when i was sixteen, a girl i loved told me i needed to get my roller coaster emotions in check else they would destroy me.
she wasn’t wrong, exactly. balance is something i have struggled with, my brain like a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other. around that same time, in the aftermath of that girl breaking up with me, i self-diagnosed as manic-depressive (i know, i know, but i was sixteen and had the scope of the internet at my fingers, what else was i going to do). sometimes the depressive fog would break and i would get bursts of incredible energy, usually late at night, which i spent reorganizing my room or writing or trying not to get the attention of my parents, who would have much preferred me to be sleeping.
i got better at managing the pendulum swing as i got older, but they never really went away. i was either too much or not enough. (sometimes, confusingly, both.) one of the reasons i went on brain meds was to help manage the peaks and valleys of my moods.
when i was twenty-nine, my partner at the time told me the crystal gem he thought i resembled most was garnet. (i thought i was most like pearl at the time, and now i think it might be rose quartz, but i’m not all the way caught up, so no spoilers.) i found this very flattering, of course. garnet is the one who seems like she has it all together, who is the de facto leader, who keeps her cool.
but garnet is a fusion, made up of a ruby and a sapphire, one prone to heated anger and one prone to chilly aloofness. when these elements are out of balance, garnet ceases to be and splits into her composite parts.
it’s exactly what temperance is about: a blending of elements, recognizing when we might be relying too heavily on one or the other, constantly paying attention and adjusting when need be. as a libra, astrology charged me with this task at a young age, but i think it’s an important one for all of us.
this week, darlings, let’s pay attention. let’s adjust. let’s try for balance.
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this week’s deck: mesquite tarot
this week’s crystal: garnet