The Spark Beneath: A Tending of Ashes, Light, and Becoming
Five Days of Writing Toward Wholeness — A journey through flicker, fire, grief, glow, and the quiet ignition of a life fully lived.
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Intro for #TheSparkBeneath — Reflections from the Fire
When
shared her invitation—“Come as you are, with whatever’s flickering”—I didn’t know how deeply that would echo. And something stirred.A flicker. A breath. A beginning.
Over five days, I followed the prompts like trail markers back to myself—through memory, through loss, through quiet light and glowing hope. What I found wasn’t a single spark, but a constellation. Stories still burning. Dreams still warm. Longings that never left, even beneath the ash.
This is my journey through #TheSparkBeneath:
A letter to the first flicker.
A naming of endings and embers.
An honoring of what I carry.
A celebration of glow.
A choice to ignite.
Five days. Five words. Five prompts.
One steady truth:
There has always been a spark.
Day One – FLICKER
Prompt: Return to a beginning. A subtle change, a whisper of knowing, a flicker that told you something was starting. What stirred? What stayed?
Letter to the First Flicker
"There was no thunderclap. No grand revelation. Just the faintest shift, like the light changing across these stones. A flicker. A whisper in the marrow that something wasn’t quite right. That I wasn’t quite whole—or perhaps that I had never been seen whole."
Each time I’ve returned to this place—in memory or metaphor—it feels like standing again in the ruins of Nea Paphos. Still excavating. Still listening. The ground beneath holds stories carved in silence. Some I can name now. Others are gone, eroded beyond recognition. And still I dig, not to rebuild the past, but to understand the shape of what it left behind.
My flicker was a quiet ache.
A question: “What is this feeling?”
Then: “Where did it begin?”
At first, I had no language. Only intuition. A hunch that I had been edited by survival. So I became the archaeologist of my own life, unearthing myself in shards and echoes. Feelings I couldn’t name. Needs I had silenced. Rage buried beneath compliance.
And just like this ancient mosaic—damaged, yet intricate—I began to see the fuller pattern. Not pristine, but profoundly mine.
The lighthouse in the distance reminds me: healing doesn’t rebuild the ruins. It learns to live beside them, illuminated.
What stirred was a flicker.
What stayed is the fire it became.
Day Two – ASHES
Prompt: Think of a time when something ended. A chapter, a relationship, a belief. What ember remained in the ash? What stayed with you, even after the fire?
✧ Ashes and the Spark Beneath ✧
There are years that take everything.
And still, they leave you.
Changed.
Stripped.
Breathing.
January 3rd, 2025 was the day I hit publish on a video I almost didn’t share. It was raw, shaking, the kind of vulnerable that feels like tearing off your own skin. I had just realized: the house was gone.
The company—gone. The last material remnants of the life I had built with my late wife—gone.
I stood in the smoke, not knowing if I’d ever rise from it.
And something in me whispered: don’t hide.
And for the first time, I didn’t.
🎥 Watch the video I shared that day
🕊 Read the poems: Phoenix of the Wilderness and Embered Contradictions
From My Journal:
“This is the year of endings. Not yet the year of beginnings. But even in this, something sparks. I’ve come to know the quiet ache of goodbye—the slow burn of loss that doesn’t shout, just lingers. My wife’s death unraveled the map of my life. What followed wasn’t a single ending, but a series of dissolutions. The land I walked, the beliefs I held, the structures I once clung to—they’ve crumbled. And yet... I feel something stirring. Not hope, exactly. More like breath. Breath in the ash. A pulse that says: you are not done.”
I don’t write this from the other side.
I am still very much in it.
Still standing inside the ruins, speaking aloud to whatever spark hasn’t given up on me yet.
And I’ve learned:
That endings can carry seeds.
That grief and becoming often arrive holding hands.
That showing myself in the fire was not weakness, but the first exhale of something real.
If this is you too—still in the thick of ash—please know this:
You are not the end.
You are the ember.
Day Three – CARRY
Prompt: What have you been carrying silently? A story, a dream, a fear, a memory? Name it. Trace its weight. Consider what it’s asking of you.
This is a real photo of me.
Not a metaphor, not an echo—just my face, looking sad. Not for show, but because the weight I carry is real.
I took the background photo in Sri Lanka. A place where healing deepened—not magically, but meaningfully.
The truth I touched there, the embodiment I found through Ayurvedic care, through space, through distance—it wasn’t a fantasy. It was a beginning.
Healing is still happening. It hasn’t stopped.
And I also carry a fear.
That despite everything I’ve done—despite the work, the listening, the careful tending—I may never be allowed to live in the places my soul reaches for. That forces outside my control—immigration laws, health systems, bureaucracy, timing—might close the door on that longing.
And if they do, what happens to the part of me that began to come alive?
The burning in this photo holds that fear. That what I’ve hoped for, worked toward, held onto—might be reduced to smoke.
That the wish to emigrate, to settle somewhere far from here, might be buried beneath ash. And with it, the chance for a fuller healing might be buried too.
I look at myself through the torn edge, and I feel the sdness.
