Air

This is the fourth in a series of posts on the Elements. I recommend you read Earth, Water and Fire first.

Air is the element that relates to the soul. I think that to really talk about the Air element, you have to really understand soul. Soul is an ephemeral thing. We can recognize that we have something overlaying our lives that guides us…which is Self- not something outside the self- but we have a really hard time finding any words for it.

Like Air, we can’t really see soul…but like Air ruffling the leaves or blowing a house over, we can see the effects of soul. Let me explain.

The Sufi’s teach that virtues are a projection of the soul, that an awakened soul does not need to learn manners, as soulfulness is innately mannerly. There are some qualities of being which stand out as uniquely soulful; these being innocence; that is the wise and humble knowing, fearlessness, harmony and beauty. These are magnetic qualities of a person’s soul and we all emanate them to one degree or another. The more awakened a soul is in this body, the more clearly the innately virtuous nature of the soul will shine from that person. It is not that they are prim, it is that they emanate something essential from their being in spades…their soulfulness. Soul is innately innocent, yet wise, strong, yet sweetly sensitive. It is elegant and true. Like the Air, the soul shows in the effects of soul driven personality, in the impact of the elegant, mannerly virtuous nature emanating from this ephemeral part of our being.

I believe that the breath is the organ of the soul, attaching it to this body we each have, animating it, refreshing it each moment of our lives.

Sufi’s also teach that Air is all pervading and that it is infused with the Divine Light. Thus when we breathe, we breathe life.

The Lakota people teach that when the water is poured on the hot rocks for the sweat ceremony, the life of the stones rises in the steamy air and becomes a sacrament, the Breath of Life.

The Buryat people teach that a person has three souls. One is created from the joining of two humans…their natural ability to form life on their own. It is entirely dependent on the body…very intellectual and practical. This is a once born soul, and the teaching goes that it returns to the earth when the body passes. Another soul comes from the river of life. It is a wise in the sense of knowing where the flows of life lead and come from; a practical, flowing, forceful Self. Another soul comes from the Tree of Life where it rests like a bird upon the branches of wisdom. This soul is said to be flighty, distractible, mercurial, intense….and when fully awakened in the body, extraordinarily wise in the sense of intuitive knowing about spiritual laws, the nature of reality and how the spiritual informs the physical. These soul Selves combine to form a complexity of personality, foibles and strengths.

I do not know if these teachings are true. I know that there’s something that resonates as True in each of these teachings…more so than any other teaching I’ve ever received about the nature of the soul. LIke the Dalai Llama, I’ll believe what feels True until it is proven untrue and then I’ll change my mind. *smiles*

Here’s another Sufi teaching about Air:

• Carries healing power
• Energizes
• Is the purifier of the body
• Can carry thought and feelings short and very long distances
• Can balance the emotions, thinking, and energy
• Is your Connection to the outside world and the world within
• Can help you to be understood by others.
• Develops magnetism.

In this same article, Devi Tide, a very respected Sufi teacher in the Healing Order continues:

“Breath is audible and visible, and when a spiritual person, by spiritual exercises, strengthens and purifies the breath, it becomes more intelligible, as a light and a sound. Life and light, in truth, are one; the breath is the life, and it is the same breath which is light. Breath in fact is the light of all senses; the senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch perceive all things by the light of the breath. When the breath is absent from the body, the body with all its perfect mechanism becomes useless. It is natural, therefore, that every sense must become powerful and keen if the breath be developed and purified. The adept … can operate the breath in any part of the body which needs healing.”

You will find some Air meditations at that link above which are lovely studies of the Air element. Their purpose is to focus on Unfolding the Heart, so that one might prepare for being a healer, but they are useful for making relations with the Air element as well.

For me, the experience of understanding the elements is incomplete unless you do spiritual practice and immerse yourself in the experience of their natural phenomena. It is important to discover the phenomena in your own being, exclusive of the study of your natural environment too. The study should proceed over years. You will see this as a simple concept, but as time passes and you make the relationships you establish with these elements go very deep, the perception of them and the accompanying concepts expands in surprising ways. It effects how you experience you life.

