Blog by: Katherine Lily Mae Harris
There are lots of writings and teachings on the nature of competition.
Lots of information on how to dissect your nature.
I have always loved astrology for a tool of guidance, into how to understand one’s self more clearly and in a straightforward manner. I loved astrology from the first time I dove into it, because as I used to put, ‘it tells you very clearly why your amazing and also why your not,’ or more eloquently said now, it is a great guideline for how to sharpen your strengths and how to strengthen your weaknesses.
Competition is something you can look to mars for-that is the ‘sex and power’ planet. Typically the house it resides in as well as the sign the planet is placed in, will give a better direction to the outlet of your mars-your drive, your passion. Aspects made to other planets can be beneficial tools to discovering the keys to unlocking your healthiest expression of your competitive nature. Typically someone knows THEIR own nature. I certainly know mine. The first rule in all principles of Magick and spirituality-know thyself. So I do.
Also, if you ever had sibling’s or close family, how did you compete with them?
For me, my competitive nature was simple. I was my own and only competition. Not because I was an only child-contrary, I grew up in a big family and always had all ages of kids around me. I never had a desire to compete with another.
I learned very early my nature with ‘competitiveness.’ It was pretty good natured most times.
I didn’t seek attention from my parents or other family, I found a lot of solace and strength in nature and with animals and insects. With board games as a child, I had a sister that got very angry at losing. Very angry-so I started to just let her win at the end of games, it was easier than winning and I never felt I needed to win to prove anything. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have done that, I could have worked with her better on how to play a game for yourself, not to win.
The same with most other hobbies I had.
When I had a natural ability in art, I won a few of the water conservation contests-I would freehand the Disney’s animals and a nature background and won a fruit tree, we never went and picked up the fruit tree, but I won a few of those years in a row. I was happy. I didn’t enter in to those contests with the intent to win, I entered because I thought it would be fun.
When my sister, the same one who didn’t like to lose board games, decided art was going to be ‘hers,’ I decided to get into fashion and design style art, instead of animals and landscapes. Trying to let her have ‘her thing.’ I had plenty I loved to do. I turned make up into an art and I loved to do my friends make up and hair, All the time. I loved clothes and fashion and absolutely adored shoes. I had a desire to design fashionable and practical footwear for a local Maine business someday…..oh the dreams of a woman, before society smashes them……
My dreams were practical and I would have accomplished them, if the earth was fair. It isn’t though….
Back to competition as kids-
I remember I had one friend that when we would tub together we would argue like sisters about who would be Sheera or the Little Mermaid, but it was all in good fun and ended in laughing.
During our schools ‘field day’ competitions I never felt like I needed to win, it was just fun. One of my friends as a kid, and I, won the three legged race almost every single year together.
When I began running cross country I found one of my favorite outlets, aside from baseball. I loved baseball until they made us play softball-the ball is too big in my opinion. Why with smaller hands, did we have to play the bigger balls game?
Running in nature was something I excelled at. Cross country. I usually placed really well too, you know why? Because I wasn’t competing against anyone other than myself and I wasn’t running to win, I was just, running.
It was so therapeutic for me.
I really loved it.
Typically I placed within the first three of every ‘meet.’ (Race).
During the final competition at the end of year, multiple schools came together to run and we raced at the mountain in Camden. Ragged mountain.
I was doing alright and had my momentum and then I saw one of my friends sitting down, I stopped and checked on her-made sure she was ok and up and running again. I placed horribly in that race, but I didn’t mind. I made it a goal to run that mountain in the future. And I did. It became one of my favorite mountains to run as an adult. I loved that town because I could go to the beach and a mountain hike, all before work. It’s beautiful. Add a river and a lake and since I was small, I have wanted to live there. When I was running those mountains as an adult, I loved that I had my younger self in mind.
