An elemental revision

I was thinking last night about how I had modified my view of the four elements in paganism to better feel comfortable with what they’re supposed to stand for.

The way I think about them is this:

Air – Direction (or discretion)

Fire – Will (same as it usually is)

Water – Sensitivity

Earth – Determination

Air, to me, is direction. In order to work on a goal, you need to know first where you want to go. Discretion is somewhat similar in that it involves wisdom and knowing if a goal is even worth pursuing.

Will, to me, is very important. You need to have that drive, that desire to have your goal accomplish and to want whatever it is you’re after. It’s simple, and hard to say much more about it, but super important.

Probably the biggest change I’ve made is for Water. I’ve seen words like “emotion” used in the past, and because I feel I resonate a lot with Water, I feel the words often used to convey the Water element have been rather lacking for me. Most people would probably agree that water is a receptive element. So I extend that receptivity to being receptive to everything. In order to have the knowledge to accomplish your goal, you must first be open to information about it, and to me Water is just that. You have to have your senses open in order to have an extrasensory conclusion via intuition. I think water is intuition, yes, but the prerequisite to that is information.

Earth, to me, is the counterpart to Fire/Will in that while Fire is the drive towards a goal, Earth is standing behind your goal even when you don’t feel like it. When the drive is temporarily gone and you’re needing discipline and the nitty-gritty details necessary to follow through, Earth is the one to call upon.