The Elements, Again

[sdi]

I get a lot of criticism of how I assign the elements. "But air is intellect! How can you be so intellectual if you have no air?" That kind of thing. I get frustrated with this: in my experience, the popular assignment of elements—fire is action, air is intellect, water is emotion, earth is structure—works in neither the forms of astrology I've studied nor in geomancy. As an example, my natal chart is mostly water, and so occult-type people tend assume I'm very emotional; but in fact it's the opposite, and most people who know me tend to consider me "cold" or "robotic."

Instead, the assessment of the elements that I've found to work is this:

• Fire is creative. A purely fiery person might be an artist, a musician, a designer.

• Air is social. A purely airy person might be a partier, a socialite, someone who likes to communicate.

• Water is reflective. A purely watery person might be a hermit, a contemplative.

• Earth is practical. A purely earthy person might be a manual laborer, a farmer, somebody who does handicrafts, a salt-of-the-earth kind of person.

From this, you can see that there are two sorts of axes being defined:

• Fire and air are masculine, they express; while water and earth are feminine and receive.

• Fire and water are "inner," they're abstract, impractical; while air and earth are "outer," they're grounded in the physical world and actually make changes to it.

In my opinion, all of them have an intellectual capacity of a sort: fire generates ideas, air communicates ideas, water refines ideas, and earth carries out ideas. Each, however, is very limited and has severe disadvantages on its own—for example, far from being an "intellectual," I would normally consider an airy person to be a dilettante, someone who goes broad but not deep.

Normally one needs multiple elements to balance out, though some of these balance better than others. For example, besides water, my only other halfway solid element is fire: this helps keep me from being fixated on constantly retreading the same ground (since instead of just reflecting on the same things over and over, I have an inner wellspring of new things to reflect on), but on the other hand it does nothing whatsoever to help me be practical (since fire and water are both "inner" elements).

Comments

tho am surprised you're not a multiple Virgo ;)

[ehu]

fwiw, imo, your take on the elements is a good fit.

Re: tho am surprised you're not a multiple Virgo ;)

[sdi]

Haha—just the opposite, in fact! :)

[thinking_turtle]

For your reading pleasure, here's how Eden Gray describes the suits of the tarot, which he associates with Fire, Water, Air and Earth.

---

Some of the symbolism was derived from old Germanic mythology, where certain real or imaginary creatures were associated with the elements. The salamander, supposed to be unscathed by fire, was chosen to represent Fire; the undine, a female water sprite, was associated with Water; the sylph, and elemental of Air, with Air; and a little gnome, with Earth.

WANDS: Fire, Lion, South, Salamander
CUPS: Water, Water-Carrier, West, Undine
SWORDS: Air, Eagle, North, Sylph
PENTACLES: Earth, Bull, East, Gnome

WANDS: Energy, growth, enterprise, animation, glory.
The wands are of green wood that retains a few live twigs, signifying growth. They are sometimes used as a club in fighting or as a staff to carry the victor's crown. Their position in relation to the other cards in a layout will determine whether this category will be constructive or destructive. Wands are associated with the world of ideas and with creation and agriculture. The suit of clubs used in modern playing cards was derived from the Wands.

CUPS: Love, happiness, the emotions, fertility, beauty.
Cups, which appear in all the cards of this suit, are associated with water, a symbol of the subconscious mind and the instincts, as opposed to the conscious mind and reason. The modern suit of hearts is derived from the cups.

SWORDS: Aggression, force, ambition, courage, strife, misfortune.
Many cards of this suit depict fighting or people who are bowed down with misfortune. Swords represent the world of action, both constructive and destructive. They correspond to the spades in the modern deck.

PENTACLES: Money, industry, material gain.
Except for the Five of Pentacles, these cards all depict people either working with or enjoying the fruits of labor. The coinlike disks are pentacles, here inscribed with pentagrams-- five-pointed stars that are time-honored symbols of Man. In ancient days, people wore pentacles decorated with magic symbols as a protection from the evils of life.

[sdi]

Perfect! Yes, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm criticizing.

Though... now that you mention it, I wonder if it's more appropriate in the context of Tarot. I'm absolutely awful with the cards; I'd been figuring it's because they're so heavily tied to visual imagination (which I don't have), but it could be because the symbolism isn't a good fit for me...

[thinking_turtle]

You sound like you're not good with cards because you don't believe in them. I briefly had feelings like you describe ("this isn't a good fit"), but that's the whole point! The cards are there to change your mind. What use would they be if they agreed with what you already thought?

The cards are always right.

The cards you draw tomorrow for the same question will be different. And they will still be right.

[sdi]

That's an unfair characterization! Sure, if I merely dabbled in Tarot, then yes, perhaps I didn't try. But I was working with them daily for years and couldn't get useful results out of them! On the other hand, I was getting consistently good results out of geomancy with just a couple months of practice. Some systems just don't work for some people!

[thinking_turtle]

Interesting, I started with the Eden Gray Tarot. I started with just the aces, two's and threes. It worked right out of the gate. It felt like an improved version of using dice, the last digit on a digital watch, or coin flips to make decisions.

Good to hear Geomancy works for you! Did you learn it from one of the JMG books on the subject?

[sdi]

Tarot was the first form of divination I had tried, and the fact I had such trouble with it was one of the things that kept me from spirituality for a long time! I've had good luck with other kinds, and I've also had Tarot readings from others who were frighteningly good at it, so it's clear to me that the problem isn't me and isn't Tarot, but the combination of the two!

As for Geomancy, yes, I learned it from the Art and Practice of Geomancy by Greer. It's got some issues and I can't recommend it wholeheartedly, but on the other hand the best book on practicing it in English that I've seen by a very wide margin.

Amusingly, there are two kinds of Geomancy—called "shield chart" and "house chart"—and I'm absolutely awful at shield charts, too. :)