The Quiet Fire That Never Went Out

“The Fire Within the Leaf” by An Marke

There is a quiet and steady fire within each of us — a presence that never entirely goes out, even in the loneliest nights of the soul. We often forget it, mistaking its stillness for absence, its subtle glow for extinguishment. Yet if we pause, if we truly listen beneath the noise of our days, we can sense it there — a calm radiance, like the faint warmth beneath winter’s frozen ground, waiting to rise again with the light.

This inner fire is not born of ambition or performance. It is not the fire that burns to prove, to conquer, or to impress. It is a gentler kind of flame, one that arises from the simple fact of being alive and beloved by the great Mystery that brought us here. It flickers with quiet faith in our own worth, in the goodness that endures even when all seems lost.

There are times when life will ask us to walk through shadow — when loss, betrayal, or exhaustion dim our vision and make us question what remains. In such times, we may feel as if all light has gone. But the soul, in its deep knowing, remembers. It remembers that fire does not need to roar to be real; it can live quietly, almost invisibly, beneath the surface, sustaining us until we are ready to feel its warmth again.

To trust this fire is to trust that we are being led — not by logic or by the world’s expectations, but by the deep current of truth that moves through our lives. It is to let go of the belief that light must always be visible, and to rest instead in the assurance that it is enough to be faithful to what feels alive within us.

Beauty, once awakened, never fades because it becomes part of our way of seeing. The one who has known beauty — whether through love, through nature, through a moment of stillness or grace — can never return to blindness. That glimpse of light reshapes the soul; it softens the heart, deepens compassion, and teaches us to recognize the sacred in ordinary things.

Perhaps this is the invitation of the quiet fire: to live with gentleness toward ourselves and with reverence toward the world. To know that even in our dimmest moments, we are still luminous beings, carrying the glow of creation within us. And when we finally come to trust that light — not as something we must earn or control, but as something we already are — then courage, clarity, and tenderness naturally unfold.

For the quiet fire within us is not separate from the light that surrounds us. It is the same flame, mirrored in the stars, in the eyes of those we love, and in the small acts of kindness that keep the world from going dark. When we remember this, we come home — not to a new place, but to the radiant center of our own being, which has been waiting for us all along.

I love You,
An

🕊️ Art & Words by An Marke
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