A discussion on Fire

Sun: 24'Gemini
Moon: 29'Leo

A burst of colorful flowers in the sky, fading away in smoke trails just before another illuminates the night.  A campfire crackling merrily away, toasting your marshmallows, before it escapes the confines of its coals and transforms into a raging wildfire.  A volcano spewing embers into the storm it generates to wreathe its own summit in rainless lightning a la Etna, or fountaining smooth streams of heavy basalt into the sea as Kilauea so iconically does  A candle, steady or flickering in the wind.  The scent of bread baking in the oven and meat roasting on the barbecue.  The light by which you read these words.  The fury of the nuclear fusion at the heart of the warm sunlight on your skin (and the painful red burn it may leave after)...

These are some of the physical manifestations of Fire.

Earth may give us form and Water life, Air is breath (or death).  But no element has brought people together again and again the way that Fire does.  It is as beautiful as it is dangerous, tough to contain but impossible to live without.
Fire is fundamentally different than the other three classical elements in that in order to survive, it must consume at least two of the others, transforming them in the process, and finds itself the mortal enemy of the third (in practice - though we will come back to this). 

Fire also finds it easy to shapeshift itself from one form to another - usually from a contained form (such as a lava flow or an improperly-grounded or unshielded wire to open flame), often with destructive and even deadly results.  It is a disloyal servant at best, the ultimate Trickster archetype, requiring constant supervision to ensure safety yet unbelievably useful when its power is harnessed correctly.

Fire is so changeable, in fact, that it is not even agreed within the Pagan community on which of the Elemental Weapons he is associated with - some say the Wand, some say the Sword/Athame.  There is merit to both sides of the argument: a Wand is an inherently phallic object, usually crafted of wood but symbolic of the great creativity that Fire sparks.  A Dagger or a Sword is forged of molten Earth, flowing as Water, tempered by Air and Water and more Fire, until it is cooled in a shape that usually resembles a frozen flame itself.  In magick, the Wand is more often used to invoke and direct: the Sword is the symbol of command and the power, if necessary and appropriate, to coerce, and the Athame is a minor form of that.  (I prefer associating Fire to the Athame for these reasons.)

Nor can it be agreed on where Fire should stand in the circle: some say East, with the sunrise.  Some say South, with the fullness of Summertime's heat, and those from the Southern Hemisphere may be fully justified in placing him in the North - the direction of Summer and the Tropics from there. Rarely do I come across justification to place him in the West: usually it's a regional/cultural thing when I do see it, as a Witch in Texas might well do to respect the deserts to her West and the Gulf waters to her East.  I am not advocating a unification of views on this - in fact, I do think it quite impossible, but the diversity of views adds to the strength and the beauty of the Craft.

Fire is red and gold and purple and blue: it is passion that creates, passion that consumes and destroys.  It is fury and rage and anger: it is the call to action, the force and motion, and the courage and the drive of competition, and yes, it is passion in the form of the sex drive as well.  It is Fire-in-Earth that created the paradise under the tropical Sun we call Hawai'i, and it is Fire-in-Earth that drives the unstoppable motion of the tectonic plates.  It is Light that shows the clear path, though it can cast shadows that distort - the brighter the light, the darker the shadows.  It is a tool of war.  It is the symbol of knowledge (the Norse rune "Ken" or "Kenaz" - representing Knowledge, means "torch" - which puts a whole different spin on the old witch burnings though the Inquisition almost certainly didn't mean it that way!)  It is the spark of life, the element that we are drawn back to like moths again and again throughout our lives, and for some it is the means by which we pass out of this life and on to the next.  It is the breath of the Gods.