For instance, my initial perception of soul was something Baptismal. It is this thing that’s full of sin and needs to be washed. Nothing in there about Air. When I did finally study Air from the Sufi perspective, I found that I needed to let loose the idea of sin. It didn’t match with this whole idea of the soul being Innocent and harmonious. My practice, told me that my soul was indeed innocent, beautiful and harmonious. I could feel it…I was returned to a simple Truth inside myself. It was a revelation to me to test the veracity of a spiritual teaching such as I’d learned in my early Christian teachings and find that it doesn’t add up to Truth to me. I felt cast adrift for a time…but I can to stand firmly in the things that I’d tested against my Truth sense and the faith in me expanded farther than ever before as a result.

As the experience of my study of Air and Soul unfolded in the next years following this revelation, I realized that, reflected in the beauty around me, was my place in relationship to the rest of creation. I realized my purpose in having this body and this life. This then became the foundation of my sense of soul…this sense of my place in the whole of Creation. That sense of belonging went far deeper than anything I’d experienced in my life before. This sense of worth and place is a direct emanation of soul. *smiles*

My viewpoint grew more complex from there…but I think you get my point.

I have been writing a book lately. Here’s an excerpt:

Soul:

The soul in us is something eternal and full of grace. It is innately Spirit…but it is also individual and unique. It is You; a personality, but not an ego. Think about that for a bit as I finish the rest of this remark. The soul needs connection, purpose and success, so identifying, carrying out and achieving personal goals is one primary way of meeting this need. This focus is not about shallow things. It is about the things that matter a hundred years from now, the things that matter next year to you. Those sorts of purposes are not only individual but also have an element which serves the greater good…now a further word about ego and personality. An ego is the right of things. The right to do, be, go, have, think….A right to be right. A personality is just the collection of beautiful attributes that make you unique, such as a love of jambalaya or Indian food. Get the difference? You are not your ego. That is simply how you choose to be right in the world. To get to the soul, you have to be pure personality…holy….you.

• Experience of fulfilled purpose
• Personal evolution
• Reverence
• Sharing of inspiration
• Harmony
• Cooperation
• Ecstatic connection to the Soul of the Universe/the Land

The basic emotion of the soul is inspiration, wonder, joy, gratitude and love. I expanded on this entire topic in a brief essay here. In most of the remarks in this essay on the parts of Self, I made suggestions for how to access various levels of being. I didn’t for the Soul. That is because they are the same as for Spirit.

Between these essays and the other links, you’ll have much of what you need in terms of meditation practice and suggestions for rituals or activities that can be ritualized, such as dance. However, I thought you might benefit from two more links. One is a link to the Sufi Healing Order E-Class Archive. You’ll find some great essays in there, with all sorts of terrific meditation practices and stuff to contemplate. You may also find that some of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s lectures helpful. He never wrote anything down, he just sat and led meditations, answered questions and then taught lectures on the themes of those questions. It is his students who have compiled their notes and recordings of his teachings, some of which is at that link. He was Persian and his thinking is both formal and very esoteric; his thoughts give in the language of mysticism. It may not be easy to understand him if you are not used to the viewpoints of the words used by mystics. Also, he was raised on teachings from the Qu’an. This is a very patriarchal text and he lived in patriarchal times, passing on in the 50’s. His thinking was not at all patriarchal about alot of things. He was considered nearly heretical by more traditional Sufi’s for allowing women to become formally recognized guides and leaders in his Order of the West, which he established after following a vision to bring Sufi teachings to other parts of the world besides the Middle East. If you can deal with these differences in language and dogma, there’s lots to learn in Murshid’s (word for teacher) teachings, because they are based on sweet beautiful ideas and practices as you’ve seen from the few points I’ve shared here.

