the four elements

THE FOUR ELEMENTS

The Four Elements, when taken together, represent a mandala of earthly wholeness and thus, of human wholeness. LeClerc writes that “the poetic evocation of the four basic elements - ‘water, fire, air and earth’, is typical of the psych(e’s) quest of its own unity.

Betsy Caprio, contemporary American catechist, introduces her use of the Four Elements in her book The Woman Sealed in the Tower:

“‘The ancient elements of earth, air, water and fire are among the most pervasive symbols in the history of the world. We meet them in Greek thought, that of Empedocles and then of Aristotle. To the Greeks they were the substance of which all creation was composed. In the Western world, there is little mention of the four elements during the early Christian days and the Dark Ages, although they flourished as carriers of meaning in the East. However, as Saints Albert and Thomas Aquinas looked backward to classical science in the Middle Ages, they revived interest in the elements. (But) as sophistication in science progressed, it became clear that earth, air, water and fire were not the building blocks of the human body. (Nevertheless) the images of the elements remained. They stayed around in astrology, for instance. Even today, this foursome speaks powerfully to people. In Los Angeles in l980, for instance, a beautiful exhibit to honor the bicentennial of the city of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, opened. As viewers walked into a dimly-lit, gauze-draped space, music of the spheres blanketed them and they gazed on twenty-eight- foot -high angels of earth, air, water and fire. There were also altars to each of the elements, topped with antique madonnas. No explanation of why these basic symbols were used was given - nor was one necessary. The thousands of visitors were being spoken to at a very primary level of their beings. They knew it and responded with awe.”

In The Discarded Image, An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, C.S. Lewis writes of medieval cosmo1ogy’s understanding of the Four Elements:

“The ultimately sympathetic and antipathetic properties in matter are the Four Contraries: hot, cold, moist and dry. They combine to form the four elements. The union of hot and dry becomes fire, that of hot and moist, air; of cold and moist water; of cold and dry, earth. Earth, the heaviest, has gathered itself together at the centre. On it lies the lighter water, above that, the still lighter air. Fire, the lightest of all, whenever it was free, has flown up to the circumference of Nature and forms a sphere just below the orbit of the Moon. (Therefore) the reason why flames alway’s move upward is that the fire in them is seeking its ‘kindly stede.’”

Stephen Arroyo, a contemporary astrologer, attempts to bring the Four Elements theory up to date, and also to point out further cross-cultural evidence of the pervasiveness of the Four Elements theory in the human collective unconscious:

“(For example), in Tibet, huge structures called ‘stupas’ were built as gigantic symbols of the structure of creation. The base of the stupa was a large cube (representing earth), upon which rested a sphere (water), and on top of the sphere was a spiral-like structure (fire). Then at the very top was a half-moon (air) in which rested a small sphere (‘ether’, the Tibetans’ word for the primary force from which the others flow). The stupa represented the foundation of Tibetan cosmology, and the elements were considered therefore to be the fundamental energies of the cosmos.

“Ancient Greek philosophy was also based on the doctrine of the elements, which were equated with man’s four faculties: moral (fire), intellectual (air), aesthetic and soul (water), and physical (earth). (And) in Japan we find a Zen Buddhist tract written in 1004 A.D., (in which) our traditional four elements are represented as the four qualities that make up creation: light, airiness, fluidity and solidity. (Also) the elements symbolize the four states of matter described in modern physics: earth is solid; water - liquid; air - gaseous; and fire is plasma or radiant ionized energy. They may also be said to represent the four primary needs of any advanced organism air, water, earth (or food) and fire (warmth).’”

It can clearly be seen that the four elements can be ‘discovered’ in correspondences everywhere across miles and years. Beginning with the lightest and moving through to the heaviest. I will now take a closer look at each of the Elements.

In the following sections I will look at each of the Four Elements - Fire, Air, Water, and Earth as symbols to which many meanings accrue. As such, my analysis can not hope to be exhaustive; my interest is to explore the images of my Desert Meditation with an eye to their meaning for those suffering grief, and from an archetypal perspective, noting instances of similarity with the Christian tradition (although not exhaustively), and hoping to show that the images from nature within our own psyches can teach and heal us through the grace of the presence of God in them. Therefore, in the following sections I will not be defining the meanings of these images of the Four Elements as symbols, but, like LeClerc, will be ‘dreaming’ some of their many meanings and connections.