From the Ashes

Much ink has been spilled and pixels displayed over the flames that swallowed up the steeple and roofing of Notre Dame de Paris, its famous 'forest' of attic devoured by fire. Before the smoke had cleared and in the first flush of the horror, I mourned a presence that had offered me by way of tours a means to financing my dissertation, a cradling arm to cry out a broken heart or two, an altar upon which to light a candle for beloved souls that had passed. It was a bereavement to think of my skyline absent its elegant flèche pointing away from the earth to something beyond.

We have since seen the wildfires of the Amazon and Australia do far more harm to the entire biosphere without inciting the same level of collective mourning that did the loss of a one gothic church. The disasters of the southern hemisphere are devastating in ways that cannot be compared to the casualty of a medieval cathedral, which might yet be saved. Here however is an original reflexion in which these catastrophes are not so much pitted one against the other but understood as under a same aegis. It was written in the days following the blaze.


“Let us try to conceive that the “forest” of the attic framework voluntarily set herself afire, in order to make us reflect on the state of the world and the dryness of our hearts. In this, the beginning of Holy Week, the cathedral seems to have lived through its own Ash Wednesday, taking on the sins of the world. She is protesting, ahead of the fact, the co-opting she will be subject to. There is, she says, an emergency greater than reconstructing the roof in time for the opening of the Olympic Games. It is precisely against this that she protests. The forest gave itself over to the flames in order to call us to save the tropical and boreal forests, as well as the meager forests of the suburbs threatened by pointless development. She invites tourists to take their selfies at home. She makes demands to be shown the carbon footprint of the Olympic games. She invites us to leave the immediate present to to reflect on long term history. She asks us to remember what a collective project was which involved a whole people. She invites us to silently take stock of this Western history, the beauties it has produced and the ecological disaster that has resulted. She holds us to account. The forest has not stopped smouldering.” - Sylvain Piron, translation mine

 (Essayons de concevoir que la « forêt » de la charpente se soit volontairement immolée, pour donner à réfléchir sur l’état du monde et la sécheresse des cœurs. En ce début de semaine sainte, la cathédrale aurait vécu son mercredi des Cendres, prenant sur elle les péchés du monde. Par avance, elle proteste face aux récupérations dont elle est l’objet. Il y a, dit-elle, une autre urgence que de reconstruire la toiture à temps pour l’ouverture des Jeux Olympiques. C’est justement contre cela qu’elle proteste. La forêt s’est livrée au feu pour appeler à sauver les forêts tropicales ou boréales, aussi bien que les maigres forêts de banlieue menacée par des aménagements inutiles. Elle invite les touristes à prendre leurs selfies chez eux. Elle réclame le bilan carbone des Jeux Olympiques. Elle invite à sortir du présent immédiat pour penser le temps long. Elle demande à se souvenir de ce qu’était un projet collectif impliquant tout un peuple. Elle nous invite à faire en silence le bilan de cette histoire de l’Occident, des beautés qu’elle a produites et du désastre écologique qui en
découle. Elle nous demande des comptes. La forêt n’a pas fini de crépiter.)

The above is the final paragraph of the full text here.