a green fire that gives off a blue smoke.