The Phoenix

Pheonix by ~HomeSkillet87

I have a particular thing for comic book heroines. The genre says more about the post modern male psyche than volumes of psycho-anthropology can possibly articulate.
And they're generally hot. Wrathful. Three dimensional in their character development much more than the men, and yet shadowy, never as famous as the male company they keep. For those of you who haven't been to the cinema in the past ten years, or been seduced by Marvel into wasting your youth on indoor nerdy activities, this beautiful thing is one of the principle characters in the X-men, saving them and annihilating herself, only to be reborn later, redeemed and more beautiful than ever like her namesake suggests.

As a mythical creature, the phoenix is the more popular type, finding itself in Persian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek and Hindu mythology to name just a few. The Phoenicians (or Le Libanais as they are more recently called) were named after the Greek name for the bird apparently. Even Dumbledore of Harry Potter fame had one as a pet. Disregarding the obvious charms such a creature would have; random self-combustion, endless arson possibilities, long bouts of lax petcare while the resurrection phase is on, etc, the phoenix inspires us to cleanse ourselves of the past, purge our old selves through the ritual of soul cleansing fire and be reborn.

Just like an evangelical preacher.

If you could activate the phoenix within how would you go about this holy fire, what would you erase: who would you be without the burden of all that you've seen, all that you've done, all that you've been?

"Cat Among the Pigeons"