How and when to use the power of the elements within and around you in everyday life (practically). Boost your inner guidance and optimise the energy of different situations for more confidence and better results.
Introduction to the Elements within You
The four elements surround you all the time, you need only look to the Sun, the air you breathe, the ground you walk upon and the water you utilise to notice their role as the building blocks of Life.
When you are pretty far removed from nature in the city, it can feel like you are unable to connect with these forces while surrounded by concrete and steel in small or crowded spaces. After all, one would think that wide open spaces and less populated areas are more conducive to this type of connection.
However, by placing your attention on the life force that infuses all that exists around you, you can easily tap into the very same interconnectedness that pervades both urban and rural places ~ unhindered by time or distance.
In this article you will find ways to immerse yourself in:
※ The Nature of Each Element
※ Ways You Can Connect With Each Element
※ How to Use this Magickal Power Every Day
※ Understanding how this all comes together in the Craft, a sacred art now increasingly backed by “modern” quantum physics — essentially lost ancient knowledge returning to our collective consciousness at this time.
So stay tuned physically, emotionally and spiritually *cackle*
The four elements are within you, nothing external can impact your ability to access them or prevent you from developing a deeper connection. You are a microcosm within a macrocosm.
All 4 elements course through your body within your blood
• Air is the oxygen in the haemoglobin of red blood cells from the air you breathe
• Fire the vibrant red and warmth that ensures your cells are nourished
• Water blood is a sloe, which is a fluid consisting of water and salt, the same solution as that of the ancient oceans
• Earth is the salt in this sloe and remains after matter has dissolved in the ashes left after cremation.
Power Mantra:
It’s in my blood.
Some people speak of five elements, the fifth being Ether/ Spirit. I don’t consider ether a separate element from the other four, because to me the fifth element is what links everything. Ether is pervasive. It is the unified field, the Infinite Is.
“We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released.”
̶ Jean Houston
You can explore your bond with the elements in three ways:
1) See what your elemental affinities are and then develop your skills using them since they will work more easily for you than doing something you don’t resonate with.
2) Consider your current manifestation style or communication style. Are you an auditory (air), visual (fire), tactile (earth) or intuitive (water) learner?
Perhaps you like concrete facts and details or you may prefer to muse over abstract theories.
3) Meld with the elements in areas where you feel them strongly. Connect with imagery that draws on these forces. Acknowledge them in your day to day life to bring you greater self-understanding and help keep you present and connected with your deeper self.
Still not convinced you can experience the elements even if you live in the city (or without being outdoors consistently)?!
The elements are dynamic and while it may seem that certain places bear a stronger affinity toward one element they are all present in varying respects.
One easily translates into the other so these examples aren’t mutually exclusive or fixed:
Train Station
Air – Conversations taking place in person or via electronics
Fire – Metal, lighting and heat
Water – Swirl of emotions based on how people feel about their destination
Earth – The structure of the station, an architect’s vision in physical form
Art Gallery
Air – Appraisal and discussion of artistic impressions
Fire – The shared appreciation of a piece within a collective experience
Water – Emotional response to colour, form, symbols etc.
Earth – The physical materials; canvas, clay, paint, glass, frames, tiles etc.
The Sacred Masculine ~ Air + Fire
We all consist of feminine and masculine energy. You can consciously balance the energy flow in your life by deciding when to receive and draw in energy and when to release and expel energy. You are in control of how it affects you.
All of us are receptive to energy and also able to discharge it. Some people naturally accept it and some naturally project it whilst others do both.
Masculine energy corresponds with initiatory force.
It represents the Law of Manifestation. Intending and believing.
The sacred masculine is the activator and anchor for what the sacred feminine holds.
As such, the elements of Air and Fire are associated with the sacred masculine due to their assertive nature.
The Nature of Air
Air is buoyant and expansive. It’s also invisible yet pervasive like Spirit. Consider the air we breathe today contains the same particles our ancestors inhaled. All physical life forms in this realm share the same air.
The element of Air’s realm includes the intellect, communication, travel, focus, listening and learning. It embodies the sacred masculine, an active and direct energy.
Like the expression, “a breath of fresh air” inspiration, insight and a shift in perspective can swoop into our mind and take us in a completely different direction.
