Phoenix People
Zen Buddhist: “We phoenix people are not phoenix people for the long haul. We are phoenix people for the moment—rising, burning, vanishing. And then beginning again.”
Episcopal Priest: “One sign of a phoenix person is that she remembers and honors those who do not rise from the ashes. Her renewal carries their memory.”
Trauma Nurse: “I used to think the phoenix was about rising once, after everything is destroyed. But in war, you rise every day—after every siren, every wound, every breath. Rising becomes necessary and ordinary. You have no option but to become a phoenix. And you carry the ashes of others with you."
Hospice Nurse: "Dying people teach me that rising isn’t always about going on. Sometimes it’s the moment someone smiles through pain or forgives an old hurt. The phoenix is not about escape—it’s about transfiguration.”"
Jazz Pianist: “Every improvisation is a phoenix. It gathers what just happened, burns it in the fire of the now, and becomes something that never existed before. That’s how I hear time.”
Climate Activist: “The world is burning, literally. Forests, oceans, futures. But when we plant a seed, when we hold each other accountable and still choose kindness, that is the phoenix flaring up—not as myth, but as moment.”
Elementary School Teacher: “Sometimes my students come to school carrying more than backpacks. They carry grief, fear, chaos. But when they laugh, or draw, or help a friend—that’s a phoenix moment. I see them rising, even if just for a breath.”
I Think of the Phoenix
The phoenix is one of the most enduring mythical symbols in human history—a bird of radiant plumage, long life, fiery death, and miraculous renewal. Its story appears across cultures and centuries, each tradition offering a variation on the theme of death and rebirth.
In ancient Egypt, the phoenix was associated with the Bennu bird, a heron-like figure linked to the sun god Ra and the daily cycle of rising and setting. It perched on the benben stone at Heliopolis and was seen as a symbol of creation, regeneration, and cosmic order.
The Greeks adopted the myth and made it their own. Herodotus described the phoenix as a magnificent bird that lived for 500 years before building a funeral pyre of aromatic woods and setting itself aflame. From its ashes, a new phoenix would rise—young, pure, and singular—carrying the memory of the old within its new beginning. Later Roman writers, including Ovid and Pliny the Elder, preserved and embellished the tale, associating it with the eternal cycle of empire and the soul’s persistence beyond death.
In early Christianity, the phoenix became a symbol of resurrection and eternal life, used to evoke Christ’s victory over death. It appeared in art and theological writings as a holy creature—one that dies and is reborn, pointing to the mystery of divine transformation.
Through medieval bestiaries, alchemical texts, and Renaissance poetry, the phoenix came to represent not only cosmic renewal, but also the refinement of the soul, the alchemy of suffering, and the fire of spiritual awakening.
Even in modern times, the phoenix retains its resonance—as an emblem of resilience, reinvention, and rebirth after devastation. From cities rebuilt after war to survivors of personal loss, the phoenix continues to rise in stories, dreams, and lives.
Phoenix Cosmology
In Whitehead’s metaphysics, the universe is composed not of static things but of momentary acts of becoming—each a concrescence, a gathering of the many into one. These concrescences are not arbitrary or isolated. Each inherits the entire past: not just the linear past of personal memory, but the totality of what has occurred—the grief of strangers, the movements of clouds, the hunger of foxes, the breath of forests. All this is gathered into a momentary act of synthesis. The new moment receives this past, integrates it, and then perishes—becoming, in turn, part of the objective world available to future acts of becoming.
This is precisely what the phoenix myth embodies on a cosmic scale. The phoenix is not only a creature within time—it is a metaphor for time itself. Time does not march forward in uniform steps. It rises, flares, and falls. It gathers the ashes of all that has been, becomes radiant for a moment, and then perishes into new potentiality. Each concrescence is a phoenix: brief, beautiful, born of fire, and destined to fall into a future it helps shape.
In this view, the universe is not built upon permanence but upon creative perishing—the rhythm of arising and fading, intensity and relinquishment. But this is not necessarily a cause for despair. On the contrary, it is the ground of hope, for it means that no moment is final, and all things contribute to what is yet to be. Nothing is lost, though everything changes. The phoenix teaches us that even death is folded into the architecture of renewal.
