The Missing Element: Fire
Overview
The four Elements in astrology — fire, earth, air, water — each represent a different way of experiencing and making sense of reality. What this series explores is how the absence of a particular element in the Natal Chart affects how we interact with the world, and highlights blind spots in our lived experience.
Fire is intuitive, it is one’s impulses, gut-feeling, faith, and acts as though it knows without the need for evidence. Earth is sensory, practical, it understands through the physical body, and is always seeking better awareness of its material conditions. Air is the conscious mind: social, self-aware, and rationalising its experiences by analysing data and other people’s perspectives. Water is reflective, memorius, and sensitive to other’s temperaments and the immaterial needs of the collective. It understands through the emotional impact and the slow gathering of sentimental meaning around each experience held in the unconscious mind.
Each sign of the Zodiac belongs to one of these four elements and symbolises a unique approach to these ways of receiving and acting within the world. The signs populated by the planets in our Natal Chart describe how the elemental forces are being channeled in our lives. The distribution can tell us what modes of understanding are most natural to an individual, and their general demeanor: those we might describe as fiery — wilful, lively and dynamic — will often see this reflected in their chart.
It’s possible for charts to have no placements within a particular element. Sometimes even two! This is nothing to be alarmed about; a chart with no fire placements doesn’t mean you have no willpower. However, it can mean accessing the productive qualities of the element in question, in a comfortable and consistent way, is a struggle. It is usually a repressed and seemingly unattainable energy for the native. Something they’re unconsciously striving for, which manifests in intense and uncontrollable outbursts.
Charts With No Fire
In this first entry, let us consider a chart with little to no fire placements — that’s a chart without any placements in Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius. In addition to the planets, we should also consider the position of the Ascendant marker and the Midheaven as relevant in these calculations.
What these signs have in common is that they are each concerned with empowering the Self, being the cause of meaning, and how they’re seen asserting their will on the world. They are selfish, if only in that they are more inclined to pursue their own instincts than act based on the judgments of others. They are catalytic, creative, and want all that originates from the Self to shine and inspire. These Signs each crave to light a way forward, taking pride and joy in being seen doing it.
Native’s with no fire prefer to stay out of this limelight, for when they are put in situations where other people will be affected by their actions, it terrifies them. There’s a tendency to bottle up the Fire until it explodes, and causes them to act in ways that appear dramatically out of character.
They much prefer to observe as a wallflower, keeping their true thoughts on a matter unexpressed or concealed in less personal, hypothetical language. When they think about themselves in the eyes of others, it is anything but intuitive. They may find it an ordeal to try to justify everything they express as an opinion with evidence. While it’s good to cite your sources (especially in this age of misinformation), a ‘show me the receipts’ approach can be stifling when trying to describe one’s creative impulses and emotional responses.
They may prefer to make a point by asking more logic-based questions, or drawing on statements that are already proven to be true, rather than start conflicts based around what they personally believe. This can make these natives very effective at arguing a theoretical point and reviewing information, but less so at speaking up for themselves and their individual needs.
Fire is what motivates us toward achieving the heart’s desires; responding to our emotional needs with action. Without it, these natives tend to diminish themselves and undermine their own ambitions and drives in social settings. They may feel that asserting their willpower is of less importance than allowing others to speak, or that expressing their desires would seem crass.
There seems an audacity in claiming we have a truly authentic sense of self. They intuitively understand the Self is performative, that one’s own perspective is only a curation of subjective experiences. While all can perhaps understand this, for many the performance still feels like an unconscious process. Those without Fire placements experience this with a great deal more pressure, and feel vulnerable when they must express their own desire.
Fireless natives will try to deny themselves this authentic self-expression and voicing what they want, not because they do not have the willpower, but because of the awareness and fear of what fire can burn down. They are no stranger to the abuse of power and have learned the value of being critical. But resultantly, these natives are skeptical of their own authority, and always doubtful their actions will be received as intended. They don’t want to risk being to blame for anything!
Usually the native does have strong ideas about how things should be done, and how they want to be treated. Yet even though they will acknowledge these are healthy expressions for other people to display, these same desires, for them, can feel shameful and selfish.