Stimuli That Connect You with the Element of Air
➜ Imagine or gaze at images of elevated areas such as mountain peaks, balconies and towers
➜ Gatherings of like-minded people where there is discussion and exchange of ideas, therapist’s offices, support groups
➜ Schools and other places of learning, libraries
➜ Airports, travel agencies
➜ Imagine or gaze at images of grassy plains where the wind moves freely, clouds moving across the sky, drifting, swirling or racing
➜ Call to mind any form of wind; from a breeze to a cyclone
➜ Breath ~ simply becoming aware of your breathing, slowing it down or consciously pausing what you are doing and taking 3 deep breaths
➜ Aromatherapy diffusers, essential oil blends etc.
➜ Dawn and the season of spring
How You Can Work with Air’s Magical Power Every Day
You engage the element of air when you consume or receive data such studying this article, journaling, list-making, planning, thinking about something, evaluating and considering.
The power of Air is activated through sound.
Air Magick is used to soar your thoughts and speech into the universe’s slipstream which inflates your vibrational reach.
✦ Not limited to the spoken word, your inner self-talk is also a power of Air.
✦ Chanting, singing or humming affirmations or a specific play on words that may or may not rhyme. The focus behind the sound is what counts.
✦ Wind chimes, bells, gongs, crystal bowls and any sound therapy
✦ Wearing or applying enchanted oil blends
✦ Mentally projecting etheric symbols over an object
✦ Binaural beats, hypnotherapy, guided meditations, carefully crafted music playlists
✦ Journaling (success, gratitude or simply performing a brain dump to relieve mental clutter and purge emotional charged internal noise)
The Nature of Fire
Fire is warming and revealing. It can represent stepping into your power, bringing meaning to an experience, demonstrating exuberance for life, bringing the light of consciousness to a matter and encouragement to continue when the going gets tough.
The element of Fire’s realm includes transformation, willpower, stamina and passion. It embodies the sacred masculine, an assertive and purposeful energy.
Fire shines light on what is ready to be revealed and blazes through what is ready to be transmuted making way for fresh beginnings.
Stimuli That Connect You with the Element of Fire
➜ Imagining or gazing at images of deserts, volcanoes or lightning
➜ Anything that generates heat like ovens, stoves, fireplaces, furnaces
➜ Call to mind warm sunshine or glowing stars
➜ Heat inducing spices like ginger, cinnamon or pepper
➜ Sauna or Hot Yoga
➜ Planetariums (because stars are made of very hot burning gas)
➜ Dance studios, sports centres and arenas (fast movement, team work etc.)
➜ Movie sets and theatre stages (shining talent, collective vision etc.)
➜ Noon and the season of summer
How You Can Work with Fire’s Magical Power Every Day
You engage with the element of fire when something about a person, place or thing stirs your soul, when you experience a deep sense of purpose or the surge of passionate initiative toward something.
The power of Fire is activated through participating in activities that lead you to feel more connected, becoming involved in a collective endeavour that illuminates your true nature and stokes the spark of creation in your heart.
Fire Magick is used to fuel new beginnings in love, career and health, to stimulate creativity and expansion as well as destruction of limitations.
✦ Lighting candles with intention, gazing into flames and using them like a screen, envisioning a result in them
✦ Burning petition/prayer papers
✦ Charging an item with your intention by candlelight, starlight or beneath an oil lamp
✦ Conjuring energy orbs to charge objects or send to people and places
✦ Vibrational activations (Reiki and other energy work, acupuncture, EFT tapping, kinesiology, cord cutting etc).
✦ Increase heart rate and core body temperature through exercise or sex magick – Kundalini, tantra etc.
✦ Rich visualisation and/or pathworkings
The Sacred Feminine ~ Water + Earth
We all consist of feminine and masculine energy. You can consciously balance the energy flow in your life by deciding when to receive and draw in energy and when to release and expel energy. You are in control of how it affects you.
All of us are receptive to energy and also able to discharge it. Some people naturally accept it and some naturally project it whilst others do both.
Feminine energy corresponds with creative force.
It represents the Law of Creation. Allowing and flowing.
The sacred feminine is the starting place and template for all life.
