Faith And Collective Trauma 14

I have long been interested in the elements: not the elements of the periodic table but the traditional elements of classical antiquity: fire, earth, air and water. I have also long been intrigued by astrology. I perhaps do not take this pseudo-science as seriously as some, but I am not about to debunk it either. There are parallels and they are more frequent than mere coincidence. I am thinking here both of western, or occidental, and of eastern, or Chinese or oriental astrology. I tend to take these things with a grain of salt, neither am I prepared to take seriously my daily horoscope, even if I do read it sometimes, more for entertainment value. In my case, I am a Pisces. My element is water. I have many classic Piscean traits and qualities: spiritual, intuitive, psychic, highly sensitive, compassionate and empathic, creative. I was also born in the year of the Fire-Monkey, 1956: I have higher than average intelligence, I am analytical, crafty, an excellent communicator, and bold to the point of being reckless. All those things make sense in the alchemy of Aaron. However, I want to focus on my two governing elements: fire and water. This makes for a curious combination, because fire is put out by water, which also produces steam and energy. And fire causes water to evaporate. Fire was discovered and first used by protohumans, when? I just asked Uncle Google. It could be as long ago as one million years or longer that our ape-like ancestors were first cozying around a campfire munching on antelope on a stick, or whatever they might have been cooking. This makes us and our less distant ancestors the only animal in this planet's history to have actually harnessed fire and its energy for our own use. We learned how to cook, making meat more palatable and adaptable to our predominantly vegetarian diet. It also provided us with heat and warmth, making it possible for us to venture into colder climates and thrive there. It also provided us with a source of light to frighten off night predators and give us an excuse to stay up late. We didn't have TV so we invented and told stories instead. In ancient Greek mythology fire is also the gift of the Titan god Prometheus to humans, for which infraction he was condemned by Zeus to be chained to a rock on a mountain face forever as a vulture visited him each day to feast on his perpetually regenerating liver. And this discovery of fire was, of course, the beginning of the end for our Mother earth. We owe to this little convenience our current crisis of global warming and climate change. Could this be why Zeus and the other gods of Olympus were so pissed-off at Prometheus? It wasn't that they didn't want those newfangled humans to do well. ?Rather, they knew that we would lack the foresight to know what our dandy new convenience of fire would end up doing to the planet, and we were really too selfish to care. We still haven't changed that much, have we Gentle Reader? We are more aware of the problem than before, but don't get too optimistic while after wringing your hands and whimpering over the fate of our planet and our species because of our short-sighted selfishness, you suddenly change gears and start grumbling again about the high cost of gas as you get into your SUV and drive to the mall. Yep. You're sad, alright. Real, real sad.