In the previous article on energies, you have learned the general properties of energies. I gave BDE, SDE, and Christmas spirit as examples of energies. In this article, I will begin the process of introducing energies. While the elements described in this article are basic building blocks, they are rather primitive in their base forms. Like the five mother sauces, you can certainly cook with them as they are, but they will serve as a foundation for more complex offerings.
Aristotilian physics was a blip in the evolution of physics and chemistry, but I'll give a quick reminder that we're discussing neither of tbose here. While physics and chemistry may be invoked, it is only as metaphors and analogies. So, let us see the four classical elements. If one slices all of the human condition into four slices, those are the four classical elements. Each slice provides perspectives necessary to the function of an individual, but also presents its own challenges and foibles in its purest form. To understand, embody, and balance the four elements is to be well-rounded and adaptive.
Fire is the energy of extending one's inner world into the outer world. This is dignity, and expression, and expansion. Fire has a tendency to ignore all except its own drive. This can manifest as a tolerance for pain and suffering. Fire is the energy of charging into a burning building to rescue someone trapped in the rubble. A more social manifestation of fire is a master of ceremonies at a party. An MC injects their fiery energy into the crowd. When an MC says "Where my Usher fans at? Make some noise if you want to hear Usher!", they are putting the spotlight on the audience and stoking their fire. "I can't hear you, I said make some noise if you want to hear Usher!" Is just further stoking the flame. Dictionary.com's fourth definition for fiery is "intensely ardent, impetuous, or passionate: fiery courage; a fiery speech." Fire can be found in the punchline of a joke or rap or in passionate music. Part of the metaphor of fire is consumption. Behind each impulse is an underlying appetite or hunger. Fire's appetite is ravenous. It seeks to chew and eat its fill. Through fire you do not waste your time with the philosophy of the sisyphean nature of eating only to grow hungry the next day, nor the practical implications of the meal's nutrition and cost, nor your appearance before others. You bite a chunk off, chew, and enjoy until you no longer hunger. Another part of the metaphor of fire is the nature of transformation. A fire requires oxygen, a fuel, and a catalyzing spark. The spark is the impulse setting things into motion, but the fire itself is that impulse alive through the transformation of air and wood into smoke and charcoal. This transformation is not always destructive, either. Fire transforms a vessel of water and inedible raw rice is transformed into a steaming heap of fluffy white rice. Before piercing an ear, one holds the needle to fire to kill the invisible germs that would otherwise cause illness.
In tarot, the suit of wands corresponds to the element of fire. A wand is the tool of a magician directing their will, a conductor's baton directing their symphony, a commander's baton directing their army, an instructor's pointer directing the attention of the class, and an MC's microphone directing the attention of the crowd. Tease out the common theme here, which is that fire acts as an arrow pointing towards a destination. A conductor does not play the instruments, nor does a commander fight a battle, nor does the instructor learn the material(at the time of their lecture), nor does an MC directly cheer on a musician or speaker. Within the individual, fire is the impulse which yells "CHARGE!" so that the rest of the individual knows without a doubt which way they are moving. This is as necessary at the beginning of a process("Let's do this!") as it is at the end("We're on the home stretch! Don't quit now!"). Internally, the fire is the impulse, the intuitive drive towards something.
An exercise for fire is to find a fiery song to pump you up. I recommend an 80s montage, this rap fight song, or even some hard electronic.
Fire seeks to be seen, but water seeks to see. Water accepts the outer world into one's inner world. Visualize the tea diffusing from its bag into hot water. This is the primary metaphor of water, a lens of taking in the essence of the external. Water is also an element of healing and restoration. While fire may compel someone to ignore the damage they incur, water actually addresses it directly. The healing process of water is to feel, understand, and then accept the psychological pain at hand. Water listens to understand. It's not enough that you can hear and repeat back the words you just heard. You hear them and sit with them, feeling them. Before you speak, you ensure you understand where the other is coming from. This is the essence of empathy, reconstructing another person's inner world inside your own. It isn't enough to mechanically explain how each piece connects with the other one. If you successfully empathize with someone else, you feel some equivalent of what they feel. Though you may carry memories from your childhood, the child that took their very first step is a very different creature from the one reading this. In addition to empathizing with others, water involves empathizing with the many yous of the past when you were too young to understand, or too angry, or too hurt or scared. The element of water reconciles all these different yous so that you can be at peace with them. A negotiator listens to understand the values of their interlocutor, then aligns the goals of both parties. Likewise, healing through water often comes with aligning the various yous(angry you, happy you, excited you, tired you) together towards the same goals.
In tarot, the suit of cups corresponds to the elemnent of water. Think back to that cup of tea. While it's true that the action of water is to accept the external world into one's internal world, this is not an indiscriminant process. One holds a cup of steaming water, their inner world, and must choose which tea they will brew. Just as you may choose to add cinnamon and clove, you may choose to exclude chili flakes or saur kraut from your tea. Fire excludes some feelings while accepting others, but does so unconsciously. Only the suit of cups has the wisdom to consciously choose its intimacy with others.
An exercise for water is a meditation technique. Enter a hot bath or cuddle up under your covers. Either way, ensure it is a quiet environemtn with no distractions, but perhaps some relaxing background music. Close your eyes and begin to visualize yourself in a small room with a round rug in the center. Sitting on the rug is the younger you. Depending on their age, they've been going through one chapter of your life or another. Look upon them with compassion for what they're experiencing. Go to them to offer comfort, support, and encouragement.
