Full Moon in Aries: Hell on Earth

This Full Moon is blazing with Aries fire! The flames are racing through our lives and our institutions incinerating anything in its path. Aries is the cardinal fire sign representing the purest essence of fire energy. 

Thinking about that leads me to the question: What is fire? Of all the elements, fire is arguably the most mysterious. Earth, Water, Air, they're pretty much constant. But fire, aside from the constantly burning Sun (which has its own mystery) and the solid ball of burning iron at the center of the Earth (also pretty mysterious), has to be created.  

Here's the Wikipedia definition: "Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products." Uh, yeah. I think that what that is saying is that fire isn't really a thing. It's actually a chemical reaction which only comes into existence when conditions are right and goes away when those conditions no longer exist.

When we look at the fires burning through our individual and collective lives, we can see that the tinder has been building for a while. Old clothes that don't fit us anymore. Old masks we no longer wear. Remnants of old lives we used to live, discarded now. They have all been piling up around us. Basically, we've been ignoring them. We've gotten used to having all this clutter around. We just work around it, blissfully ignorant of the danger of having these flammable materials around us, not even thinking that we are setting the stage for the conditions to be right for fire to come into existence.

This Full Moon, we find ourselves suddenly in the middle of a raging conflagration with no idea how we got there. We're in conflict with the people around us with no idea how the argument even started. The projects we have been working are spontaneously on fire, either because they appear to be destroying themselves or because they are taking off in ways we didn't plan for and can't control. Either way, we're in trouble. People and institutions we have counted on are just not there for us, not in the way they used to be, and nothing makes sense anymore. 

In the ensuing confusion and chaos, we realize just how helpless we are. The glaring light and heat reveals how fucked up our lives have become. We quickly get to the point where we say "Fuck it!" and start burning shit up ourselves. After all, what's the point? We were keeping the shit because we were convinced we needed it. We argued and fought to hold on to our shit. Well, it turns out that we were really, really wrong and our lives have literally become hell on earth. Now we feel humiliated and ashamed.

But hold on! Before we throw any more firebombs at each other, we need to realize that we stand to lose everything. Instead of seeing the fire as our enemy, we can see it as the efficient, effective cleanser that it is. This is only possible if we put our narrow, selfish ideas of who we are aside. Like individual flames, we have to be willing to merge our smaller selves into a larger whole. It seems paradoxical but now we save ourselves by losing ourselves.

The fires of change are coming through whether we want them to or not. Believe it or not, we have been preparing for this and we are ready. We gotta trust the process. Now more than ever. Especially since it seems as if everyone has lost their minds and nothing is sacred any more. The same fire that burns at the center of the earth and rises every morning and sets every evening is within us.  We haven't lost control. Once again, we have to surrender to change and trust the Universe. The fire will burn out impurities and when it is no longer needed, it will go away. That is its nature. 

The hell we find ourselves in right now is temporary. The fire is doing its work of cleansing and purifying. Afterward, we will have everything we need to create paradise. Nothing that is real is ever lost.