No one gets through this life unscathed. The levels of scathing vary, of course, but there is no single human among us who does not end up with scars, inside and out.
Sometimes, we carry scars. And sometimes, they carry us.
The goal when you are badly scarred, badly wounded, is to heal yourself enough inside and out so that you may be seen through them, instead of for them. Speak to any burn victim, and they will assuredly tell you, this is their dream… to once again be seen as the person underneath. To not be forever defined by the fire.
That is a warrior’s true journey.
We all have fires that forge us. They make us malleable, foldable, bendable, shapeable. They reinforce us. It is one of the times when solid becomes liquid, able to be shaped into a form that carries more precision and purpose. It is an opening for the deepest kind transformation.
All the hardest times in our lives carry this opportunity within them.
But, becoming molten is not the transformation. If metal remains in the fire, it carries no more strength than water.
The true transformation requires a final step: quenching.
To become this new thing, to once again embody a form that is functional, purposeful, and solid… cooling is required. Releasing the heat is the final step.
My own first “smithing” taught me this lesson. And I would like to share it with you here, in hopes that it can yield some insights about the temperture at which we currently find our world, and our youth.
When I was seventeen, the first boy I ever loved chose to die. Over the course of the next year, four other friends followed him in that choice. It’s called a “suicide cluster.”
To me, it felt as if I was caught under breaking waves in the ocean. Every time I managed to fight my way to the surface, and gasp for air, another giant landed on my head and spun me back below.
It was happening with such regularity, and I was so broken by it, that there came a point where those around me began expecting me to die as well. Faith was lost in my strength. I don’t believe I had much faith in it myself, until I began to see others looking at me as if it was gone, with no expectation that it should ever return.
At that time, I was entirely molten. Raw, formless, burning. No one dared touch me without gloves. Without an implement. I was considered a dangerous, highly unstable element.
I could see it in all of their faces, and from the things they used to expect of me which suddenly, they didn’t anymore. That state granted me endless permission to be destructive. To burn in any direction. After all, I had an excuse. Who could blame me? I was barely more than a child, and had already buried a mate. Arguably, your first love is where you catch fire to begin with. This would have been reason enough to be ablaze.
After losing four more friends to their own violence, in quick succession, people didn’t know how to comfort me anymore. Or even talk to me. Or predict me. I had… unlimited permissions.
There was something intoxicating about that. I remember how tempting it was to stay there, where my ferocious pain granted me such a wild and primal freedom.
But, eventually, even wildfire grows weary.
I was running out of things to consume. And, I missed seeing the things in people’s eyes that I used to see when they looked at me. I missed them expecting other things from me than pain. I missed them asking me about college plans. I missed their high standards for me, the expectations that used to annoy me, back when I was someone who was considered whole. I missed the feeling of being an equation that included a future, rather than a sum of my past. I wanted to be back on the left side of the “=”.
So, I said “fuck you” to all the bystanders waiting for my obituary.
I took the next step, and poured myself into a mold. At that time, it was the only mold I could think of:
“I will be the girl who survived this.”
One day, I told myself, “I am going to look back at this and a year will have passed. Then, one day, it will be five years. Then ten.”
Ten… the thought of breathing all the way to ten years, when I made this declaration… it felt like an eternity.
It has now been twenty three. A span of time I could not even conceive of, then. It was longer than I had even been alive.
So, to make myself something beyond raw liquid fire, I poured myself into the mold marked “SURVIVOR.” It was the only one I could find. This is true for many, in the state I was then.
Often, we must define ourselves thru survivorhood first, to get out of the state of active wounding.
It was my life raft. I would be the “one who made it.” I would have some kind of form again.
This saved me for living. This allowed me to be in a new phase. I could feel the power of walking with it. There was an inherent respect afforded to me, for simply breathing. I still didn’t need to meet many actual expectations, or even really do much of anything notable. Being there, past this thing, was my accomplishment. I felt like people respected me for it, and that I had significance.
But even though I had form, I was still defined by the heat. By my fire. By the mold of my pain. Without it, I had no edges of my own.