I leave you with one final thought about this topic of Soul and Air. I have a teacher who is fond of saying, “You have a brain. Use it!” He is fond of telling stories too. Instead of giving you the answer, he’ll pat you on the head and tell you ’shut up and listen’ and to use your own brain to figure stuff out. Like this teacher, the Sufi’s and many other teacher’s I’ve had felt that understanding is different from knowing. I could tell you that the sky is blue…but how do you really understand what sky is, let alone what blue is unless you can see it? You cannot see soul. You have to live it. You can feel Air in your lungs, or watch it blow over a house or ruffle leaves in the trees. But do you really understand these things…and your relationship to them until you directly encounter them and let them impress their wisdom on  you through familiarity and practice?

Understanding the Elements must come through study. I cannot hand you the understanding. You must seek it yourself.

I will do one more post in this series on the topic of Ether.

Images by Andrew Gonzales. This last link is to my art review site. There is adult content on it. Do not wander off that page if you will be offended by such content. That single page has no adult content. It is a review of this artwork you see here, which is just wonderful stuff I’m sure you’ll agree. You’ll find links to Gonzales’ site there.

Fire

This post is third in a five part series on the Elements. I recommend you read Earth and Water, the prior two posts before this one. Water, especially will add some perspective with this post on Fire.

I want to start this conversation on the fire element by shipping you over to read this too: The Soul of Fire

Now that you understand my viewpoint…that fire is alive and has consciousness, I’ll proceed with further discussion.

Fire is the liminal element. It is the balance point between the spiritual and the physical for us. I think the best way to truly understand the fire element is to understand how energy and experience is catalyzed by the heart…because that’s really what we are talking about; creativity, love, passion, joy.

Our physical being is motivated to do and act because of love and the urge to create. Our intellect is inspired by the passion we feel. It is called to question and sift through what’s most important as a result of our urge to love and feel joy in our lives. The need to be happy is one our intellect can accept, but it is usually only moved to make radical changes in thinking because of something in the way of that joy and happiness or because of the loss of something or someone important to us. Thought habits are transformed under the impetus of the fiery passion of the heart when no other force can compel it.

The urge toward a life of meaning is made personal because of our loving heart. By this, I mean to say that what’s personally important to us is what defines us, what gives our lives meaning and purpose. These things that are personally important to us drives our believes, behavior, needs, accomplishments, lifestyle…even drives our loving toward our goals.

“An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by fullness, not by reception.” Harold Loukes

This is one of the paradoxes of the heart that has been taught to me in the past couple years. I do not need to recieve love to give it. I need to simply love. Love is about listening. It is about witnessing another in their life, be it happy, sad, glorious or deeply tragic. It doesn’t take away the things that make us strong just so that we are never hurt. That is not love. Love is beingness. It fills our hearts with life force. Love is a life force. It is something that we can feel the measure of, even if we cannot see it. We can see its actions, just as we can the wind. We can feel its heat, just as we can the sun’s radiance. We do not need another to love us in return. We may feel we need that, but we can fill ourselves with love. We can feel full in our hearts by tapping in to the love that exists within ourselves and all of creation.

And the very best door way for reaching that love is gratitude. Forgiveness is another door way. So is creativity and service.

These door ways have been written about at length. I read many of these books. Truth to tell, I see these door ways as mysteries…things that one will never really understand until you’ve passed through them one self. An intellectual understanding of them just does not really help you implement the skills and blessings of these door ways. Nope. You just have to go through them and find out how they apply…how they work for you…how they impact your heart personally.

Just like fire is an ephemeral being, so is the heart. Its a living thing within us. It has a will and life all its own…it is almost as if we just get to carry it around with us and live with it. It will guide us through life if we let it…just as our soul will.

This is the one element, that despite it not being a part of our personality, we must still confront it. We must still find a way to deal with this gift we each carry. We must still learn to control our passions without stifling our life force and creativity and loosing our purpose and the meaning in our lives.

Sorrow remarked that she realizes that she has to be careful about how she handles others, how she expresses herself because she can easily hurt someone’s feelings. This is so true. A person with a very fiery nature is a creature of great passion…and often great conviction. The force of such a personality is a force to be reckoned with. We can just barge right over a person with a less forceful way of projecting themselves to others. This element requires the skill of turning back the heat, of learning to be a candle flame, not a raging bonfire…to to know when a bonfire is appropriate and how to manage it so that you don’t burn yourself out or drive others batty with obsessive behavior.

