Built on Fire, Designed to Disappear

When Mount Etna erupted again recently—hurling molten tantrums into the Sicilian sky—it stirred something. Not just awe or fear, but a kind of primal awareness: that the ground beneath us is always more alive than we think. Active volcanoes demand urgency. They burn. They roar. They rewrite maps. You don’t linger near one—you brace, you run, you pray for time.

But what happens when the fire’s already passed?
What does it mean to build—not next to power—but on the memory of it?