When I first started practicing magic I didn’t question the association of the elements with the directions they were ascribed to. Air was east, fire was south, water was west and earth was north. The association of the elements with the directions was something I treated as a given at the time. It was only later, with experience under my belt that I questioned the placement of the elements in specific directions.
I came to question the association because as with most things magical its ultimately an arbitrary choice. If I live on the east coast, why can’t water be in the east? For that matter why can’t fire, with the rising sun? Or west with the setting sun. It seems more effective to base the directions of elements on the actual reality of what you’re dealing with.
For example if I live south of a lake or a river, water being in the north makes a lot more sense than putting it in another direction, but if someone lives north of that same body of water, then water in the south might make more sense. And yet even then it is arbitrary, a convenient placement based on your own location.
The elements are all around us. And we aren’t even limited to the classic 5 elements. There are many more that we can work with if we choose to. It’s important to question what we know or think about a given paradigm. In my book Walking with Elemental Spirits, I deconstruct the classic paradigms and systems of elemental magic and show the possibilities when we let go of the ideas that have been taught as “gospel truth”.
Discover for yourself: What is true about a given path or process, system or tradition. There will always be people who will tell you what they think is true and for them, it may be truth, but each of us ought to question carefully what the truth is and find out what it can be, as it relates to our spiritual work and our lives.