I know that there’s more in me to say about this deep topic. Somehow, I think that this is enough to take a person into the deeper aspects of this element, which initiatory, transformative and healing by its very nature.

Update: I was kindly reminded that I had forgot the meditations and rituals that I’ve been offering in the other posts. I knew when I wrote this post that I’d forgot something, but I didn’t feel well, so I just couldn’t figure out what it was. I figured someone would point it out and for archival sake, I’d just update the post.

A word of caution. Fire is dangerous. Work with it with great caution. If you choose to try anything I share here, do so understanding your own risk. You are responsible for your own safety. Ensure it. Use your head.

So here’s some Fire meditations:

In social settings between human beings we naturally do this. We share tea or other drinks and food because the act of sharing nourishment is a peaceful, calming thing to do that makes friendship grow between people. This same custom has also been applied to making relations with spirits. Fire in particular is a living being as I’ve shared in this and other posts. If you do this ritual regularly over many years, you will see amazing things happen with fire. It will behave in unusual ways when you interact with it. But it takes time to build a relationship with it and you must be ego-less and you must respect it. Do not toss garbage into a fire that you have made relations with. Do not toss fuel into it. If you are sharing the fire with others, do not interrupt the prayers and offerings of others to work in the fire or to pray yourself. Wait your turn. Do not interrupt the fire keeper as there is something going on between the fire and the keeper in those moments. Let them be. Approach fire with respect. To make relations with it offer it something that’s meaningful to you in your tradition. For example, for me pure grain alcohol is an appropriate offering with some fires. Usually these are lit for a specific sort of ritual that I’ll share about later. At most other fires, I make tobacco offerings. In the tradition I follow, tobacco is understood to be a plant that is supports making friendship and prayers and the smoke carries the prayers with it. Also I may offer sweet grass and flat leaf cedar depending on the prayers I am including in the ceremony.

When I light a fire in my house for warmth, I make relationship with that fire…especially if its a fire that is likely to stay lit for the rest of the heating season. That fire will be a very old soul as fires go by the time its allowed to die out again in spring. So we pay attention to it. We give it plant offerings regularly thanking it for staying in the stove and not eating our house. And believe me. There have been times when it could have jumped ship and didn’t.
The meditation part of making relations is to just be with the fire. Watch it. Tend it. Care for it. Spend lots of time doing that. It will teach you things…especially things about your ego.

Another meditation is called Mindful Smiling. That is to deliberately smile allowing your whole being to fill with gratitude and joy at the existence of what/whoever you smile at. In this instances, close your eyes and smile directly at the sun, feeling it on your face. Understand that it gives you life. Did it not exist and radiate all its loving warmth upon this planet you could not exist. Let it fill you.

Here is a heart meditation. I warn you that this site has adult content. If that offends you, then do not surf anywhere else but this single page. On this single page, there is absolutely no adult content.

Following are two ceremonies. Both are called Burning Bowl Ceremonies. One is with alcohol and one is without. Here is a link to the kind without alcohol. The purpose of this sort of ceremony is to work with fire as a tranformative partner. You could also start a bon fire and burn things like journals or braids you have cut from your hair or an old tshirt that represents something to you that you want to let go of. The key to these ceremonies is to truly let go of it and to do that, you must not let your mind dwell on the images and ideas associated with what you let go of again.

The Burning Bowl Ceremony with alcohol is a very simple ceremony that is wonderful for cleansing the aura of a place or a person. This is an indoor ritual. If you want to cleanse your aura with fire outdoors, then just build a fire and tend it. You’ll succeed. Burning alcohol outside is as dangerous as burning lighter fluid outside. It is an uncontrolled kind of fire that can blow all over the place in the winds. Don’t do it.