As such, the elements of Water and Earth are associated with the sacred feminine due to their receptive nature.
The Nature of Water
Water is in a constant state of flux, still or tumultuous, gentle droplets or a powerful gushes ~ just as our emotional highs and lows range between sadness and joy.
This ability allows you to express energy through you as waves of awareness. Your intuition naturally guides you to notice when you are in your power and when you aren’t.
The element of Water’s realm includes healing, purification, the subconscious, dreaming, intuition and all emotion. It embodies the sacred feminine, a receptive and creative energy capable of endurance and compassion.
Stimuli That Connect You with the Element of Water
➜ Harbours, ships and boats
➜ Genuine sea salt
➜ All bodies of water; ponds, fountains, wells, lakes, dams, swimming pools, showers, bath tubs, hot tubs and plumbing
➜ Water in all its forms (fog, steam, rain, ice and snow etc).
➜ Health and mineral spas, places of healing and recuperation
➜ Places of devotion and faith, meditation rooms
➜ Aquariums, aquatic creatures and plants
➜ Mirrors
➜ Dusk and the season of Autumn
How You Can Work with Water’s Magical Power Every Day
You engage with the element of water when you are aware of the ebb and flow of the emotional tides that flow through you and around you so that you are able to adjust your frequency to the reality of your preference.
The power of Water is activated through love. Recall a treasured memory or call to mind a current loved one (including a pet) and amplify that sensation in your heart centre so that it ripples throughout your body.
Water Magick is used to step into the currents of ease and grace to sail the streams of opportunity and synchronicity and/or enhance psychism.
✦ Brewing herbal teas to drink or concoctions to bathe with, adding herbal infusions to your cleaning products with specific intention
✦ Taping affirming keywords to your drinking water supply or incorporating crystals or symbols
✦ Imagining or gazing at images of waterfalls, the ocean etc.
✦ Symbolically freezing undesirable behaviour in ice cubes
✦ Magick mirror work (gazing into your own eyes, scripting into a mirror, scrying or talking with your Interdimensional Support team via a mirror, pre-paving what you want to see in a mirror etc.)
✦ Lucid dreaming and shamanic journeying
The Nature of Earth
Earth is nurturing and abundant. The physical realm you inhabit; it tends to all your physical needs and houses your physical vessel. The land you walk on, house you live in, nutritional nourishment and sense of security.
Earth helps you master your ability to fuse Spirit and matter as a spiritual being having a human experience, navigating various cycles where you hold the space for what can be without attachment to the result.
The element of Earth’s realm includes business, abundance, employment, prosperity, stability and fertility. It embodies the sacred feminine, a nurturing and responsive energy.
Stimuli That Connect You with the Element of Earth
➜ Pot plants, gardens, parks, greenhouses, Farmers’ markets
➜ Rock salt, salt lamps
➜ Crystals and stones
➜ Cemeteries
➜ Grocery cupboard, fridge; all food storage
➜ Coins, metals
➜ “Earthing” mats or rods
➜ Basements, subways
➜ Night-time and the season of Winter
How You Can Work with Earth’s Magical Power Every Day
You engage with the element of Earth when you physically touch something and use or operate something. For example, typing on a keyboard or feeling the tiny hairs of a violet leaf like soft velvet.
The power of Earth is activated through practising, participating or producing what is visible to others.
Earth Magick is used to build solid foundations and structure for your intentions to expand. To everything there is a season, a time to rest or act.
✦ Food blessing, mindful eating
✦ Constructing crystal grids or stone circles
✦ Engraving enchanted symbols into wood or metal, enchanting a piece of jewellery with a specific intention
✦ Sewing charm bags (mojo bags), fashioning poppets (also called dollies or voodoo dolls) from fabric, wax or clay
✦ Practising Feng Shui, placing objects in certain areas of your space to enhance life areas, decluttering and space clearing
✦ Planting a petition/prayer paper in a pot plant so its life force radiates through your intention
✦ Indulging in clay/mud spa body treatments and massage
✦ Imagine or gaze at images of beach sand, damp moss, acorns, flowers, caves, trees, jungles, animals etc.
Emphasising the Elements with Lunar Phases
Mages and a bunch of other very wise folk, consider the lunar phases from a symbolic perspective where the sun represents the conscious mind and the moon the subconscious (below the level of awareness).
