The Elements - Fire

Today's black friday, so a belated Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you spent the time appreciating what you have in your lives. It's easy to get really caught up in your goals and the things you want for the future without really taking time to like enjoy anything you have NOW. So I hope everyone took a moment to appreciate those things yesterday!

Now getting back to astrology... I'm sure many people are already aware that in western astrology there are four elements. Even if you didn't know that I'm sure you wouldn't have trouble guessing what they are.  The elements are and how they affect the 12 zodiac signs could be called the basics of your personality's DNA. Fire is my favorite. Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius are considered to be the three signs " ruled" by fire. You will see that term in astrology books a lot but I don't really like it. Rather I would say that Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius are the 3 expressions of fire. Fire is passionate. What is passion? On one occassion I was guest speaking at my former high school with a friend who I'd graduated with long ago. He was telling a class about what it was like to pursue art on a college level. As he spoke the gaze in his eyes traveled further and further away. He wasn't looking at the students, or over their heads, he wasn't even in the same room with them. The words he spoke came tumbling out smoother, stronger, as he described the mediums he used and the faces he drew. Public speaking had never been his element but at that moment it didn't matter because he had transcended us and left us all behind. Standing right beside him, I knew even I was gone in his mind and a wave of envy crashed over me. Because the passion for his craft was radiating from him, vibrating through every word. But I couldn't find that passion in myself and I couldn't be lost in the moment with him. I could only stand and watch like the rest of them.  I suppose when put to defining it, passion is a love of something + a tremendous amount of energy seeking an outlet.  In my friend's life the outlet is art, but it can be different things for different people. Passionate people are often a little unpredictable. We can understand this by saying that if their energy is similar to a fire then it's not as simple as an electric light simply being either "on" or " off", instead their intensity flickers and because of that they can be perceived as quick tempered or moody or a little unbalanced.

Now let's think of this as being a scale:
Aries  -   ----------------------- - - - -  - - - - - Leo  - - - - - - - - -   -   -   -   Sagittarius -   -    -    -    -    -    -

Aries :   Intense energy has a more physical and aggressive feel           
Leo:    Intense energy has a more fun, theatrical feel, less aggressive, still in your face.                          Sagittarius:  Intense energy that is less aggressive, less vocal,
                     more like a candle of inspiration, not a bonfire.

It's important to remember that EACH person is a COMBINATION of these 12 signs. No one is just one zodiac sign. This blog is covering the basics first. Because a human being's personality is made up of many traits, some they were born with and some they have learned through their life situations. So each zodiac signs should be viewed as just one gene in your personality's DNA.
Now astrology offers even more ways to understand the intensity levels of each of the fire signs. In astrology there are 3 " modes". They are called cardinal, fixed, and mutable. 

Cardinal =  energy that pushes outward towards others. Aries is the cardinal fire sign. It's energy is a bonfire that is always reaching outward to consume more, have more, and control more.

Fixed = energy that is consistent and this is important - anchored in it's self - Leo is the fixed fire sign. It's energy is a campfire and it's sense of self is strong. It's not as consuming but it will never let it's self be ignored.

Mutable = energy that can shift and change the most. It can change the most because it is the least intense. Sagittarius is the mutable fire sign. It's energy might be over looked because it adapts to situations instead of insisting that it's way is the only way.

I hope you've enjoyed this basic explanation of the fire element in astrology. My next post will reveal the air element and how it pairs with fire elements! This is all leading up to some great astrology for relationships so keep reading!

An Introduction to Astrology

When I was 13 I had a rather strange friend with a very different background than mine. She wasn't my best friend but she was the type of person you never forget. We were both about the same height and build with long red hair. Kristin was the type who leaped without looking and I was the type who never leaped at all for fear of all the things I couldn't control. So here we were, good twin and bad twin, sitting at a lunch table, our attention riveted in an enormous purple book. It was her mother's, that she'd brought into school that day. The pages were yellowed, the corners were folded, and we turned each paper with care as they tried to escape the binding. The book looked so mysterious and important to us that we took it as seriously as if we were opening the tombs of pharaohs for the first time. And in that book were descriptions of all the twelve zodiac signs along with descriptions of the different planets and what they mean in your chart. Kristin and I drew up charts for ourselves with her mother's help. And this became an ongoing theme in our lives for many years. Even when I thought I had exhausted my interest in astrology and even though I hit dead ends and gave up sometimes, eventually I always return to my original fascination with this ancient science.

I've heard astrology described as a pseudoscience. If you're not familiar with the term, it means a fake science! But chemistry is a very real science and all the ideas and innovations in chemistry can be credited to ancient people's fascination with the idea of alchemy. Ancient alchemists were obsessed with the idea that they could turn ordinary substances into gold. Their thinking was that all things in the world are made of the same little pieces, and if they could just rearrange those pieces then they could make anything into what they wanted it to be. That sounds a lot like wizards and magic but it is also the founding principle of chemistry. Every thing in the world IS made of the same elements. Rearranging them is far harder than ancient alchemists could've ever dreamed but the concept was still true. And I would like to suggest the same thing about astrology. I believe that the methods astrology uses are outdated and no one can dispute the fact that the stars HAVE changed since the ancient Babylonians were looking at them. However, I believe that the underlying principle to astrology is that the time and place of a person's birth is an indication of their personality, their relationships with other, and to a MUCH smaller extent, their destiny. I know a lot of people don't believe in destiny and I'm not out to prove that it exists. The truth is that when your life seems unremarkable you want to tell yourself that you were " born for greater things" but then when you feel like you're stuck in an awful pattern where bad things keep happening you tell yourself " I'm the master of my own destiny! I decide" Funny thing isn't it?  People are rarely happy or satisfied, and when they do manage it, they don't like to stay that way for long.

So here's what this has to do with astrology the way I see it.... weather you believe you have an ultimate destiny or not, most of you will probably agree that your life has a pattern to it. The pattern may be subtle or it could be very obvious. These patterns probably happen because of the similarities in the decisions you've made over the course of your life. These similarities are a representation of your personality and where you are on your personal journey of emotional development. I'll talk more about all of these things later but for now I will wrap up the point. Astrology helps you understand your personality and your personality is what causes you to make similar decisions throughout your life, and so it can help you understand the destiny you are going to make for yourself, through your own actions.