While fire is the inner world of action and water is the inner world of feelings, air is the inner world of ideas. Air can weigh ideas against one another, hold them in tension with one another, and create them from whole cloth. In the movie The Matrix, Neo lives his entire life leading up to the movie living in a simulation. Towards the end of the movie, he is able to see the code behind each object he sees when entering the Matrix. This is the primary power air offers. With air, one may perceive the fabric of the world they inhabit. One may understand that constructs like contracts, money, laws, and traffic lanes are fictions, but have a tangible footprint in the world as intersubjective entities. The yellow lines in the middle of the road won't keep someone from veering into oncoming traffic, but it does project a social/psychic force that compells people to stay on their side of the road. While water empathises with others through feelings, air empathises through matching inputs and outputs. Watching and building predictive models is the field of cognitive empathy. This skill allows one to mask, code-switch, intuit slang, and in the same breath figure out new technologies. To ingest, digest, and synthesize ideas, one uses air.
In tarot, the suit of swords corresponds to the element of air. While a sword is undoubdtedly a symbol of conflict, there is also another part of the metaphor. It's been said that "The word science comes from the Latin scientia, a derivative of the present participle of the verb scire (to know). Its root can be traced to the European proto-indo *sēik- which has the meaning of 'to cut.'" When one seeks to understand, they cut a subject into pieces to understand each. This is the essence of an autopsy of a corps, or the disassembly of tech for reverse-engineering.
An exercise for air is a thought experiment. Imagine a world exactly like the one you live in, and now make one lie about about. The lie could be something like "there is no fossil fuel", "everyone is born knowing sign language", or "the moon is actually made of cheese". Consider how this fictional world is effected by the one difference. Obviously, if the moon were cheese, its density would be effected. Would it have more or less gravitation? Would it rot in the vacuum of space, or would it be preserved? How would people react to this knowledge after the first moon landing? Would the cheese be edible enough to mine, or would the freezing and burning temperatures on the surface of the moon destroy the cheese? Would people make songs about the cheese moon? Try this with other alternative worlds where one thing is different.
Earth uses physicality to bridge the gap between inner and outer worlds. Earth is mentorship, intuition, and pragmatism. Earth never leaps without looking, nor does it ignore its gut. Earth and fire are like the tortoise and the hare, and when they race, the outcome is often the same as in the fable for the same reasons. Both push forwards, but whereas raw impulses drive fire to haste, pragmatism drives Earth to take the time to plot its course as it moves. Where fire may be easily distracted by new impulses, Earth will keep moving until the finish line. One's relationship with their body resides within Earth. While water may meditate to access feelings, Earth meditates simply to return itself to the present moment. One might simply rest in a hot bath with the light of a candle and gentle music, and have no further agenda than relaxation.
In tarot, the suit of pentacles corresponds to the element of Earth. The metaphor describes Earth as the end product. Fire may be the spark of a new idea and air its blueprint, but Earth is the resulting creation. As such, the suit of pentacles is used to signify wealth, home, career, and relationships.
An exercise for Earth is a meditation. Sit down near a window, close your eyes, and listen. Listen to the sounds outside. Can you hear the wind? Can you hear anything in your house? Can you feel your toes? Can you feel your bottom, or your fingertips, and the beating of your heart? As soon as you feel yourself thinking something, just let the thought pass by like the text in a Star Wars intro rolls over the screen. Alternately, do this while taking a hot bath and simply bask in the physical experience.
Some esoteric traditions conceive of a fifth element, not of terrestrial origin, but instead the very same substance as the gods. The most simplistic vision of this element is as spirit. Distilled spirits, incidentally, were considered the quintessence, the fifth element used to concoct potions in alchemy. Spirit is the essence of the divine which may reside within us or up in some formless transcendent entity one might refer to as "the universe", "god", "ein sof", or the stars. Spirit manifests with a charge somewhere between light and dark. The light is the most ideal form, and the dark is the least desired opposite. With abundance there is waste. With a rainbow there is rain. With a hope there is a fear that the hope may not come to be. Spirit manifests often within the context of other energies. The light side of fire might be a passionate speech to inspire courage to the afraid, or a joke to bring joy to dark times, or standing up for yourself when you are being mistreated. The dark side of fire, however, may look like a passionate speech to inspire hatered among an angry mob, or a joke to ridicule and inspire fear and disgust, or in asserting dominance over another person.
There are different lenses to view light and dark with. The most accessible which can be found in Abrahamic religions is the dualistic view of good in conflict with evil. Angels serve god's will and demons oppose them in the name of Satan. God's commandments are good and breaking them is evil. Whoever the authority figure doesn't like this week is evil. It's very good for fostering submissive, obedient masses who will shut off their critical thinking, but but accomplishes little else. A second lens is the circular and evolutionary nature of the phases of the moon passing through its lunar cycle of waxing and waning. The new moon is entirely potential, which waxes to manifest itself until it reaches the full moon, the most manifest for. Having reached its height of manifestation, the waning moon slips back into the shadow of the infinite like a wise elder who accepts their mortality after a life of action, until they hit a new moon and begin again. In this view, dark and light live in a shifting harmony where each birth comes coupled with an eventual death both equally as sacred. The third lens views light and shadow as extremes, such as left and right, Boaz and Jachin, or mercy and severity. Left-handed is the root of the word "sinister", which is equivalent to evil in today's parliance. In this view, there can be a harmony between light and dark, but it requires conscious participation. When navigating conflict, one does not endeavor entire to mercy(passive approach), nor severity(aggressive approach), but instead the wise application of both together(the assertive approach). This can be seen with Kabbalists and hermetists studying right and left-handed paths of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life(or death). A similar framework is Carl Jung's shadow work in which one delves their unconscious mind to get in touch with their repressed shadow and integrate it in a healthy way.
An exercise for spirit, or particularly light is to think of your top three best memories. Consider for each which particular element corresponds best. Was it a fiery joy, or watery comfort, or were you immersed in an airy detail-oriented task, or was it a purely physical/carnal moment?