On the phone earlier today, T's mom asks if we have been affected by the fires in Spain. For us, looking out the window into a salty, oceanic cloud, fire could not seem farther away. Yet a quick news search reveals that for the past few days, while we have been avoiding most news media on holiday, wildfires have been raging across Northwest Spain, driven by a heatwave that has seen temperatures reach over 45 degrees Celsius in many regions. The Basque Country appears protected by the Cantabrian and Basque Mountains, which extend westward from the Pyrenees.

This year alone, about 343,000 hectares (847000 acres) have burned across Spain, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) - close to double the amount from the last year. '40,000 acres' is still etched into my mind from watching my home neighourhood burn in the LA Fires of January this year. I choose not to look up how many acres have burned in California this year, as I fear the number would rival that of Spain.

In a monastery at the top of a mountain, I notice a repeated four-part symbol, and learn that it represents the four elements, and is a symbol of the Basque Country more widely, found in myth and spiritual traditions. Each of the four elements had a representative female goddess. Mari, the goddess of earth whose story predates Christianity, is the most powerful of the four. Walking along clay-rich trails, along humid ravines and against cliffs, this makes intuitive sense, here.