In the astrological chart, Fire, as all four elements do, has three representations: Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable.  In Cardinal form, Fire is Aries, the Ram who once grew the Golden Fleece that Jason and Medea defeated a fire-breathing dragon to steal.  It is not lost on me that that name, minus an "i", becomes Ares - the god of War, and indeed it is His Roman counterpart Mars who rules this sign.  It is appropriate enough: watch male bighorn rams in early spring in the Rockies, when it gets towards mating season: they will butt heads with one another with great force.  In part it is mating conflict - in part, it is to keep warm, as the kinetic energy from the impacts travels throughout the bodies of both rams and translates into heat.  This symbolism draws attention to the head, and the forehead in particular: it was a clever man who popularized the glyph for Aries, so many centuries ago, as something that resembles both a male sheep's long face surmounted by horns and the human nose-eyebrow configuration!  Is it any wonder, then, that the natives of this sign have a tendency to rush in without always planning first, and that things begun under this sign (or during the Moon's transit here) tend to take off rather quickly?  Mating and battle - love and war.  "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."  Handle this energy carefully, it can get out of hand.

The phrase about March (a month named for Mars, and reflected in the "martial" command meaning "Go forward!") coming in like a lamb and going out like a lion is mildly incorrect, for while the end-of-March storms are often fierce, it is the Ram that rules them and not the Lion!

Leo the Lion takes over in the fullness of Summer's heat, after gentle Water sign Cancer has led into the season of Fire (I have not yet puzzled out the meaning of the cosmic joke in that), and it is during the Sun's transit of the Great Cat of the Sky that the mighty hunter Orion rises, with Sirius at his heels to herald the "dog days" of summer.  You know them, I'm sure - depending on where you are, the driest of dry heat that seems to suck the water right out of you as fast as you can drink it, or the sweltering humidity that leaves one hiding in the air-conditioning when sweating doesn't work anymore.  Not surprising, as the Sun itself rules directly at this time.  Yet in ancient times, these hottest-of-hot days, in the desert no less, were the beginning of the planting season as the great Nile River overflowed its banks to deposit a new layer of rich black earth in place of the sea of unforgiving red sand.  Duality rules here: this is Hathor of the cow's head, mother of Horus by Old Kingdom lore, placidly ruling the land as it prepares to unroll another harvest - and it is Sekhmet, the unforgiving Lioness, whose bloody rampage through the villages of mortals was only stopped by a great deal of blood-red beer.  They are one and the same - and they BOTH wear the Solar Disk.  The warning is clear: the Sun may nurture, or it may kill.  Be warned.

Apollo is another Solar deity, revered by both the Greeks and the Romans.  As the god of Light, he has no shadow, and no Shadow can survive His arrows.  Above each of his temples was famously inscribed, "Know Thyself," which is an injunction that each person must eventually come to terms with the Shadow side of their own personality.  He is also, interestingly, the God of Music - his chosen instrument is the Lyre (which also is its own constellation).  Perhaps this is a subtle reason why all stringed instruments are said to belong to Fire?

Leap forward another four months and join Chiron, the Centaur, in cooler weather (or warmer if one happens to be wintering south of the Equator).  Here he is known as Sagittarius, the Cosmic Archer, and here our gazes are lifted from our own genetic survival (Aries) through the survival of the ego (Leo) to the legacies that we will create.  Cold these fires seem, burning away in the vastness of space: many cultures viewed the stars as the spirits of those who have passed before us.  It is in Sagittarius that we find the Galactic Center (28') and our search for That Which Is Greater.  Higher education, higher philosophy, a greater understanding of the Divine, or at least our place within this crazy world, and a better feeling of grace and generosity towards one another as the days grow colder and we see the abundance which we have to make it through the winter with: all fall under the auspices of Jupiter now.  (Why Christmas, the ultimate in family gatherings, is celebrated during cold, calculating Capricorn and not during jovial Sagittarius, I am not sure - but it does say something about how that holiday has been so easily co-opted by Madison Avenue.)

Zeus/Jupiter is the King of the Gods, and the King of Heaven (as his brothers Hades/Pluto and Poseidon/Neptune are Kings of the Earth/Underworld and the Sea, respectively).  His weapon is the thunderbolt - lightning, known to superheat the atmosphere to the temperature of the Sun as it flashes.  And he is infamous for his infidelity (the Greeks must have thought it a great joke that the Great Philanderer would be married to the Goddess of Fidelity).  Fortune is fickle and so is the flame, no matter how brightly it burns.