As for doing this indoors, be very, very cautious indeed. Be sure that you use the proper fire proof gear required to protect your interior space from fire damage. A heavy guage cast iron pot, a wide, well made trivet with legs and be sure you work on the floor with six or seven feet of clear space above and around the pot. Do not do this ritual with small children or animals in the room and do not do it with open windows or with fans on as the flames can be blown in a dangerous manner. Do not walk around while the alcohol is lit. Just sit with it and make relations while it provides you with a cleansing.

I have done this ceremony for many years. It is incredible for getting rid of yukky stuff off the aura and out of your house that builds up over a long winter without much sunlight or open windows. All you do is put alcohol in the pot and light it up. Be warned that the fumes of alcohol are also combustible, so don’t dally and you’ll be fine. Just toss the match in. Trying to hold it is foolish because of the fumes. You must use alcohol with very little water in it. 90% rubbing alcohol works. 200 proof vodka also works well.

Just sit and watch it burn. It does something very different than fires that consume other sources of fuel. Those with gas cookstoves get a similar effect without the issues of the fumes killing brain cells. *winks*

Water

This is the second post in a series on the Elements. The Previous post on Earth, may be found here. I recommend that you read that one first, before reading this one.

First I’d like to remark that if you identify well with astrology or tarot, you’ll find that these discussions on the elements corresponds well with what you can learn from these two archetypal teachings. Thank you for the reminder of this Sorrow. *smiles*

Now, water is pretty obvious in many ways. Obviously its about flow. Its pretty obvious that temperature plays a huge part in its existence too, being formless in hot temperatures, even gaseous and that in cold temps its solid. What do you suppose this means really in terms of personality? You may surmise that the fire element, or the heart, is intrinsic to the status of water’s form. A part of the work of water, therefore is to master that fire element in their lives…

Water is colorless. To some that might mean that it has no color of its own, but the truth is its more like a prism, carrying all colors. It is only the presence of other elements which makes one color more visible within it. So let us say then, that a basic quality of the water element is that it acts like a mirror, a prism or a magnifying glass. That’s the metaphor, the way that plays out in real time is that water beings tend toward being people pleasers. They tend toward being healers, social workers and spiritual guides because they are able to see deeply into people, to be empathic and compassionate and to identify strongly with another person, giving them an essential understanding into the nature of other people, places, and situations. This is both difficult and healing for all concerned. It is possible to loose oneself in others if the person with a watery personality does not focus on honing his or her will.

Water obviously doesn’t have much form except what’s around it. It naturally takes up space. This factor of being a large presence and filling up a room with their personality is often irritating to people. Yet most water beings are just acting according to their nature. Its not a territorial act for most of us. Its simply touching. Touching is the often the same as understanding to people with a watery nature and there’s a natural curiosity in us. We wish to learn all there is to know. We are naturally receptive unless stirred deeply or inspired and set on a course which naturally gains momentum with emotion and will behind it. When that happens a water being is a nearly unstoppable force.

The I Ching talks about ‘gentle penetrating force’. A water being comes by this patient wearing away of stubbornness, denial and foibles in others utterly naturally. They can see the shape of things. They can see that implacable will in someone they love and just chooses to live around it…wearing away the shape of things until its less sharp and more according to their own watery view of things. Eventually people just naturally get along well with water beings because its comfortable and easier to. And because we are usually quite pleasant, sensitive souls.

Water beings take on the temperature of what’s around them. Remember temperature is the heart stuff. Its about love and passion. So when I say we take on the temperature of others, I mean to say that we take on the heart matters of others as our own. This can mean that we can easily loose sight of the heart of things for ourselves; loose sight of what’s deeply important to ourselves in the face of what’s important to those we love. We almost have live with a constant will invoking mantra to hold our focus because others can distract us with little or no effort at all. We must learn to balance this need to form our own container for our flowing nature out of our own will with the absolute equal need to have something outside ourselves to push against.

By pushing against, I mean, someone who will meet our emotional intensity, someone who will challenge our ideas, feelings, heart, intellect, creativity. We need a muse for life, in other words. Its just our nature. So its a walking a fine wire through life. It forces us to be in constant vigilance about being in balance. If we get lazy, we loose our structure nearly immediately.

