My name is Kalaren. I am fire’s migration. I follow the sun. Perhaps you know my kind better under different names: Phoenix or firebird. In other places around the world, I am known as the bird of the ashes or the bird of the sun. The latter is the most fitting one.
Since the beginning of time, my kind has worshipped the sun. We feed on her rays. She gives us strength and as long as we follow her course, we are immortal, burning in her light, and reborn in our own ashes.
My plumage imitates her colours. This is a form of our worship. I shine golden in her light. The tips of my long wings shimmer red like the sunset. The feathers on my crest sparkle purple like the sun’s rays breaking through the clouds after a storm. And the feathers on my chest glow orange like a quiet morning, the promise of a warm day.
This is my feather dress. But my family and friends all wear different ones. When we ascend into the sky to drink the sun’s rays, all of us radiate in different shades of red and gold, purple and orange, yellow and magenta. We shoot like comets through the blue sky.
We feel at home in the kingdom of wind and clouds and we love the colour blue. Blue promises a cloudless sky, which means the sun shines all day and we feel her warmth giving us strength throughout the day. Another colour we admire greatly is green. Below us stand tall trees and blossoming bushes. Stones are covered in moss, and trillions of blades of grass reach for the sunlight, swaying in the wind.
After a long day of flying, all birds of the sun enjoy resting on the uppermost branches of the highest-growing trees. Then we look to the West and admire the sunset glow. And when the last rays of the sun fade, and the stars begin to sparkle, and the moon rises, we turn our gaze East and await the rising of the sun.
But the world we live in is a strange one, and every year there comes a time when days grow darker, when the sun’s rays become weaker and daylight fades. We feel it in our fiery hearts and in the tips of our golden feathers.
The trees feel it too. They grow weaker when the days grow shorter. And this is the time when my kind begins to circle the grasslands and forests below, and our wings take us South. And this the trees feel as well.
They enjoy our presence and our warm colours. The old and large trees we rest on grow particularly strong. As my kind takes in the magic of the sun, we can share some of that magic with the trees closest to us.
When my kind begins the long journey South, the trees mourn our leaving. They understand that we must go, but they miss us dearly. But they cannot tell us, for they have no mouths to speak with, so they show us in the most beautiful way: they change the colour of their dresses.
When it is warm and the sun shines, their leaves are green. But when the sun fades away as the year comes to an end and my kind departs, their leaves turn from green to a deep blood red. Some turn orange like the sunset. Others transform into a pale pink like the last rays of the sun before she disappears behind the horizon. And a few even turn yellow, almost gold, like the sun herself, like our very own feathers.
For a short time, the trees, our dearest friends, cheer us, wish us well on our journey by imitating us, showing us how much they admire us and how they cannot wait until we return. However, whether they turn red, orange, pink, or yellow, they all begin to weep. They weep with their leaves. For they begin to fall and accumulate beneath the roots of the trees, where they turn brown and become part of the soil.
The fallen leaves fade away like the sun fades and becomes weaker once every year. But their strength does not disappear. It saturates the earth beneath the trees and their roots soak up the energy of the leaves so new ones can grow. And the beauty of the trees returns every year. And so does the power of the sun. The trees and the sun are immortal like we are, but in a different way.
In the North, the sun must fade so she can grow strong in the very South of this strange world. My kind has wings, so we can simply follow the sun to the South and bathe in her light. And when she grows weak in the South, we travel North again.
But the trees are rooted in the earth. They do not die when the sun leaves. They simply go to sleep. They dress up in her colours before they retire, a feast of colours before the long night envelops them. It is their time of ashes. When the world goes quiet and no birds of fire can be found in the blue sky. But when my kind senses the change in this world again, we return to the trees in the North. We spark their rebirth like the sun’s light ignites the colours of our plumage and the flames within our hearts.
Fabian's Writing 