The controlled burn

My temperature always runs hot. I am, after all, a sun-sign daughter of Aries with Mercury, Venus and Saturn all right there beside her. I see them crowded on the couch like a proud family whose raucous laughter you can hear through the photos. I know what it is to burn bright and thrive in it. But lately, I've yearned for a hearth more than a sprawling wildfire.

We're a few days out of a Mercury retrograde, a few weeks out of a tumultuous eclipse season, and only now setting foot into the first sign of the year - back again for another round to unfold into the great mystery. It doesn't feel like a fresh start so much as a kick to the behind and an ushering in before anyone's had time to fix their hair or tuck in their shirts. I can feel the intensity of the moment humming constantly, unwavering under my skin. I'm already sweating. The temperature has now spiked.

It's a strategy to get through the moment, I tell myself: The intensity is needed. The fire can never die. There is simply too much to get done.

The wiser part of me knows that's bullshit, but she's quiet right now.

Here is the problem with being the kind of person who wants to care about everything: Fire doesn't know how to prioritize. If we let the flame grow high enough to light up the whole world - to feel the pain of strangers across the ocean, the needs of our loved ones, the dusting of our baseboards, decluttering of closets, and the healing of our inner child all with the same heat - the fire eventually stops being a source of warmth. It catches the edges of our clothes, and the grass, and the trees. It becomes untenable. We cannot stop it.

I saw this digital art piece recently that I haven't stopped thinking about - a woman going about her day with a straight face, but she's on fire. She's in the shower and there's fire burning on her back. She's on the metro sat by an older gentleman, and the flames lick the metal ceiling. She's laying in bed on her side, staring into the phone screen, and the fire trails down her torso and legs. It never leaves her. She is always burning and can't do much about it. She is me, and it hurts. She and I are at the point where if the fire continues much longer, it's going to be irreparable. It's going to catch and destroy the things we would never want it to - the relationships, the job, the home, the future.

And this piece made me realize something else, something a little sadder: I'm currently drawing the line of fire at my own expense. I'm okay with it destroying me as long as it doesn't go any further. And that's a form of self-sabotage I've not yet learned to contend with. It's always been normal.

You know how they say the world is a mirror, or that you are the universe having a human experience? I think both phrases mean essentially the same thing, and I see it applied here. I feel the connection to the greater world through this constant burning. I’ve spent a lot of time recently looking at my friends over coffee, the wind finally feeling warm for the first time since October, and saying, “You know what? I think everything’s gonna be okay.” It’s a joke, mostly. We laugh in response. It’s a sarcastic shield against a world that is quite literally, and figuratively, on fire.

But it’s also a confession. I want it to be okay. I want to be able to sit on the porch and let the fact sink in that this very moment is safe. I'm laughing with my friends at the café, I'm walking home in the rain without an umbrella, I'm going on a sunset bike ride over the bridge to dinner, I'm exchanging silly gifts and having long distance phone calls. I'm safe. There is no fire to put out here. I want this to be enough.

The logical answer is that we can’t care about everything at 100% intensity. We just can’t. The physics of the soul won't allow it. And yet, I find myself terrified of the alternative.

I’m scared that if I "tamp it down" too much, I’ll accidentally extinguish the pilot light. I’m scared that if I stop burning for the big, impossible things, I’ll forget how to burn at all. I don’t want to be cold. I don’t want to be "balanced" if balance means indifference. I want to stay a part of the song, even if the song is loud. I want to feel the fire, even if it hurts.

I want, and need, to try a different approach. In forestry, they set a small, intentional fire to clear the dry brush so that the whole forest doesn't go up in flames later. It’s counterintuitive - using the thing that destroys to actually preserve. But indigenous cultures have practiced this for centuries, maybe longer, so we know that it works. They were stewards of the land and masters at the craft, but with the stifling of their livelihoods came the quieting of their knowledge until it became a lost art altogether. The controlled burn is something that we are only now slowly, collectively relearning how to do.

And as the world is a mirror, I find myself in the same place. I’m learning to corral the fire back into its center, to then look at the internal flame and ask: What needs to be heated right now, and what is just catching fire because I’m standing too close? I'm willing it to be softer. Not to burn, just to warm. Maybe I don't need to save everyone today. Maybe today, the heat is just for the grades I have to enter, for playing with the cat, and for admiring the specific way the sunlight hits my face at 5pm. Tomorrow it can be for waking up earlier, for calling a friend I haven't talked to in a while. Maybe "being a leader" means knowing when to turn the gas down so we don't melt the crucible we're working in. Knowing what to burn and burn for.

The requirements of life haven't changed, and neither have my intentions. I want to care about everything, and I hope I always will. But I’m trying to forge a relationship with this heat that doesn't end in ashes. I’m trying to stay warm without wasting away.