We do better within an environment that provides a natural structure for us to push against. Not for rebellion but for that muse to stay focused…yet it has to be a structure with flow to it because the one thing that’s simply true about water is that if we don’t experience constant change, we become stagnant. Stagnant people are grouchy, resentful, irritable, moody, depressed, lonely…any of that sound familiar to those reading who have watery personalities?

Generally emotions remain a challenge the whole life for water beings. Just the nature of the beast. Gotta deal with it.

It is also necessary to discover the sources of joy and happiness in one’s life. Because sooner or later, life will apply heat (an emotional challenge of some kind) and you’ll start to boil away in the tension of dealing with it a life circumstance. If you don’t source something deep and profound, you’ll disappear into the battle with the situation life tossed you and you won’t be able to deal with it well. You’ll feel overwhelmed and exhausted….really not much use to anyone.

For most water beings those sources may be found in air…that is to say the soul or spirituality and those activities that take them to their heart and soul, such as art and music takes me to my heart. For you that might be gardening or motorcycling.

Since this is my primary element, I relate to this element the most. i have the most insightful things to say about it, but you can see that I am able to speak of each of the elements as a result of dealing with my own, because I must find a way to accommodate them all in my life and master something of each in order to bring balance into my life.

The water elements is the element of intellect. The thing to know about this is that thinking leads to feeling. These are not passions. Passions are things of the heart and of the fire element. Passions cannot be just changed. You cannot change your mind about a passion and make it go away. However you can change your mind about an idea, an attitude, a perception, a course of action, you can let go of denial about the facts of something and suddenly whatever emotions you had about something will just change. Quick as a flash. This is how you can tell the difference between an emotion and a passion and which element you are dealing with in your life. Knowing that will tell you what spiritual practices are appropriate to dealing with it. Thinking issues call for mindfulness and purification of the thoughts that bind you. This calls for training yourself to think a certain way; thus emotions correspond. This is what I meant earlier by working with the will. You must train your mind to be disciplined and implacable about its course of action….else the watery nature of your emotions and the tendency to flow into distraction will drain your momentum from achieving your goals. The bane of my existence that last.

A note of great worth…The Native people believe that steam is the breath of life…

It is true.

Yup. I am deliberately going to let that one remain a mystery. This is a thing to understand on your own.

Water Meditations:

Mindfulness meditation is a very important one. All of life should be lived mindfully in fact. This element demands that one lives in the now moment, else there will not be balance, yet also maintain a sense of goals. There is a Witness perspective which grows as a result of mindfulness practice. This Witness may also become the Guide, the Conscience and the Will. If you think about it, low temperature, or lack of emotion about something enables a person to stand strong once a decision is made. This low temperature thing really means detachment. That is, to take the attachment to thoughts, outcomes and expectations out of things you have no control over. Those things we can’t control are outside ourselves. We only have control of our thoughts, actions and emotions. We can, if we choose, let the Will become solid, that is, lower the temperature or detach… and so provide a container to lifestyle and goals…but one must remember that too much will prevents a fire from burning because it becomes too cold. By this I mean that we all need passion in our lives. We need purpose and brilliant inspiration and deep love. These things are just as necessary as is detachment. It really is all about balance.

The Elements Breaths are really useful to water beings. They keep things from getting stagnant and help us balance our other elements. Though I am not emphasizing this with lots of language. It is one of the most crucial practices you can take up.

Explore different kinds of natural water features. A waterfall, rapids, a slow moving river, a rivulet from rain, a thundershower, puddles…just be with water and know that this is the experience that is most precious in our lives. Water is only slightly less essential than air in order to sustain our lives. we can live about three minutes without air, but only about three days without water. Glory in the water and make relationships with it. Keep it clean. Conserve it. Do what you can to protect the water in your community.

Experiment with water in relationship with other elements. Add temperature to your study. Watch water caress stones in a stream and pick things up and float them along. Watch it come to a boil in a pot and then become a soup. Watch it freeze to an icecube and then thaw in your glass and know the impermanence of thought and its emotion… Think about these experiences in relationship to the people in your life. How do you effect them? How do they effect you? How can you work with this interplay more effectively for all concerned….taking into account the basic nature of each?

