When Water is at its strongest, Fire is weak. This is yin and yang; a cycle without end. The Fire Rat month emphasizes these elemental interactions.

Water tends to dampen our faith in things turning out right. We lose optimism. Do we stick or split? Do we give up and start over or stay the course? In extreme cases there’s a temptation to give ourselves permission to force things. We are impatient to escape the pain of not knowing what the outcome will be or the possibility of being wrong.

These are questions and feelings we want to avoid, yet even in difficult times there is at least one thing that is going right. What is yours? Is there more than one? Finding these things, however small, provides the Wood that you can use to keep your Fire going. As I like to say in moments of frustration and/or celebration: sh*t adds up.

I think faith has to do with Fire: our faith in it coming back each day with the rising sun. We have faith that summer will come and we will be able to grow our crops again. There’s faith that comes from being warm; from being warmed by food, touch, light, art, performance, music and words. For better or worse, we want to reinforce our faith with things we can see. That’s not always an option.

In this cycle of years, Fire becomes scarce and therefore a valuable resource, but you can’t hoard Fire – can you? It’s a lot like Water that way. You can influence it but only timing might allow you to believe you can control it.

The imbalance of Fire and Water sometimes manifests in the free market as the scarcity principle or scarcity value. This demonstrates how we only need to perceive something as valuable to increase its monetary value. It is not required that the item have a value beyond being considered desirable and in limited supply. Most of us fail to see there’s magic in that phenomenon and use it to our advantage.

If we create the perception of value by assigning it, we can go assign value to whatever we choose. That’s influence.

There’s my divine madness – a vision of sugarplums to dance in your head. Blame it on the Fire Rat. An interesting way to explore these ideas might be through the use of pyromancy or divination from fire. Want to play?

Light the fire and get comfortable because pyromancy is probably one of the more lengthy forms of divination. It’s perfect for a cold winter night. Watch for shapes and images in the flames. Let the fire burn down to coals and throw on some salt, aromatic wood, herbs, evergreens, pinecones… Observe the patterns in the coals after the fire dies down again. See what comes up. Keep a record of your discoveries. It could come in handy in the coming Metal Rat Year.

Here’s to the return of the light…and enlightenment. Happy Winter Solstice.