I loved swimming underwater since I was young, about two. I used to practice holding my breath and try to do two laps Atleast, back and forth under water, even into my adult years I would do that in a pool shortly after getting in. The last, pre injury, being November 2017, the Algonquin in Canada.
Highschool arrived and with it, relationships. I never really got jealous or felt that I needed to compete for men, either.
My ‘first boyfriend’ was a chick magnet and when he passed me in the hall with girls hanging off him, I didn’t really say anything about it.
When a guy I was dating, was sleeping with my friend up the road, the one that we used to sing and decide who was going to be Ariel or Sheera, I just stopped spending time with him and we broke up-I didn’t say anything about why. Same with another boyfriend, I found out he had another girlfriend and I just stopped seeing him. To me, being in competition with someone else, was a waste of time. I always knew the right man, or woman for me, wouldn’t make me compete. They would know I was theirs and they were mine. In the way that I mean that. Loving and consensual, life partners and companions.
Some things aren’t meant to be a competition-and a relationship with another should never be. If it’s a choice, choose her, cause I’m not playing.
When I was a teenager I entered into a Miss teen USA pageant-I did not think I would gain entry. I did. I was accepted, but my mother told me I needed to go around and ask for sponsors, ask people for money. I did NOT want to do that. Not at all. So I just didn’t pursue it. I decided it wasn’t for me.
At 16 I tried out to be a model at a random casting call and they said ‘freckles, come back next year.’ I thought they were just being polite. I never went back, I just figured it wasn’t for me.
Now, I can get jealous when I am in a relationship with someone, but I noticed it’s typically when they are cheating on me. However, it is normal to feel jealousy in a relationship. Certainly.
Jealous of what others have? No. I talk about manifesting what is meant for you…..and describe it as,
If I wanted to manifest a cup, I wouldn’t manifest someone else’s, I would manifest my own cup.
I think that in a World where women are constantly told to be in competition with one another, it is important never to be.
That is, Healthy competition aside, meaning in a game, sports and athleticism are healthy. I feel my best moving energy. If others choose to compete in a game setting, that is beneficial. As long as those who give game ending injury, are not playing. Our earth is troubled.
I remember before my ex crippled me and I was getting ready to go back to work, he had tax meetings and investment meetings. Both of which I went to so I could take notes. I paid attention for myself and because he asked me questions, after. Oh this memory of mine. When we left the investment meeting, I told him we could compete about who could invest faster…..he gave me the coldest and most disgusted look. I should have known then, he had no desire to have a life with me. That should have been a healthy competition, something we build together. For our future. He crippled me shortly after that.
When I entered into The Voice with an audition, I did so thinking of my aunt, who loves that show and also, because the producer gives a FULL MRI-before production, they would have been able to help me with my broken spine and spinal cord injury-my audition was not good. I get stage fright. All the time. Even after singing in a cover band & countless karaoke nights that I bartended.
My competitive nature is really only with myself and what I learned from this injury is that I needed to reset my view of myself.
Post injury (spine hit May 10, 2020) I needed to view this body as a ‘whole new body.’
Now setting new goals that seem so trivial, compared to the non performing athlete I was before, are accomplishments.
It isn’t easy and I desire to be what I was before….i just have to accept I never will be. It affects my confidence, my income, my life. It affects my health, my future and what my life will be.
Now hiking doesn’t happen. Four mountain hikes the week before he hit me and four total in the 5 years since.
Swimming now is fighting my spinothalamic tract and the buoyancy of spinal cord injury.
I couldn’t even walk across a Therpay pool. My right foot didn’t touch. Brown sequard. Or something like it, from that right sided spine hit.
I never danced competitively-just always loved to dance, but compared to what I used to do-this body is so different now.
Redesigning my view of myself as cripple-to set and achieve new goals for myself-while being oppressed and medically tortured….try that one out…..
What is your competitive nature?
Where is your Mars located and what sign and house is it placed in?
Mine is Capricorn, conjunct Neptune in the 12th house-conjunct my Ascendent.