Water Rituals:

Take a bath or go to a sauna or a hot tub and revel in what you experience very mindfully. Make a beautiful experience of it. Add scent to the experience, candle perhaps.

You can also do a very simple ritual of transformation with a cup of water. However, you need to learn some magical skills first so study a book called Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain and also Spiral Dance by Starhawk to learn these skills. In fact, Spiral Dance has directions for this transformation ritual. All you need to is choose a liquid you are willing to drink and fill a cup. In ritual, its always nice to have good atmosphere, so get some candles lit and find a really beautiful cup for this. Fill the chalice, and then sit and imagine all the things that are bothering you…breathe it into the cup, as each thing comes up for you, just keep using the breath to drop it into the cup until you’ve emptied yourself. Once you’ve completed the letting go phase, lift the cup above your head and visualize it being filled with Divine white light and envision the light transforming the energy of what you released that’s in the cup into something beautiful, joyful and nourishing. Fill the chalice  yourself with deep gratitude and pure love for all the blessings you receive each day. When both you and the Divine have transformed that liquid into a sacrament, drink it down and let its energy spread to every cell of your being.

The next post will be on the topic of Fire.

Here a few links that might be fun to contemplate if you like the I Ching:

Yin and Yang

Psychological Types

Earth

This post will be one in a five part series on the Elements.

The Elements are a concept to describe reality with. They aren’t the same as the elements of the scientific table about the basic atoms which combine to construct all matter in this solar system. In this conversation, we are describing some basic actions of our natural world: Earth, water, fire, air and ether. These basic actions of nature seem to resonate with the basic nature of our personalities. As these posts unfold, I’ll explain this further, but for now, let’s start with the Earth Element. This element is dense, slow to move or change, has weighty substance, often magnetized to repel or attract. In short it is form, just the way the land is, the way our bodies are. The earth element is frequently one which people associate with early childhood because that is a stage of life that is all about body discovery and development.

People with an earthy personality have no need to make changes unless there’s an outside influence of some sort. If they meet anything but air or water, its likely there will never be any changes at all, because that’s these are the only elements which can effect their heavy nature enough to make a change without actually changing the nature of the rock at its most basic nature, which would be the effect of very intense fire. You can make a rock change, but only if you melt it. Otherwise it will stay as it is…just become willing to change its position. *smiles*

It is very important to note that if you have a rock in your life. They are reliable touch stones in life. They can provide a grounding rod for all sorts of stuff and be the eye in a storm or a boulder in a flood as a result….but they will never change quickly and they will not budge on something unless motivated by their own emotions or yearning of soul. Its that simple. Their will is frequently implacable. Once they make it up, there’s no getting them to budge on something.

As I said earlier, this is an element that is all about the body…its density and sensuality. It is also about the land…its textures and beauty. Its fierceness and irrepressible ability to generate life.

Therefore the study of the earth element is all about focusing on these experiences of solidity, sensuality, acceptance, magnetism, changelessness, texture, beauty, tenacity to live…

Earth Meditations:

Create a spa meditation using bath salts and aromatherapy. Scrub yourself, wash the scrub away with a lovely scented soap and then massage in a scented oil. Luxuriate in the sensations of touching yourself. You could also share this with your romantic partner.

Walking meditations are also a good example of an earth meditation. Mindful motion and observation of the natural environment is very important to the study of the earth element.

I would also suggest that you study rocks with no goals for outcome. Just sit and be with them. Find a boulder or a stone you like and contemplate its colors, shapes and textures. Just enjoy it for what it is. Do not seek to change it or move it or understand it.

You can also take rocks and pile them into balanced stacks as a daily meditation. This is a very powerful sort of earth meditation. I have friends who highly recommend it.

Besides reveling in sensual experiences, you can study the absence of them. Taking a sensual experience away for a time can teach a great deal. That is the reason people fast, or experience silence or do not look others directly in the eyes (called chastity of the eyes) or other things of this nature.

