Why Water, Not Fire: Decolonizing Astrology & Identity
- Kiing Curry
- Mar 3
- 4 min read
Why Water, Not Fire: Decolonizing Astrology & Identity explores
tropical and sidereal astrology through fire, water, embodiment, and elemental alchemy.
Why Water, Not Fire: Decolonizing Astrology & Identity is not just a philosophical question for me.
It is a body question.
Under a tropical sky, I was born in Aries.
Leo Rising.
Sagittarius Moon.
Fire. Fire. Fire.
I was told this meant boldness. Leadership. Heat. Initiative. I was told I would move first and think later. That I would burn bright and fast and unapologetically.
And I tried.
And I burnt out.
But my body did not feel bright.
It felt inflamed.
My jaw stayed tight.
My chest stayed lifted like armor.
My nervous system lived in ignition.
No one told me that being named fire over and over again might teach me to override my own saturation point.
Colonial Wild Fire Lives in the Body
Tropical astrology, as most of us receive it, is mapped to European seasonal cycles. It travels as neutral knowledge, but it carries geography inside it. It carries empire inside it.
When I internalized that version of my chart, I internalized urgency.
Move now.
Speak louder.
Lead harder.
Fire became identity performance.
But performance without rest is extraction.
And fire without containment scorches its own ground.
In my body, colonial wild fire felt like constant activation. Like cortisol. Like proving. Like having to justify softness before I could inhabit it.
I was living as colonial wild fire — expansive, impressive, but exhausting.
Water as Nervous System
When I began studying sidereal astrology and returning to African cosmological thought, something subtle happened.
I exhaled.
The sky shifted. The emphasis moved. And suddenly, I could feel water in my chart — not as weakness, not as sentimentality, but as intelligence.
Water is the first home we know. We are held in it before we ever breathe air. The body understands water before it understands language.
When I started choosing water, I started noticing my breath.
Fire lives high in the chest.
Water lives low in the belly.
Water taught me to drop my shoulders.
To soften my tongue.
To feel instead of flare.
Water is not passive. It is regulating.
It does not rush toward ignition.
It gathers. It listens. It surrounds.
Steam: The Intimate Blur
Fire alone made me sharp.
Water alone might have made me retreat.
But when fire meets water in relationship, steam rises.
Steam is warmth you can feel on your skin.
It is warmth communicated via air
It is heat without harm.
It is visibility that dissolves edges.
Steam is what happens when intensity is allowed to be held.
In my body, steam feels like crying without collapsing.
Like anger that does not explode but transforms.
Like desire that warms instead of consumes.
This is where the blur lives.
The liminal.
Not either/or.
Not dominant element versus suppressed one.
But a constant negotiation.
When fire is accountable to water, it becomes devotion instead of domination.
Why Water, Not Fire: Decolonizing Astrology & Identity in Practice
In practice, choosing water changed how I move through my days.
Before speaking, I check my breath.
Before acting, I check my pulse.
Fire once told me to react immediately.
Water asks: are you regulated?
Decolonizing astrology is not just about rejecting a Western framework. It is about noticing how that framework shaped my physiology.
If I am told I am fire, I may push through pain.
If I am told I am water too, I may pause.
That pause is political.
Because colonial systems reward burnout. They reward spectacle. They reward constant output.
Water resists that economy.
Water says: restore first.
When I create now, I soak in the work before I release it. I let ideas condense like steam on glass. I let them return to water before they move outward again.
My art is slower.
My relationships are deeper.
My body is less braced.
Decolonizing Identity Through Elemental Relationship
Why Water, Not Fire: Decolonizing Astrology & Identity is about reclaiming the right to interpret myself through sensation, not just symbolism.
Colonial readings of identity flatten us into traits.
Embodied readings ask: how does this feel in your tissues?
Water holds memory. I can feel it in my hips.
Fire catalyzes change. I can feel it in my sternum.
Steam carries transformation. I can feel it on my skin.
My chart did not change.
My relationship to my body did.
Now when heat rises, I do not immediately project it outward. I let it meet moisture. I let it become something breathable.
I am no longer trying to be impressive.
I am trying to be integrated.
Fire still lives in me.
But now it answers to water.
And when it does, I do not burn out.
This little light of mine.
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