The Fire Within One of my private passion pastimes is photography. I love the word origin--writing with light. I used to think that I was always trying to "capture the light." As if it is prey and I am the hunter. Or the quester. As if the light is magic. For me, the most obvious hiding place for light (and its brokenness, colour) is in flowers. There is a reason why I was called the "Flower Girl" in my family. Not only because I got to be in Auntie Olive's wedding party. Not only because I always brought bouquets into the house--buds, greenery, blossoms. I just love them. But I also see these "hot flower pics" as connected to the "embers" theme, because for sure, is not the fire here too, seeping out of the light at the flowers' cores? I heard that fire hidden in the seemingly cold cinders once described as "the mothering fire" and that is another subtext in this novel. Mothering. Kindling. Warmth. Love.