The mission of Bristlecone Firesides is to provide a place for Latter-day Saints, Mormons, or any member of the spiritual Body of Christ to discuss the intersection between their faith, spirituality, and the Earth. We are a group of peers, friends, and allies. Contributors make their camps widely across the Mormon spectrum, and as such their voices will reflect the dazzling diversity of our spiritual community. As well, we are proud to feature a number of interfaith voices. Though our starting points differ, we are all united by our passion for our faith and our love and concern for our common home, planet Earth.

Bristlecone Firesides seeks to be a place where charity prevails amongst our writers and hopefully our readers. Our writers’ voices are independent and do not represent The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the various organizations they are associated with.

Bristlecone Pine are the oldest single living trees on Earth. The oldest recorded Bristlecone, named Prometheus, was 4900 years old when it was felled and its rings counted. Meaning that Prometheus first sprouted when the pyramids were being built. That there exist Bristlecone far older than Prometheus that have remained hidden from human eyes is a foregone conclusion. Fossil evidence suggests that the Bristlecone Pine, as a species, has existed for 40 million years. Truly the Bristlecone Pine are the sentinels that record the world.

In fact, the infamous “hockey stick” graph that heralded the sharp rise in anthropogenic atmospheric carbon dioxide relied on data from Bristlecone core samples. This graph, among many other sources, announced the dawning of the Anthropocene—the age of humanity. While humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years on Earth, through technological developments and consumptive reach, modern humans have become the most powerful force of change on the planet. And not for the better.

The effects of the Anthropocene—plastic oceans, bomb cyclones, firestorms, toxic air, oil spills, and Climate Change—are the crisis of the age of humanity. As a species, we must confront the overwhelming tole we have taken on our common home, planet Earth. Through our technology, consumption, and increased urbanization, we have been separated from the systems that keep us alive. We act as though we no longer belong to the Earth.

Here, in the shadow of the Bristlecone Pine—the eternal tree—we build our fireside. The dancing light of our fire will warm the heart as we tell our stories to re-enchant the world around us. As the sun sets on the industry of extreme consumption and thoughtless waste, we must be the sunrise on a day of restoration and grounded living.