Related Posts not in the series:

The Elements Breaths

The Needs of the Elemental Bodies

Windhorse

Bibliomancy

Thich Nhat Hanh is my favorite Buddhist author. There is a quality of being that I really resonate with. I find his voice restful even. There are times when I feel troubled that I just get out one of his books and do some bibliomancy; that is I hold the book closed and let my finger glide along the edges of the clustered pages until I feel my energy spring and sink at once, indicating that my fingernail has a met a page with a right message for now.

This is a good spiritual practice. It is usually very useful to finding some instant teachings and comfort. I have done this for many years and always found it the right thing to do.

Today I grabbed three books. One was a book of meditations by Melody Beattie called Journey to the Heart. I opened a passage about saying good bye. That has certainly been the theme of my life in the past year or so. I’m a bit tired of that theme. Truly I am. I just sighed with this one and thought, yup. That’s where I am.

I took up the next book. Its a Sufi publication that is only available to initiates in general. Its called Nature Meditations. Murshid (master teacher) Inayat Khan write it. I opened this book to a passage about orange a color usually associated with the solar plexus. I thought…yup. That’s the crux of some other things going on in my life. I’m having some difficulty directing my life and in utilizing and controlling my focus and my energy toward accomplishment and good health.

I’m starting to feel irritated when I pick up Hanh’s book The Heart Of The Buddha’s Teachings. I don’t want to talk about where I am. I’m irritated and frustrated about where I am. I’m restless about it. I have struggled long and long in the same place and I cannot seem to get myself to stop…there’s a deep fear there. I know that. I don’t even want to voice it; its so big. I am struggling with it…I am facing it. I’m still managing to overcome the fear and move forward in the past couple weeks. Agonizingly incremental, nevertheless progress.

So, the book shows me a passage that says this:

The Twelve Turnings of the Wheel:

Suffering:

Recognition: This is suffering

Encouragement: Suffering should be understood.

Realization: Suffering is understood

Arising of Suffering:

Recognition: There is an ignoble way that has led to suffering.

Encouragement: Well-being should be obtained.

Realization: Wellbeing is obtained.

Cessation of Suffering:

Recognition: Well-being is possible.

Encouragement: Well-being should be obtained.

Realization: Well-being is obtained.

How Well-being Arises:

Recognition: There is a noble path that leads to well-being.

Encouragement: The noble path has to be lived.

Realization: This noble is being lived.

I can’t decide if I’m still irritated or not. The fact is, that it depends on which point/hurdle we’re discussing as to where I am on this list. In some areas of my life, I am at the final stage. I get it and I live it. Simple as that. With other things, I’m only just understanding some of the reasons I am where I am…that fear I’ve only recently identified for example. With still other things I am somewhere in the middle of the two. I am both encouraged that I’ve got more on the ball that I often fear and disappointed in myself that I’m not doing a whole lot better than I am. The truth is, I’m not living up to my potential.

Sleet

Today (I wrote this on Wednesday 13th) I sat at the diningroom table eating brunch and looking out over the world beyond my window….which was very different than normal. Today, the roof has dumped enough snow against the window that the view through the entire bottom sash is nothing but snow. Its not directly against the window. Its more of a little hill that looks like a sand dune with little drifts of sleet pellets and snow flakes and somethings in between all eddying and drifting over each other as they constantly pile against the window pane.

I sat and watched those little pellets of sleet rolls and shift and pile for a long while. It was hypnotic. The light was playing in the little balls of ice, sparkling and shimmering as they moved against each other. It captured my eyes and just utterly relaxed me. I thought of nothing but those moving ice pellets….

And then memories began to wash over me. Of 1978 when the snow was piling up like it is now. Only then it was all one storm. I remember getting up to breakfast and finding the snow piling against the sliding glass door that was beside that childhood dining table and watching the snow and sleep pellets do just exactly the same thing. And responding to it just the same way then.

That was a good day. My father was home from work that day. He played games with me. For the first time in my life.