Fire and Ice. Why? Because...
we happened upon something written long ago we'd totally forgotten
The lovely French and Finnish astrologer Michelle Karen sent this out. “Today as Mars goes retrograde, the last time Mars, which is only retro every two years, will start its apparent backward motion against the background of the fixed stars on December 6th, 2024 until February 23rd, 2025 when it will become direct again. The last time this event occurred in Leo and Cancer, was between December 20th, 2009 and March 10th, 2010. We may WANT TO REMEMBER what was going on in our lives at that time to get an idea on what might happen again now.”
Hence, how and why I came upon the pieces below I wrote at the end of 2009, when my father still had more than seven years of life on this earth.
FIRE
Nacho, the Argentinian polo player, now famous as the handsome hunk on Ralph Lauren's Polo ads told Oprah that when he rides he becomes one with the horse. Being that he changes horses eight times during a match, that's a lot of effort at merging together with another in order to become one. I need only merge with myself. For my writing. But that is challenge enough.
Tonight, Dad started in again on me, "Have you written your 500 words today?" Upon answering “no” he questioned me further. "Then what was it in you that made it okay for you to sit down and watch Oprah?" The entire conversation lasted from 8:05 to 9:27. At one point we were tearing each other’s head off. Mom kept threatening to leave the call, "This is exhausting. I have to go." But she never did click off. He kept talking about Bad Lisa, about the rebel in me, about how I needed to be more disciplined.
I listened. I always listen. Then I responded. "My whole life I've been told I need to be more disciplined. All through my Berkeley education Lizzie said I wasn't disciplined enough. All my life I've beat myself up because I didn't live up to my potential. I didn't work hard enough. No matter what I did accomplish, there was much I didn't get to and therefore no reward was deserved, no break from the pressure, no resting on my laurels.
It wasn't until Lisa Hill told me that because my chart is all fire, discipline doesn't really work for me. “You put a raging fire in a house and it won't stay contained within its walls. It will eat up everything flammable and much that isn't within.” I started waxing philosophically to those two beloveds on the other end of the phone about how I am like fire.
With four planets in Sagittarius, the major personal planets of Sun, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter. All fire. On top of that my rising sign, which is described as the sign you look like to others, is in Aries. Another fire sign. The Big 5. I'm almost half fire, never mind how much air, water, or earth I have elsewhere. So, when I tell myself I should be producing, my abundant fire, which could heat food for millions starts to burn around my edges and exhaust me as I try to put it out. Instead of squelching the fire, I must tame it. I must seduce it, not numb it. I must use my head wisely, as do firefighters when being paid to protect valuable structures from the force of Mother Nature.
I can hate myself because I'm all fire. I'm constantly having to watch that I don't explode. It doesn't take much to instigate my rising up. Very little starter fluid and with one spark, I'm ablaze. Yet, for all the danger living with this entails, there are benefits. This is also the part of me that can talk to almost anyone, when I really want to do so, and melt the ice that has built up around their soul and immobilized their spirit. Within minutes, they speak to me of thoughts and feelings they haven't shared with anyone ever.
Mom said, "Oh Lisa. I've never heard you speak like that. Can't you write that up? That is so true about you. I've seen you do it repeatedly. Can't you just ask the part of you that fights you to step aside for a few minutes so you can type this?"
ICE
I have a persecution complex. I'm afraid of speaking my truth. I don't believe in mainstream. I'm not impressed with fluff or fun or fanfare. I don't care about fashion. I won't dye my hair in order to be more attractive, more noticeable. I also won't wear my hair long because it is inconvenient for and irritating to me. Regardless of how many more men like long hair than short hair, I won't grow it again. I last grew it when my baby brother died. Two years of agony is how long it took me to be able to bend over, twirl it into a bun and stick a chopstick through it. That's what my goal had been. Two weeks later, I cut it all off. That was in 1995.
People before a certain date in history (?) were told to never discuss sex, politics or religion in mixed company. There are taboo subjects that will always split the room in half. They are the forbidden subjects because there are social codes one must respect when part of society. Yet, that which we shouldn't talk about is about the only thing my selective listening can focus on.
Mundane gibberish about daily routines bores me to tears. Focusing on weather, hem lines, or what respectable considers worthy makes me shout, "Scotty, Beam Me Up!" So, I was telling the folks about this complex of mine... that I'm taping American Nazi this week because I feel I must become aware of it, that it could happen again at any time and that I then found an article in the New York Times today about a Nazi group stirring up and getting noticed. Whether it was putting Joan of Arc into the flame, or forever tattooing Jong the Poet as the originator of the "Zipless Fuck," women and men have been murdered for their strong stand on life. This isn't because what they said was wrong. It is because there are those who live to lynch.