I Think of the Phoenix…
I think of the phoenix as I watch images of scorched apartment buildings in Gaza and Ukraine, windows blown out like hollow eyes, the blackened ribs of homes open to the sky. Streets filled with rubble. Children's toys buried in ash. The smudged faces of survivors, staring past the camera, dazed. I think of the young conscript’s body crumpled in the dirt, of mothers clutching photographs, of sirens splitting the night in places where dawn still dares to rise. These are the ashes of war—raw, real, unbearable.
And yet, somewhere in the ruins, someone picks up a brick to begin again. A woman boils water for tea on a makeshift stove. A child draws a bird on the wall of a shelter. Even here, the phoenix stirs.
I think of the phoenix in these moments not as a grand, mythic bird rising in a blaze of glory, but as something quieter and more fragile—an ember refusing to die. A gesture of kindness in the middle of devastation. A breath taken after we thought we couldn’t breathe anymore. In a world that seems to burn again and again, these small risings matter.
Process philosophy has taught me to see such moments as real. Not just emotionally significant, but metaphysically powerful. Each act of care, each decision to endure, is a concrescence: a new moment rising from the ashes of what came before. It draws from the depths of suffering, and yet it does not remain there. It becomes something more. Something new.
Even God, in process theology, does not stand outside the fire. God feels the burning, gathers the ashes, and makes something of them—not by erasing the pain, but by weaving it into a larger beauty. The phoenix, then, is not just a symbol of our resilience. It is a symbol of divine companionship in the rhythm of rising and perishing. It is the pulse of time, the heartbeat of becoming.
To Rise Again
To rise again is not to forget the ashes. It is to carry them forward—not as weight, but as witness. What we have lost, what we have endured, what the world has suffered—these are not erased in the act of becoming. They are gathered. They are felt. They are honored.
Each new moment is a rising phoenix: brief, burning, beautiful. It gathers what has been, even the ruins, and becomes something more. Not perfect. Not final. But new.
This, to me, is hope—not the hope of escape, but of transformation. Not that the fire won’t come, but that from its embers, something gentle might still rise: a word of kindness, a work of repair, a life lived in tenderness with the world.
In ancient Egypt, the phoenix was associated with the Bennu bird, a heron-like figure linked to the sun god Ra and the daily cycle of rising and setting. It perched on the benben stone at Heliopolis and was seen as a symbol of creation, regeneration, and cosmic order.
The Greeks adopted the myth and made it their own. Herodotus described the phoenix as a magnificent bird that lived for 500 years before building a funeral pyre of aromatic woods and setting itself aflame. From its ashes, a new phoenix would rise—young, pure, and singular—carrying the memory of the old within its new beginning. Later Roman writers, including Ovid and Pliny the Elder, preserved and embellished the tale, associating it with the eternal cycle of empire and the soul’s persistence beyond death.
In early Christianity, the phoenix became a symbol of resurrection and eternal life, used to evoke Christ’s victory over death. It appeared in art and theological writings as a holy creature—one that dies and is reborn, pointing to the mystery of divine transformation.
Through medieval bestiaries, alchemical texts, and Renaissance poetry, the phoenix came to represent not only cosmic renewal, but also the refinement of the soul, the alchemy of suffering, and the fire of spiritual awakening.
Even in modern times, the phoenix retains its resonance—as an emblem of resilience, reinvention, and rebirth after devastation. From cities rebuilt after war to survivors of personal loss, the phoenix continues to rise in stories, dreams, and lives.
Phoenix Cosmology
In Whitehead’s metaphysics, the universe is composed not of static things but of momentary acts of becoming—each a concrescence, a gathering of the many into one. These concrescences are not arbitrary or isolated. Each inherits the entire past: not just the linear past of personal memory, but the totality of what has occurred—the grief of strangers, the movements of clouds, the hunger of foxes, the breath of forests. All this is gathered into a momentary act of synthesis. The new moment receives this past, integrates it, and then perishes—becoming, in turn, part of the objective world available to future acts of becoming.
This is precisely what the phoenix myth embodies on a cosmic scale. The phoenix is not only a creature within time—it is a metaphor for time itself. Time does not march forward in uniform steps. It rises, flares, and falls. It gathers the ashes of all that has been, becomes radiant for a moment, and then perishes into new potentiality. Each concrescence is a phoenix: brief, beautiful, born of fire, and destined to fall into a future it helps shape.