There is an inertia which may keep the native trapped in their head, outwardly appearing dispassionate while inwardly straining against the barriers to expressing themselves. Perhaps, growing up, voicing one’s own desire has been unsafe or met with hostility, leaving long-term psychological guards up around how much one reveals of themselves and their true feelings.
Although it can be destructive, and the criticism of how many wield their power is valid, Fire is necessary energy for us to feel we have meaningful agency in our lives, and helps us believe that our actions serve a purpose (even if they are ultimately always to fulfil a selfish need).
If unmanaged, eventually, the repressed Fire in the native’s usually non-confrontational nature will emerge as seemingly random outbursts of anger, erratic and rash decision making. Moments of hotheadedness and urgent action which, although responding to a legitimate impulse, have long been repressed, erupt forth from deep within. Such reactions can seem disproportionate to others, alienating them, and the native may internalise a narrative that their Fire burns bridges, and should be quelled to keep those they care about close.
Rediscovering Fire
No chart is truly without Fire, only Fire placements, so a healthy outlet is perhaps just not obvious in the native’s life. To rediscover our Fire we must learn to trust in the messages from the rest of our chart, and that they point toward resources we are unconscious of.
The other elements lack a means to openly express the inevitable build up of emotional dissatisfaction. Air, Earth, and Water are well equipped for taking in and holding onto what they are given to process, but they are slow to lead the charge in a situation. They each relate to Fire differently, and by observing what the elements are busy not doing, we can learn when and where to wield our own light.
The most helpful astrological advice for where to find and utilise those neglected parts of ourselves would refer to the houses and house rulerships in an individual’s chart. However, a more generalised approach can be adopted based on which elements you have in abundance:
If you have an abundance of Earth, these are the parts of the Self which attempt to manage the cost and consequences of other people’s actions, demanding a reality check. Earth placements point to the material situation and to the evidence to say what isn’t working, what is unsustainable, and what goes against the native’s interests. Listen to the Earth’s dissatisfaction: your body and your bank account’s protests to your situation, and this will reveal what you must say ‘no’ to.
If your chart is more Water-dominant, these are the parts of the Self which hurt and feel heavy when they go unexpressed. Water makes decision-making feel chaotic and outwith your control, it wants to process things together, to be understood by others, but — without Fire — it can only receive this from others, and in turn feels more isolated in its struggle.
Take time to acknowledge how you feel without trying to trivialise it, analyse it, or distract yourself from it. The purpose of negative emotions is to tell us something is changing, or something needs to change in our situation. Water must find ways of emptying itself of the energy it unconsciously takes on, through fiery action. Water reveals what you need to fight for to feel emotionally secure; what you must learn to say ‘yes’ to within yourself.
If you have an abundance of Air, these are the placements which will illuminate the mental obstacles to one’s desires, and say no to asserting the Self. Rhetoric along the lines of ‘I wish I could do/be/have X, but other people would react negatively’ is Air at work. Air is in opposition to Fire, applying the brakes and depersonalising the information it has observed from Earth and Water.
It craves clarity before making a decision, but struggles to accept when forces are at odds this is a resolution which will never come peacefully. Sometimes we need to make the move!
Air is busy trying to understand others by obscuring its own perspective. When we are unconconscious of this function, these placements mute our active voice in conversation. However we can use our Air to identify the more personal subtext of what we’re trying to communicate. Try to notice what are you using your intellect to argue yourself out of saying? This terrible thing, the choice repressed at all costs, is your Fire!
When next this heat arises, and you are in a safe space, put action to your inner dialogue and allow what you say and do to come from your most emotional parts. Reveal what you don’t yet have tangible proof of. Openly acknowledge that’s what it is, a gut feeling, but let it be without dimming it or invalidating it.
When the heat arises, and you are not in a safe space, make sure you’re finding an outlet for that Fire later in as intense a form of exercise as you can manage. Dance, combat sports, and anything involving HIIT (high intensity interval training) are great for letting off this steam, uninhibited. Even consider hitting up a rage room! Find Fire within what you can schedule, organise and control.
Sometimes expressing what is true for you means being the loudest, brightest, most disruptive person in the room. Sometimes the truth has to draw attention to itself. And when that is the case, better to wield that Fire on purpose than to let it become an explosive accident.