In this regard, when the sun and moon are aligned, it symbolically implies your conscious self is in tune with your subconscious. This makes it a potent time to set intentions for the lunar month ahead where both the conscious mind and powerful subconscious are on board.
The idea behind this train of thought is that your intentions or goals develop as the moon appears to increase in size and become apparent in your reality when the entire half visible from Earth is illuminated at full moon as the sun and moon are on opposite sides of Earth.
So when the moon appears to be increasing in size in the sky it is known as the waxing (expanding) phase of the moon from; crescent, to half, to full, functions as a metaphor of you gradually becoming more conscious of what is as yet unseen i.e. as life unfolds during the cycle for you.
For example, this could be discovering new opportunities, meeting other people who can assist you, gaining new ideas, receiving information about a situation that you didn’t have before and so on.
Figuratively, the waxing lunar phase accentuates your personal ability to perceive progress in your physical reality or at least any impediments to your intention’s fruition so that you may take whatever necessary action is required to continue your progress or enhance your personal relationship with Self to move into greater alignment with life’s flow.
There is a natural energy peak when the moon is “full” in direct opposition to the sun. This is symbolic of the conscious self fully illuminating the subconscious which instils a sense of fullness, gratitude, accomplishment but also is attributed to heightened awareness and more intense emotional sensitivity.
This is the time during the lunar month to count your blessings, give thanks for what you have and what is going right in your life while assessing (shining light on) what isn’t working and what, if anything can be done to remedy a particular situation.
The lunar phase succeeding full moon is where it appears to be decreasing in size in the sky is known as the waning (contracting) phase of the moon.
How is that helpful? Does it mean that your subconscious, what is as yet unseen, overtakes your conscious mind? Not quite…
While the waxing phase may be interpreted as one of receiving and full moon phase as one of evaluation, the waning phase is one of releasing.
During this time of the lunar month it is favourable to shed any stale beliefs, limiting thoughts, unhelpful behaviour and emotional baggage that surfaced in your awareness prior.
For example, consider where you might be sabotaging yourself, how you can shift a particular attitude toward something to be less resistant, explore what you can do to relieve anxiety and so on. It is also the interval most conducive to healing and recovery so make time for introspection, relaxation and rest before the cycle begins anew!
Now that you are aware how the lunar tides affect the energy of the moonthly cycle, and are recognising the magick of Air, Fire, Water and Earth all around you, you can really begin to create more magick in your life by collaborating with these ancient forces to; enhance your intentions, wellbeing and path in life so you experience more ease, flow and sense of oneness with All That Is.
To Recap:
Waxing lunar phase
An energy tide for attracting and building
Akin to sacred feminine energy/Yin (receptivity and allowing)
Shared qualities with the Water and Earth elements
Waning lunar phase
An energy tide for deconstructing and releasing
Akin to sacred masculine energy/Yang (movement and activity)
Shared qualities with the Air and Fire elements
Air Moons
Occur in the signs of: Gemini, Libra and Aquarius
Theme: Mind
Favourable for: All aspects regarding movement, refreshing perspective and sociability
Fire Moons
Occur in the signs of: Aries, Leo and Sagittarius
Theme: Soul
Favourable for: All aspects of expansion, expression and transformation
Water Moons
Occur in the signs of: Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces
Theme: Heart
Favourable for: All aspects of emotion, fluidity and psychism
Earth Moons
Occur in the signs of: Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn
Theme: Body
Favourable for: All aspects regarding endurance, health and anchoring stability
Four Step-by-Step Lunar Rituals for You:
#1 – New Moon Ritual
(8 Easy Steps to Sow Thought Seeds)
#2 – Drawing Down the Moon
(What it is, Why you would want to do it and How to)
#3 – Full Moon Ritual
(Short, Simple, Safe and Solitary)
#4 – How to Release Toxic Emotions with Dark Moon
(Let Go of People and Situations Weighing You Down)
✶ Read more about aligning with the lunar phases here: The Ultimate Guide to Connect with Your Inner Wisdom and Enchant Your Life Consistently
✶ Top Urban Secrets to Feel Closer to Nature and the Elements