In this view, the universe is not built upon permanence but upon creative perishing—the rhythm of arising and fading, intensity and relinquishment. But this is not necessarily a cause for despair. On the contrary, it is the ground of hope, for it means that no moment is final, and all things contribute to what is yet to be. Nothing is lost, though everything changes. The phoenix teaches us that even death is folded into the architecture of renewal.
I Think of the Phoenix…
I think of the phoenix as I watch images of scorched apartment buildings in Gaza and Ukraine, windows blown out like hollow eyes, the blackened ribs of homes open to the sky. Streets filled with rubble. Children's toys buried in ash. The smudged faces of survivors, staring past the camera, dazed. I think of the young conscript’s body crumpled in the dirt, of mothers clutching photographs, of sirens splitting the night in places where dawn still dares to rise. These are the ashes of war—raw, real, unbearable.
And yet, somewhere in the ruins, someone picks up a brick to begin again. A woman boils water for tea on a makeshift stove. A child draws a bird on the wall of a shelter. Even here, the phoenix stirs.
I think of the phoenix in these moments not as a grand, mythic bird rising in a blaze of glory, but as something quieter and more fragile—an ember refusing to die. A gesture of kindness in the middle of devastation. A breath taken after we thought we couldn’t breathe anymore. In a world that seems to burn again and again, these small risings matter.
Process philosophy has taught me to see such moments as real. Not just emotionally significant, but metaphysically powerful. Each act of care, each decision to endure, is a concrescence: a new moment rising from the ashes of what came before. It draws from the depths of suffering, and yet it does not remain there. It becomes something more. Something new.
Even God, in process theology, does not stand outside the fire. God feels the burning, gathers the ashes, and makes something of them—not by erasing the pain, but by weaving it into a larger beauty. The phoenix, then, is not just a symbol of our resilience. It is a symbol of divine companionship in the rhythm of rising and perishing. It is the pulse of time, the heartbeat of becoming.
To Rise Again
To rise again is not to forget the ashes. It is to carry them forward—not as weight, but as witness. What we have lost, what we have endured, what the world has suffered—these are not erased in the act of becoming. They are gathered. They are felt. They are honored.
Each new moment is a rising phoenix: brief, burning, beautiful. It gathers what has been, even the ruins, and becomes something more. Not perfect. Not final. But new.
This, to me, is hope—not the hope of escape, but of transformation. Not that the fire won’t come, but that from its embers, something gentle might still rise: a word of kindness, a work of repair, a life lived in tenderness with the world.
Phoenix Theology
The myth of the phoenix offers a metaphor for understanding how God is at work in the world—not as an all-controlling power, but as an empowering presence. In process theology, God does not coerce outcomes or erase suffering, but instead offers fresh possibilities for becoming, moment by moment. God is the lure toward beauty in the wake of ruin, the invitation to rise from the ashes of what has been, into the birth of what can be.
This phoenix-like presence of God unfolds across three interwoven levels:
1. Momentary Level: Rising in This Breath
Each moment offers a small resurrection. Even in the smallest acts—taking a breath after grief, speaking a kind word after anger, choosing life over despair—there is the presence of God. Here, God is the gentle lure toward wholeness, whispering in the ashes: You can begin again. Even now.
Whitehead called this divine presence the “initial aim”—the creative possibility given in each moment. It doesn’t undo the past, but helps shape a more beautiful response to it.
2. Developmental Level: The Arc of a Life
Over the course of a lifetime, people endure heartbreak, disappointment, trauma, and failure. These ashes accumulate. But the phoenix myth reminds us that rebirth is part of the soul’s journey. God does not prevent the fires, but helps shape the newness that can rise from their embers.
Through relationships, therapy, art, recovery, learning, forgiveness, and grace, God works as a presence within us—inviting us to reconfigure our lives in more honest, compassionate, and life-affirming ways.
3. Social Level: Collective Rising
Entire societies know the ashes of war, oppression, environmental collapse, and injustice. And yet the divine lure works not only in individuals but in communities—moving them toward healing, justice, and ecological renewal. Social movements for liberation and peace, no matter how fragile, are phoenix songs. God is present in those fires, too—not as destroyer or dictator, but as the Eros of transformation.
In All Cases: God Is the Companion in the Ashes
The phoenix does not rise because the ashes disappear; it rises with the ashes in its feathers. So it is with divine love. God’s power is not in bypassing our wounds, but in weaving them into new patterns of beauty. In this sense, every act of rising is a response to divine invitation—a co-creation of beauty from what was broken.