We have a very passionate household. My immediate family is composed of all Sagittarians- all fire signs. So no matter what is going on, it is usually intense.

Whatever was happening in the world I always felt driven to do something about it. Whether it is town politics, world issues, social issues, injustice, environmental degradation… I always felt I HAD to make a difference. But where do we cut it off? How do we know when it's time to say, "No, I just can't help right now, I have too many irons in the fire!"? If anyone has any suggestions other than what I will write about here, please let me know.

Fire can be good. It can cook your food, keep you warm and get hot enough to melt metal. But it can also burn you. If left out of control it will burn the house down and if we aren't careful it can spread to the children, the neighborhood, then where are we? We must work on becoming aware of our limitations and to reserve some energy for the future.

One of the major lessons in our household is in keeping the fire controlled so that it doesn't become harmful. Balance is the key. It has taken a long time and a lot of work for my husband and I to be able to use the fire without letting it consume us. The next step is in teaching our children how to use this energy in a good way without letting it burn out of control.

Look at forest fires. Those raging infernos consume a lot of resources and put out a lot of energy but once the fuel is gone...poof. Out go the flames. In hindsight I could just kick myself all the way to china for not getting a handle on my passionate nature earlier. All my ranting and raving and subsequent action to fix injustice, and some of my activism has really brought a lot of scary energy into our home.

I didn't know when to shut up and keep my home as a haven for those kids; a safe, secure place where they could escape from the ugly world. It is a lesson I had to learn the hard way, as usual. So now I struggle with how to teach my children balance. Hopefully my living by example will be a start, but the intense input I've uploaded into those kids will take extra effort on my part to retrain and help them to reprogram their subconscious minds to know when it is time to fight for social justice and when it's time to sing, celebrate, play and relax.

So while I figure out how to do this on my own, I will also ask for help to speed up the process. We all want to work on our "stuff" by ourselves, especially when we know we've flubbed up and not made very wise choices, but I feel I must be WOMAN enough to admit that I made mistakes and I'm still learning. There is a fine line between keeping up on the issues, the fight for injustice and knowing when to shut myself and my family off from the world outside. That isn't something they teach us in school!