Guest Post by Emmaly Renshaw. Emmaly is a partner, mother of four, agricultural nonprofit director and lover of fields, woods, and everything in between. She lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  You can connect with her at https://thebeautyofgray.substack.com/.  

Within the flames something shifted. 

Our family farm in Northeast Iowa was scheduled for a prescribed burn. Five years ago, we decided to take land out of production and plant a reconstructed prairie. Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) prairies require prescribed burning on a static schedule. Prairies need fire to flourish; it reduces weed competition and maintains system stability and biodiversity. Iowa has lost 99% of its native prairie landscape; this fragmented ecosystem can no longer burn naturally, so we must burn carefully, with intention.

40 acres. This is a precarious tract of land to burn with the ebb and flow of hills and terraces.  This field is sandwiched between two old farmsteads flanked with towering pine trees that serve as prime tinder if the fire jumps the breaks. Though we are in our fourth year of drought, the prairie is greening and requires fire. In a previous life, I did burn crew work so my dad called me to have an extra set of experienced hands on the ground and I drove to the land that gave me birth.

Having four children, moments of quiet are rare and I found myself alone with my thoughts during the drive north. The spring had been challenging, with Relief Society Instagram post, doubling down on garments, and another General Conference that highlighted how much my beliefs have shifted; a keen reminder that my struggle to find my worth as a woman in the church isn’t over, and where I fit in feels increasingly unclear.  Furthermore, I have made the conscious decision not to renew my temple recommend as Iowa prepares for its first temple. There is constant temple fervor filling the air, leaving me caught in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. I feel misplaced, exhausted, and increasingly angry, but there’s no outlet for this frustration within the religion or culture—I’m expected to carry it all in silence. In the past month, I have become more vocal about these events, and there has been a fury of backlash.

The first step in prescribing burn is to back-burn. Back-burning protects what is crucial—housing, barns, neighboring fields, and life. Back-burning takes time; it’s a regulated and carefully watched process. We burn into the wind and up hills, anticipating it to provide a large enough swath to stop the primary fire from spreading, but fire is precarious and can jump buffers and even roads within seconds. Tonight, the back-burn is one continuous border surrounding the 40 acres but with the rolling hills and terraces, it looks as though there are dozens of fires in every direction, giving it an ominous feel.

I have always led back-burn crews–it’s what controls the fire and protects. As women, it’s what we do: control and protect. We are taught to ensure the little fires are extinguished before they become destructive. How often have I been told to “shelve my anger” or “anger is the devil’s device”? How frequently have I repeated this repression to my daughters as I instruct them to “simmer down” or “drop the drama”? It is ingrained in women that fires should never be allowed to burn. I am beginning to realize how devastating this practice of suppression is.

This prairie burn is at dusk to allow the heavy Midwest dew to damper the fire, and night is coming quickly. My dad beckons me to meet him in the northwest corner of the 40 acres. I hand over the almost completed back-burn, and when I arrive he hands me the torch just as the sun sets. This is symbolic; maybe it’s because he is aging and he’s passing more to us to prepare to transition the land; maybe it’s because he can feel how heavy my load is right now, and he’s not good with words but he is with actions.

I stand overlooking 40 acres; now outlined in a string of smoke and fires. I tip the torch, watching the fire-infused oil drop into the grass. This is a moment of legal arson for men, but for women, it’s sacred to light the world and watch it burn. I breathe in the smoke that now hangs thick in the air from the back-burn and sharply exhale all the anger neatly packaged away. For a moment, there is nothing but silence. I feel the prevailing wind at my back and the heat at my feet making the flames flicker and climb. Within a minute, the stillness is overtaken by the deafening roar of destruction as the oxygen is consumed, and I watch an uncontrollable wall of fire originating from my actions. What was just a tiny flame a moment ago is scorching an acre a minute. Dusk has fallen, the night sky turns pink, and it appears as if the sun is setting in the west and the east tonight.

I follow the wall of fire, walking across the now-blackened earth. There is no horizon where the black earth meets the black sky. The ground is still warm, with smoke emitting from what is still burning beneath. The landscape looks brutal, like a mistake that will never recover. I have scores of burns to reference, but there is always a moment when I think this is absurd. This can’t be right. What did I destory?  But I know the science, and I am reminded that we burn to heal; we burn for growth. These fields will fall silent over the next few days, the birds will not sing, and within weeks, the charred earth will vanish and be replaced with a vibrant and thriving ecosystem.

In actuality, prairies can be difficult to burn due to uneven fuel supplies because of plant diversity. One of the firefighters walks by; the ash clinging to our wet pants and smeared across our faces. He clasps my shoulder and says, “Solid burn, our best three burns this year have all been set by women.” I reply, “It’s because we carry extra tinder to start the fire.”  He laughs and says if he let his wife start the fire, it would burn forever. I suggest he hand her a torch, and he can’t determine whether I’m joking or serious. His confusion is short-lived as he walks away giddy with another night of legal arson and I find myself alone realizing my life is paralleling the events of the night.

After weeks of ruminating about the chatter concerning garments, temples, and the lack of women’s voices in the church, built upon years of my experience as a woman in the church, a bitterness had built in my soul as I carried it without an outlet. I felt the anger dissipate as I lit the fire. This was a reminder that, in some instances, fire is beneficial. Letting it all go and burning it to the ground is the best thing for growth. I don’t know what comes next or what will be the first thing to rise through the new fertile mat of scorched earth. My prescribed burn experiences have taught me the things meant to grow will return, flourish, and crowd out the weeds that have inter-seeded between the burns.

I am certain people see me standing in the ashes of this proverbial charred earth, believing I have lost everything. I am willing to be patient and see the beauty that rises from beneath the ashes.

Strike. Drop. Exhale. Burn. Heal.