The Fire has always burned brightly within me when I was a younger man; raw, violent, untamed, and ready to be channelled into something worthwhile.
Those that have felt the fire before will understand the longing it gives to be doing something worthwhile -- for me that was working three jobs at once and living life to the fullest.
Well, maybe just a bit too full!
But, those of you that have been touched by the fire will know the flame inside as it burns and channels your energy into busyness.
Building something like a community or a gathering, or busy creating something -- like a blog or a picture.
I was always busy, the fire has always burned brightly within me.
I was the first awake as a young boy. Whenever I stayed over at friends houses sometimes it would take an eternity for them to wake up.
But there's forever been a gentleness to my fire. As the flame burns raw, there's a side in me which cares.
Most kids would have jumped on their mates bed at 7am and slapped them about to wake them up, me? No, I'd sit around and read a book and wait on them waking up. Sometimes that'd be not until 11am.
I was scalded as a child for this gentleness that I had. Taught that it wasn't the mark of a true man, whatever a true man was, but in the 80's it was someone that fells thick trees with their bare hands -- and I was not this man.
I was.. different.
Passionate, but caring, bold, but anxious, raw, but gentle.
I was a marriage between two opposites.
My family have described this as a kind of sickness. My mum did, anyway.
She didn't directly say this but alcoholism was deeply embedded into my family tree.
They knew that alcoholism was going to come for me at one point, and they tried everything in their power to stop it. But the day soon came where I took to the bottle and washed it away, yes.
As my father did, and his father before him did.
I do not judge them now like I used to though because I understand the fire takes no prisoners; if you aren't prepared, don't have a guide or a teacher then it will just absolutely consume you.
I had no teacher, no guide, my fire was raw, untamed, unguided.
The same as my parents.
To master the opposites you need to truly master both sides -- the masculine and the feminine. The fire and the water. The Sulphur and The Mercury.
I was taught that the gentle side of me was a bad thing -- by literally most of the men I've ever met in my life apart from a few.
I'm also not sure why.
Most of the men I've ever looked up to in my life have been carrying the same elements as I have, my uncle, my friends -- all carry the feminine as much as they do the masculine.
Perhaps this is the trick of the machine; for the machine knows that those who channel the opposites cannot be controlled.
It controls an army of the dead to convince, subdue, and whisper distraction into the ears of those that can't be controlled, and by force if necessary.
Life was tough for me as a young boy. I'll leave it as that.
You can just imagine a gentle young boy running around picking daisy's with the girls could get his ass kicked from all the rough boys!
Yet, that is part of life.
I am now fully aligned with both masculine and feminine and have created a place of harmony for those that wish to seek out a fuller life; one with emotion, joys, happiness, pain, sadness -- it is all those which are the spice of life.
Do not run from the burn.
Embrace it.
And be fuller because of it!
Like I have become.
Be different
Like me.