Not because healing hasn’t happened. But because it has, and I’ve seen how good it can be.
And I fear losing that chance to continue.
This is what I carry.
Hope and fear, woven tight.
A body that remembers, a soul that still longs, and the deep ache of not knowing if I’ll be allowed to choose the life that most fits me.
And here I am, naming it.
Not to surrender to despair.
Because naming is a kind of presence. A kind of honoring.
And maybe, somehow, that presence is what keeps the embers glowing—beneath the ash, beneath the fear, beneath it all.
Day Four – GLOW
Prompt: What brings a glow to your life? Describe a person, place, or moment that lights something in you. What does it illuminate? How does it feel?
Not all fire is loud. Some glows are soft, slow, steady.
What truly brings me to life—what fills me with awe and ignites that quiet inner glowing—are what I call landscape-light-moments. Those times when light takes the ordinary and turns it into something utterly breathtaking. When suddenly, the world holds its breath, and so do I.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a sunny afternoon, a gray overcast day, the hush of dawn, or even the deep velvet of night—when light meets the land just so, something opens in me. Especially in landscapes of stark contrast: water against mountain, flat mesas beside deep canyons, rugged cliffs facing the sea. These places don’t just glow—they speak.
There are even places named for their light—Andaluz, with its legendary glow. La Costa de la Luz, the Coast of Light. That light isn’t just something you see. You feel it. It touches the skin and the soul in equal measure.
All the places I carry in my heart, the ones I long to return to, share that same magic: the union of light and land. And in those moments, there's a timeless, unconditional beauty that feels both eternal and free. It doesn’t demand. It just is. And that is more than enough.
So today, I’m looking for that glow—and naming it.
Where the Light Finds Me
Not all fire crackles.
Some burns slow—
a hush across water,
a breath on canyon’s edge.
Light arrives
not to dazzle,
but to reveal—
the soul of a stone,
the curve of a hill
made holy by shadow.
I have stood in those moments
where silence glows gold,
where the sky leans low
to kiss the land.
Mountains hold mirrors
to the sky.
Seas whisper secrets
in light only dusk can read.
Even a flat field,
with the right light,
becomes cathedral.
There are names for such places—
Andaluz,
Coast of Light—
but the truest name
is the one you feel
in your chest
when time folds
and breath stills
and all that exists
is wonder.
This is the glow
I return to—
not to chase it,
but to remember
I, too,
am a landscape.
And I, too,
hold light.
Day Five – IGNITE
Prompt: What’s ready to be rekindled in you? What are you willing to tend to fan into flame, now that you’ve noticed it again?
There’s a part of me stirring again—gently, but unmistakably. Like embers beneath ash, still warm, waiting. Maybe it never went out. Maybe it just needed space. Breath. A pause long enough to listen.
I’ve been thinking about what lights me up—not in a loud, performative way, but in the quiet sense of “yes, this is mine.” The photographs I shared for Day 4 GLOW—those were more than moments. They were reminders. That I see light in the world. That I carry light. That I want to share it.
What’s ready to be rekindled in me is the life where I don’t have to choose between the things I love. Where I don’t have to explain or fragment myself. Where photography, writing, baking, crafting knife handles, creating digital art, speaking, advocating, simply being—aren’t separate paths, but one rich terrain.
I’ve been dreaming again, too. Of living in a place where people wander with wonder. Where I can open a little stall, sell prints, knives, fresh bread, cheesecakes, croissants. Where art spills from windows, and community feels like rhythm—slow in the mornings, vibrant in the afternoons, held together by mutual tending.
I saw a glimpse of that in Sri Lanka, in a street full of color and story, where each artist added their voice to a shared space. And I thought: Yes. This. A place not where I am reduced, but where I can expand. A life that welcomes all of me.
So here’s my spark.
Not something new.
Something remembered.
Something real.
🔥
And I’m willing to tend it now.
Willing to breathe into it.
Willing to let it grow into flame.
Where All of Me Lives
Maybe the flame never went out—
maybe it just needed
a slower wind,
a quieter match.
Today, I remember:
my hands shape more than words.
They bake, they carve,
they frame light in stillness.
They gather beauty like wildflowers
and share it,
softly,
like warm bread passed hand to hand.
I dream of a place
where days stretch wide—
part slow rhythm, part wild dance—
where markets bloom with stories and scent,
where art isn’t caged in titles
but spills from fingers
freely.
I want to live where tourists wander,
where curiosity lingers,
where I can say:
Yes, I made this.
Yes, I wrote this.
Yes, I am this.
And more.
Where I am not boxed
by roles or by names,
but held
as Jay—
whole, intricate,
becoming.
And so today,
I strike the match.
Tend the spark.
Let it glow
in every craft,
every cake,
every frame,
every truth.
This is not just a beginning.
This is a remembering.
Thank you for walking this path beside me.
Not something new, yet something remembered. Such beautiful imagery, Jay. I have discovered that we are always “right on time.” The spark, breathing new life into it, has a life force of its own. Yes?! Loving care as you tend gently the embers of that which was, is now and will BE. Xo🔥💜🪶