In true Saturnian fashion, it took about seven years for me to desire true solidity. I knew that, if I was to be a thing of purpose, of actual use, I had to release the mold. Release the heat. I had to let go of being defined by my pain, by my injury, by my trauma.
That was… hard.
It was the thing I used for survival, for significance, for definition… I had relied on my pain for so long, I didn’t know who I would be without it. I didn’t know if I would be useful, or impressive, or solid, or worthy in people’s eyes. I was uncertain. I was afraid to let it go.
But, eventually, I did. Because somehow I knew, the last step of surviving a thing is actually healing it, and learning how to live beyond being a wounded creature. I had to reclaim who I was without it. It was time for my rebirth.
So, I quenched myself.
I told myself, “Enough. I’m whole. I am healed. I am sovereign. I am more than my mold. I am more than my fire. I am finished setting, and now I am a blade. I have my own integrity, I no longer need something else to hold me together. I am sharp, I am defined.”
And, as a blade, I set out to find what I was going to fight for. I was defined by my purpose, by my future, and I wanted to find the call of myself. The Sovereign one.
I am grateful to say, I have found many callings and quests since that decision.
I’ve also gone back into fires, I have remelted, refolded, reshaped… but, it’s never again taken me so long to remember the final and most crucial step… the Quench. The healing. The releasing. The reclaiming of my own wholeness. My birthing into a new form.
I worry, today, about what I am seeing in this World Forge we are in.
I see so many people choosing not to release the fire, and completely forgetting that there is definition beyond it. There seems to be an addiction to being molten.
I recognize it. I remember it.
People are so defined by their wounding, all around us. And, I worry deeply about that. I worry about the messages it is sending.
I worry about telling the young that they only matter if they are bleeding.
After all, bleeding things don’t live for very long.
I see more and more people who are perfectly whole seeking ways to bleed, fires to throw themselves into, because they don’t think they are special if they aren’t ablaze.
Damn… this is a dangerous thing.
If we are to turn this tide, we must start teaching people how to quench, how to heal. We must reemphasize how it is special, and powerful, to be whole. To be well. To have edges which don’t need holding. To NOT be in pain.
We must remember, together, that true purpose is defined by what you are fighting for, and not what you are fighting against.
Because, if you define yourself by your enemy, then you will never allow yourself to have victory. You are not invested in the other side of war.
And there will never be a reason for you to seek peace.
Peace, healing, cooling, quenching… We must find a way to make these things as significant as burning, raging, and warring. The latter is unsustainable.
Let’s once again see one another beneath our scars, let’s show the younger generation how much that matters.
Let’s find a way to do this. Look into the future, and together let’s think about what will happen if we are the first generation to raise children who do not understand that peace is the purpose, and that the goal is not to forever be burning.
Looking back at my younger self now, I don’t want to think about who I might have become had I not learned that lesson.
To do this, we need to lead by example. We need to reach out to one another, engage with one another, have the integrity to hold different edges and yet not be in battle. We must find the courage speak our minds and hearts without claiming them to cut, and hear one another without claiming to be bleeding. We must remember that we are made of iron, not glass.
If we can learn to do that, maybe we can remember that hurting is not what makes us special.
Healing is.
There was a comment question from someone, which seems to be deleted now, but I thought I'd leave the answer here anyway!
The question was about my reference to "Saturnian fashion" and the term of 7 years.
This is one of these things that, being a professional astrologer, I often forget people don't know!
The asker quite correctly indicated that the full transit of Saturn going all the way back to where it was at birth is about a 30 year cycle (closer to 28), and that is when people have a "Saturn return" and often change their lives quite drastically in some way.
But the seven year reference is to the Saturn squares- when saturn in the sky is at 90 degrees or 180 degrees from where it was at birth.
These times often present a challenge to overcome or desire to change as well. Looking at these points in someone's chart and referencing the years in which the squares happened often shows them to be significant years in the life of the person. In relationships, often the 7th year can be a bit this way too, which is where the term "7 year itch" comes from. Some say that a relationship isn't really solid until the 8th year. Of course, that varies, but it's interesting to see how many couples it holds truth for.
Anyway, to whoever asked the question, I hope that helps and I'm happy to answer any follow ups! Be well!