Not empowered in their own lives, what excites these folks, and motivates them to move is the glee they get when attacking others. In kindergarten we are told that the mean kids put others down to make themselves feel better. That sticks and stones can break... you get it. But words do hurt. I fear words of attack, or criticism, or ridicule. I fear putting myself out there. Displaying who I am and what I feel. Yet so often as I skulk through life, as I hide in corners, there is always someone there listening to me saying, "You've got to write this. You are not alone. You speak what others cannot articulate for themselves."
Then there is Group Think... how numbers coordinate, why most people follow instead of lead, why it is easier to go after someone else rather than step on the path of light oneself. It is hard to govern oneself. It is difficult to distinguish what is God given talent and what skills truly give beyond what is rewarded with money. If I can melt others, why can't I melt myself? Consistently. Why must I care what happens to this mortal frame? Why let words hurt me? Why care what people think? If the satisfaction is in getting it out. If I stop tearing my inner forearms with jagged nails when the words finally start tumbling onto the page, why does it matter what anyone else has to say about it?
the next morning so stop pushing me, pretty please with sugar on top
A dog was barking incessantly three hours and thirty-five minutes after I finally fell asleep. I was desperately trying to hold onto the last dream image - a burrito made for me and what was said to me as it was handed to me on a plate.
Breaking through consciousness, the noise ripping me out of the dream state and away from my luscious gift burrito. The barking took me right back to the sharp pain, now of regret, from having the conversation last night between my father and myself. We fought again like we had just before I got into therapy, before I got used to the idea of healing what had apparently been hijacked.
My father and I had been so close early on. I idolized him. Wait... before that I compared him with another friend's father and thought the other friend's father was better (better looking). I think I was eight then.
But by the time I was a teenager, my Dad could do no wrong. I could talk to my dad. He was always there for me if I needed his ear or his mind or his hands to help. I don't remember fighting with him much when I was living in their house. I didn't start fighting with him until after that Father Daughter Dinner Dance during which I fell on my head as a result of him slipping as he dipped me down during a particularly creative and heart felt flourish.
But I'm letting the moment slip away. This sharp pain of regret was that I'd let my anger rise up, that I got busy while describing my fire within that I've learned fairly well how to keep semi-calm and in talking about it the flame rose steadily and soon embers were being carried by the wind through the phone line and starting to singe his bald head. Regret I caused him anguish, feelings of rejection, that ache in the heart which makes one want to retreat not make up and play again
Yet sitting there that swift hit of inspiration rang through. Just as quickly as I was thinking about calling to apologize again in order to make amends for hurting his heart, came the thought that the reason he is pushing again so hard ISN’T FOR ME... it's for himself. He's feeling his own mortality. Every day his spinal stenosis seems to be getting tighter and more uncomfortable. Every day he is dealing with complications from ailments that make walking after a few minutes, such a challenge because his legs just go numb. Every day he realizes he's had more than half a life that he never thought he'd have. He thought he'd die at 37.5. He's now 77. He wants to enjoy my success with me NOW and thinks if only I could do things the way he does things I'd achieve my goals and get good results quicker.
It's not that I don't want good results quicker. Who wouldn't? It's that I've learned what works for me. I've learned how to seduce my muse. Demanding doesn't cut it, enforcing doesn't either, and reprimanding certainly doesn't help in the long run.
What helps is encouragement, understanding, patience and the knowing that when feeling less threatened the muse/voice within flows like a river, almost effortlessly down the stream of blood vessels and nerves onto the page.
The reason I get mad and perhaps the reason he is pushing hard now... is because of all those years when we were fighting. I wanted him to be behind me then, the way he is behind me now. But he wouldn't do it. I was hurt and angry and my rage at him for not understanding what I needed became so big I could hardly see anything else. Perhaps, really subconsciously, he feels guilt about all the years I was in agony, broken that he'd let me down, that he didn't believe in me or believe in my talent enough to stand behind me. And so, he pushes, trying to help me break through while he's still alive so he can live vicariously through me, enjoying my full flowing and readily received writing of words. Maybe that's what it is.
Maybe my writing this is apology enough. I hope so.
Now with solitude I’d always needed but found difficult to attain when they both needed me so much, I hear and feel what had been hidden amidst the angst of the moments when pushed to limits I didn’t know I had or knew how to defend.
So many gems in this piece. I particularly appreciate the profound idea of merging with one’s self. Pulling together the various parts of our Selves is essential to the creative process, even the creative process of living. Also, “… there are those who live to lynch.“ Wow. you are in the zone, Lisa!