Balancing Fire Energy

I have 6 planets in fire signs; four of them in Leo. My sun sign is Leo, and my moon is in Aries - which means I have a strong stubborn streak. I have long attracted a number of Fire sign people in my life, especially powerhouse Shakti-Mama women. We're a challenging bunch of people. I am in love with every fire sign kindred spirit that I have in my life, but there is something about the Fire Sign personality that is so intense and can be so challenging for people to be in relationship with. Sometimes I scorn the Aries energy in me, but it's not going away; you have to love and accept yourself and come to a state of self-knowledge in order to be at peace with oneself and life.Today someone said to me that he sees me as very emotionally detached and reserved. He asked where I was at emotionally, considering I am on the Big Island. He said most people come here to the Big Island and go through a lot of intensity because Pele stirs up so much emotion and fire energy. I then told him about my planets in Fire signs, and that I have a lot of fire energy. I told him that in my best moments in life, I am like the ultimate ADD child on psychedelic fire; I can be a wild, torrential rain of ecstatic Shakti energy - but completely ungrounded and oblivious to everything around me. So, I've been forced to learn to temper my flames and ground my energy, because it's really the only option for day to day living. I've had to cool down and focus on relaxing and cultivating a grounded energy body - it's quite a work in progress, but it's where my intention is. I'm kind of like Pele, with a lot of intense, fire energy stirring within, trying to allow it all to settle down and become hard, dense stone.I think as a tribe, we Fire people struggle with self acceptance because we are so intense, and especially in this world of social conformity and socially enforced patterns around how to behave. We have a hard time because our tendency is to be kind of wild and crazy; we like to be passionately on fire - we live for it, it's who we are when we are in our authenticity. I know that it's true for myself, and I definitely have seen a similar pattern in most of the Fire Sign women friends I have in my life. But it can be kind of emotionally de-stabilizing; it triggers that bipolar emotional / energetic rollercoaster of super highs and super lows. This last year when I was travelling around the country, going from a few weeks in Manhattan to a few weeks working in Northern California to a few weeks processing lots of emotional intensity in Ashland, I realized that I really get off on intensity in life. I like my friends to be intense, and I like my experiences to be intense. And now I am here on the Big Island of Hawaii. Before I came here, everyone told me pretty much the same thing about the Big Island: "The energy there is so intense, Pele is so active, it's an actively volcanic land, so you are constantly immersed in active, intense moving energy. It stirs up a lot of stuff for everybody."So it was interesting to me that today my friend said that I seem so emotionally detached; he doesn't know me that well yet, but it was interesting to see me through his lens. It's almost as though I'm already so naturally at home and in sync with fire energy and processing intensity, that it's nothing new for me. I told him that I've had to consciously choose to cultivate practices that focus on being more embodied, more balanced, more grounded. I've had to choose that over and over again, to be committed to it - because my natural tendency is to be a wild child, at least that used to be the case. There is something, though, about the grounded, nurturing earth energy state that really helps me come into wholeness. It would've been very easy for me to ride the rollercoaster of life at top speed, but my body has forced me to choose a slower, more grounded (and hopefully sustainable) path. The nurturing earth sign personalities are my teachers, like my dear sister Stacy; it's crucial to practice being calm, meditative, cultivating the hearth and home, and choosing a more gentle frequency. There is always this part of me that feels, though, that if I'm not in a wild state of ecstatic trance and channelling tribal, funky, psychedelic energy that I'm not really in myself. But, actually I see both sides of the coin as each aspects of the whole, and blending them is the key to wholeness.I'm grateful for all the reflections I've had in my life of all the Fire Priestess Goddess women in my life. There is something so magnificent about the Fire women; they are unafraid to be themselves, they are fully lit, wild creatures of divine inspiration. They fearlessly create amazing realities and lives for themselves. My friend Ruby is an amazing example and inspiration; she is such a Leo mama - and she has created the most beautiful community home in Portland that I've ever seen. Having been blessed to live there for over a year during its peak, I really got to witness the peak highs that her Fire mama container was able to hold. With wild a wild, jungle yard in the midst of residential, Southeast Portland, with a hot tub, sauna, and cold plunge, plus an art / living studio in the renovated garage, she had pretty much created one of the most primal, visionary oasises I've ever seen in a residential neighborhood in my life. It was a step out of the ordinary, and people came there for amazing gatherings, parties, reiki circles, and backyard sweat & chant sessions. As an artist, she was living the dream, and she is a full on visionary witch priestess. My heart loves her so deeply, and having seen her so fully, I see the reflection of the amazing highs of the Fire energy and the peak lows we go through.The peak lows of the Fire personality are painful. We feel things so intensely and go through our deep dips so deeply that being in the trough of misery, especially when contrasted with what we know we can experience in our peak high ecstatic fire states, creates the feeling of a soul torn apart. It is only with the grounding rod of supportive community and beloveds, that we fiery folks can come to balance.We Fire Sign people are known for more than our passion, though; we are known for our ego, for our self-inflation, for our attention gathering skills, which often comes with a lot of admiration, appreciation, ridicule and judgment. But we have to be authentic; it is who we are. We cannot deny our truth, our authenticity, our passionate fire, any more than we could deny that we are alive. But it is a life frought with judgment; both external and internal. The only way seems to be to be consciously mindful of our mind and relax into self acceptance and being with what is. Thus, I have taken steps to focus on a healing path, rather than a performance / exhibitionist path like the archetypal Leo, Madonna. Because the fire within me wants to do something with it other than gain attention, it wants to gain a feeling of a life lived in service to the divine soul purpose.Discernment, Slowness, Mindfulness, Relaxation and Fewer Distractions; these are the things that are helping me cultivate Balance of my Fire Energies. I'm still working on it, and maybe I will be until beyond death. I do know, though, that my spirit wants to be more grounded, and wants to accomplish things in the material realm to share with other beings in a grounded way, because the spiritual awakening and initiations of cosmic consciousness have already been had, and it's time to share the gifts. Being blessed with Fiery Hot Shakti energy comes with amazing gifts and insights, but I have come to know over the last few years that to ground that spiritual fire into the dense, physical, material world is the most important work for me. It is there that my insights will arise into maturity. Some people need to find transcendance because they've never experienced it; and they don't even believe in it - they are so stuck in their heads and belief systems. But with this fiery, creative, shakti energy - I have known and experienced the ultimate transcendance - and I know that its gift is to feed to the mouth of the holy within all. Thus, I am in stillness, learning to recalibrate, so that I have something of real worth to share.