Continuing with the ChirstoPagan series, it would be a terrible injustice to not talk about elemental energies. We’ve talked about the concepts of energies, grounding energies, and centering energies, but what are elemental energies.
Elemental energiesare the energies of the four elements, often associated with the four directions Earth (North), Air (East), Fire (South), and Water (West). Each of these energies hold certain attributes due to their inherent qualities and compass positions (usually from the aspect of English or European teachers). In the coming weeks we will discuss each direction in their own right, but in this post I want to lightly discuss why and how we use them in practice, the debate on the order of which goes first, and the directions that they are associated with.
The reason that you would want to connect to these Elemental Energies is so that you can gain and maintain a sense of balance. It is almost like each one is keeping you perfectly balanced on a single point. Having too much leaning towards one direction could make you overly emotional, emotionally distant, entirely too grounded, or not grounded enough. Keeping that balance in check will aide you not only in your magical life, but in your mundane life as well. Think of being at work and everything is perfectly balanced with nothing being out of place. This can happen for you when the Elemental Energies are in perfect balance. In your magical endeavors you will find that it is easier to perform spell-work as you draw in those energies equally into yourself.
There is a debate about when calling quarters and invoking the elemental energies in ritual, which one comes first. Some say that you should go with the North first and others say that you should start with the East first. I say that it could be dependent on what your ritual is for. I used to be of the mindset that everything starts from the East, as it has always had certain meaning to me as I will discuss later.
Looking at this topic further though I have decided that it is purely dependent on the ritual work that will be performed. If you are for instance doing a ritual that is based in love or passion you may want to invoke the element of fire first to acknowledge that it will be the primary element being worked with in that ritual as you require its elemental energies. You could also, in the same scenario, call on the element of fire last. Calling the other ones first would make it that they tether yourself and keep yourself balanced as you are drawing in the fire energy into you to be directed for the ritual at hand. This can be true for any energy that you work with as you tap into them and discover what each element means for you.
Looking at what direction is associated with each element you have to realize that most of the authors and teachers are coming from a European influence that held truth to those directional energies, such as there are mountains in the North so it therefore represented North and there’s this gigantic body of water to the west called the Atlantic Ocean so that must be water and so on. When you change locations your elemental energies could shift directions. This could be true if you move from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere. Instead of mountains being to the North, now you have an Equator there that can very much be a representation of fire. You may also have a body of water to your East instead of to the West and so on.
I would challenge you to explore the geographical location that you are in and what direction holds true for each Elemental Energy. Will your Earth energy still be North or could it be West? Discover the area around you to find the answer and share it with a comment below.
