How a fire changed my level of safety and knowing within
This holiday changed me.
My children and I go camping at the end of every year at a very specific campsite in the Cederberg mountains. It is a haven to me – a place to exhale the year and welcome in the new – although it is so much more than this that it is difficult to express. It feels like my soul home, a place where I can truly exhale. The energy there is beautiful, pure.
We see mostly the same people there each year. We smile, hug, later catch up a little on our year. But what doesn’t need to be said is in the look of recognition, the communal exhale, the ‘aaah, we’re back’ that passes between most of us as we arrive.
In December 2025, when I was already mostly packed and a few days from leaving, I got the news that a fire had devastated the campsite and it was closed. My nervous system took a little time to adjust – to even take this news in. Initially it seemed that the entire campsite and surrounds was burning or burnt – focus turned to the main house, the staff houses, the animals.
What followed was a few days of processing, updates, the fire burning through more and more of the mountains and threatening other areas, other campsites. I booked another campsite at a place we have also camped at regularly, often for a few days after our main trip. It is nice. Lovely. And not at all the same.
We decided to make the most of the holiday, to still be in the mountains, and to come to terms with the fact that we got a last-minute, really-hot-with-minimal-shade campsite, not super close to the river, in a very busy place that has more a party vibe and less a total nature immersion.
We still visited another place in the mountains that we love – swam there, jumped off cliffs, breathed in the sounds of the waterfalls.
And as we drove there, we saw so much of the mountains burnt. Random parts not burnt. Huge tracts blackened.
Green shoots of fire lilies already sprouting up in some areas – the start of rebirth and regrowth, although it will take longer for most species to recover. Some areas looked like Mordor.
On New Year’s eve, we saw a line of flames on top of the mountain, a few kilometres from camp. The fire had circled all the way back. Some people packed up, some left. Most carried on partying. Some – mostly locals – were off fighting the fire. That line of flame was put out, to burn elsewhere for another 2 days.
There are many other stories from that time. People who spent days fighting fires at their own homes and camps, then days after that fighting the fire at another camp, saving someone else’s home. People standing on the backs of pickup trucks with water hoses, spraying water around ancient rock art sites deep in the mountains when the flames threatened those areas.
And we did get to visit our soul-home camp.
It was strange at first, being the first people there for half the day.
The energy was subtly shifted. But still there. The wooden cabins, some reasonably mysteriously, had not burnt. One caravan and some trees burnt, and a hut at the nearby private camp. Some of the vines. The water supply had been damaged in the fire and repaired.
Many other trees had leaves that look like winter – turned brown and falling off due to the heat.
Everything on the other side of the river had burnt – including all the cedar trees on a round hill, lovingly planted over many years as part of the cedar reclamation project, that had been slowly, slowly growing.
Many had plaques on rocks around their bases; some people’s loved one’s ashes are there.
My mom’s ashes are there – we planted her tree in March 2025.
I walked up near sunset, and eventually found her plaque – slightly burnt, still legible. All the plaques were legible.
The cedar trees are dead, but new ones can be planted. After some rain. After some recovery time.
Thankfully, most of the cedar nursery survived the fire.
In the valley, in many places, the green stalks of fire lilies were shooting up already.
I drove the others back to camp, then returned. I spent the night in a cabin there, and walked to some of my favourite places the next day. A large section of mountain on the other side of the camp was unburnt.
I relaxed. Breathed. Floated in the river on my small blow-up boat.
Then returned to my family at the other campsite. I found a place there I could drift in the river in my boat, in the shade, surrounded by trees, away from the party vibe. I read. I breathed.
What did I learn from this?
I learnt more deeply that I carry my own peace within me – it is not dependent on place. Places help. They carry a signature. They ground the energy, they uplift – but we have this within us, any time. All year.
One of the angel cards I have says “Peace. No matter where you are or what you are doing, inner peace is always possible. All it takes is a subtle shift in awareness. Think love and peace will follow.” This message dropped to a much more embodied level for me.
Fire is destruction.
Fire is rebirth.
Fire is transmutation.
I came back from my holiday different.
More embodied.
Grateful that no one was hurt. Grateful for the animals that survived, for the structures that remained.
Feeling deep empathy for those who have lost a large portion of their income for the year.
Knowing that the land will recover.
Looking forward to being there later this year, and to reconnecting with the land and the people.
Knowing that I no longer need to ‘breath out my year’.
We truly are recreating ourselves and our realities many times each millisecond.
How we are being in each moment, and what we choose to carry forward, is a conscious choice.
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