This time of Temperance.

Tempering. Temperament. Temperature. Transformation

What is it to be well-tempered? Even, Cool, Seasoned, and Refined. Sharpened. Useful.

What are the roots of these words? Many tarot readers use temperance as a placeholder for patience. But no. It isn’t just the dimension of time and waiting. It goes far beyond this.

It is a process of transformation. Using heat and pressure. Effort and skill.

Tempering comes from blacksmithing. Hardening steel so it doesn't break, become brittle or fold like a flaccid penis when it’s time to be used.

Tempering takes that which is crude and easily broken, into something refined and last through the ages, and the weathering of life.

Without the firey transformation, and calculated process. You have a lump of stuff, not a tool, but a raw material like clay, a chunk of metal or a piece of wood.

A knife for cooking, a hatchet to cut a tree, a saw, an exacto knife. Tempering gives us the tools for creation. Or of course, it can also be a weapon to slay.

So we ask what it’s intention is at the very beginning of it’s creation. Because without the intention or use, it can become dangerous in the wrong hands.

Tempering is not simply about fire and pressure but timing, process, precision, and skill. It is about how it will be used.

Temperance is about experience, resilience, the process, discernment, and lived and embodied wisdom.

Many people you may know, have not been tempered by the fires of life. They are those who easily judge or criticize, talk boldly without substance, puff up their chest to appear bigger, tell you how easy it should be, overlook details of importance, and wag about having never been brought to their knees by life, trials, and failures.

But what we don’t know is that it is that they have simply been inexperienced. The young ones. And I don’t mean a number in age.

Not tempered by life. Never tested, plunged into the cold water or the oil after a repetitive reddening heat. Making the hard metal into molten liquid, red, yellow, and burning. Softened by fire. Smashed by Thor’s hammer over and over again. Ground down and sharpened grit by grit with sweat pouring down from facing the fires. Exhausted at times from true labor, work, action, and effort.

Maybe they had an easy childhood, or they simply stayed safe by doing nothing. They stayed in their comfort bubble where their food and shelter were simply at the ready. I see an image of a domesticated animal waiting for its dinner to be served with ease. Impatient for its meal and mindlessly walking off without thanks.

As the intensity of the external world rises. It is a time to ask. Have you been tempered?

Humbled by life, resilient, and strong as you gain grit and persistance. Or do you crumble and fold?

Do you judge others? Do you get impatient and try to rush the process only to be broken and have to start again?

Will a cool clarity remain within you as you face hard things?

Think of the roots of temper- Temperature, Temperament, Temper tantrums.

It’s becoming even. Useful. Unbroken when the heat rises, when the pressure is put on, As you are knocked about? Will you have a meltdown? Can you stand still and receive its teachings?

Who are you under stress? Who are you as the world burns?

At the roots

Fires need oxygen. They need fuel. They need the right ingredients. They need the right environment, and many times forgotten: the right timing.

Learning to tend a fire is of the utmost importance right now.

Patience, a breath of life, a spark. Fuel at the ready in the right way- small bits to get the heat going. Then larger sticks and eventually logs. It needs to be maintained in the right conditions. Then it’s left to smolder, to cool but not too fast.

Our fire within needs tending. Our reactions need pauses, breaths, and deep consideration. We need to practice new skills and we may feel inequipped. We may need to ask others who have already been through the fires, What is needed of me now? What tools are required? How the heck to I get through this?

To hold the teachings of a fire tender means to guard our light.

Our inspiration, our spark, our warmth, our passion, and our path is lit by the light of this fire.

Tempered ones gain skill, acuity, and strength from repetitive practice until it is infused into the memory of one’s muscles.

Once we learn to maintain a fire. We must learn the skills of refinement. How do we walk it, practice? Look within. Cut out what isn't needed. Get up again. Forgive ourselves, Show grace. Rest when it’s time. Find discipline and consistency with that which is healthy and balanced.

Do we try something different, fail, learn, observe, listen, and consider deeply from our past misteps?

There is a reason that the symbol of the phoenix is reborn from fire. First it must burn before it’s reborn. In these seering and trying times, may we pay attention to what is trying to refine us. To burn away impurities, illusions, and that which isn’t real.

What is our practice of refinement?

We ask the questions: in what way? how much? for how long? what mix is needed? Can we move past everything/nothing, all the time/never, past duality and polarity to find the discerning rightness of the ingredients, the timing and the practiced effort. To be still.

On the human skin, it feels like a lot of heat and pressure and getting banged up on the journey. But maybe, just maybe… this time also has it’s perfect and divine function if used rightly: To transform us.

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