The day* I published that first article on "bi fire", a friend called me and reminded me of the importance of names. I was totally fine with that first name because it was clear enough, but he made me realize that whatever little it was saying, it wasn't clear enough. Not to mention it seriously lacked creativity.
For me, bisexual fire is about the common perception we have as "half-straight, half-gay" in the eyes of others, but instead of representing that, bisexual fire took those suppose halves, all the misconceptions, to bring forth the actual meaning of what being under the bi umbrella means, and transform it into a source of power. It's a metaphor of using those problems as fuel for what we actually are, letting something better be born from the ashes.
While sharing this, he told me that actually calling it bisexual meant that I was giving it a sexuality, and playing with the idea of the binary of gender (if I remember correctly), which wasn't really helpful. I didn't want to include the binary in it because being bisexual doesn't mean anymore that you like men and women only. It also includes identities outside of it, and I wanted to represent that as well. I agreed with him then that I had to give it another name.
Looking for different words, a found amethyst as a synonym of purple. "Amethyst Fire sounds lovely", as my friend said, it's evocative, and the meaning of that stone is also beautiful. I learned that it's self-cleansing, cleanses other stones, improves psychic abilities, and that cups were made with it to prevent drunkenness (someone test it and let me know if that's a fact). It is also related to wisdom, mental clarity, clam, relaxing, stress-relief, and the third eye and crown chakra.
When comparing those properties to the Four Powers of Bi Witches, invisibility, shapeshifting, healing, and fighting, I also saw a connection. The first two are related to vision, or visual perception, to be more specific, we're speaking about a a stone used for healing as well, one with soothing effects, but that, while peaceful, can also provide the right state of mind to face a fight.
There's also a curious part of amethyst that I found while working on this article (Hunter, 2019) that sounds very much like shape-shifting, if you ask me:
And if you expose amethyst to heat, you'll see the color fade as well. Sometimes, instead of gray or clear crystal, you'll end up with vivid yellows that look a lot like citrine. The neatest bit of this chameleon exercise, though, is if you can safely expose your amethyst to X-rays, you can return it to its original purple hues. That is a pretty nifty trick!
I will be reading more into it, see what else I can find about this stone, and who knows? Maybe there are other surprises on the way. In the meantime, I'm truly happy with the new name.
*I originally wrote this for my Patreon, but since I'm focusing on the blog now, I wanted to share an updated version here.
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