Tag Archives: elemental

Universal Ox

In Hebrew, Aleph is the first letter and is associated with the wind element, the breath of life. The letter Aleph is heiroglyphic for Ox, a symbolism rooted in very early and surprisingly surviving language.

In Daoism, Ox is a common theme in many stories and teachings. Lao Tzu riding the ox, Chuang Tzu’s story of the effortless ox butcher, and the Ten Ox Herding Pictures.

These two themes, in Daoism and in Hebrew mysticism, both seem to express the same archetype related to wind, breath, effortless work, ‘the force’.

What is it about The 0x?

Breathing Earth

VITRIOL ~ visit the interior of the earth and rectifying you will find the hidden stone.

A kind of tai chi to compost confusion & chaos within you. Something like a guided meditation, and a versatile tool with practice.

“Recycling Gray Energy with the Earth”

In simplest form, feel gravity as you breathe. Breathe in and draw Earth element up through your body. Breathe out and feel Earth element sink through your body and toward Earth’s core. Give gravity attention. Continue reading →

The Message of Pi: Platonic, Archetypal, Immutable?

Science fiction has played with the idea of a message being hidden within laws or constants of physics, as if a higher power encoded information within the fabric of this universe. To open-mindedly contemplate the possibility of this is sufficient to inspire awe about mathematics and its potential to present the platonic.

A constant such as pi seems even more fundamental and inherently constant than other physical constants such as the speed of light or mass of an electron. While those physical constants suggest a fine-tuned nature of the universe, it is more easily imagined that the universe could be tuned to different constants which govern its ways. In contrast to that, how can one imagine a mathematical constant such as pi being different than it is? It is of the nature of ideas, of geometric concepts (what we refer to as a circle and the relationship between its circumference and diameter). How can a constant which governs a mere idea be manipulated?

TRY – elements of surviving and perhaps even improving this crazy world

In the darker modes of the forest
Dreary and reminding of the precursors of death
I am guided by simple elements, that I may be guarded by them too

For dread easily distracts, and in fact it is only a few simple ingredients needed to be at least contented. When we’re far up and startled by the far down, we do well to find a common ground.

Fire to inspire, Earth to shelter
Water to wander wonders, Air to move too
Spirit to animate, as Earth is to space It is to time

On a cold and damp occasion each element may seem lacking. Each needs proper attention to be haven wholly. The fire is built and tended at a steady pace; the shelter is assembled, disassembled, reassembled, opened and closed and again; water is gathered, strained, purified; air is embraced and not left to waste. With all these elements in place, contented in our space, what are we to do with our time? I find

Having come from dreary to docile we move from idle to inspired, tinkering with each aspect of livelihood to enhance that which enhances us and remedy or leave aside that which would diminish us.

TRY

For in a complex world our content & contentedness is still made of these ingredients one way or the other. Like with one’s condition in the forest, there is an essential impact from the way one maintains warmth, shelter, water, food, and inspiration.

Awesome Elements of a Campout

At a recent campout with friends and family, I experienced two different instances of incredible complementary polar forces: Sky and Earth; Fire and Water.

I felt drawn to climb a tree. I made my way ~18′ up a sturdy looking white pine and admired the forest. I zoomed in on the tree itself and all the life it harbored in and around it. I zoomed out beyond the forest I could see to the vast forest it was a small part of. In this effort I became in awe of the vastness of the sky, and how the sky overhead continued all around the world. Looking out into that blue sky I recognized that the same Sky was present over those in far away lands, and over all sorts of lands, that Sky watched over the wide variety of All experiences on Earth. With that, I thought of the Earth. The ground beneath me is solidly connected with the ground beneath all others on this planet, held together by the attraction of its heart itself.

After the sun set, we had a campfire going and saw lightening flashes in the distance. Sensing the approaching storm we setup something of a small tarp town for the ~10 campers present. The team work and adventure involved in rigging up tarps was a wonder in itself. Later in the night, soaked and exhausted after having fun through heavy rains, I sat with my love and observed an awe inspiring feat of nature: the rain pounded down on the tarps, on the ground, and all around. All the while, the blazing wood pile stood firm and blew flames high up above it. Both elements made a similar but subtly different crackling sound – the impacts of raindrops on wet tarps, ground, trees, and all that goes with that, accompanied by the snapping, popping, sizzling, and crackling of a raging fire which pressed ever onward, upward. The water poured down and the fire roared up. Where the two met was a mysterious gradient – I’m sure there was perfect peace at some place there. For myself, I wandered between being wet or baked by rain or fire.

Awesome. Bewildering. Simple – a Forest between Sky and Earth, a Space between Fire and Water. An Observation.

Ode to Cracks in the Sky

Crack – boom!
A tree falls and nobody hears it
Silence fills the room
 
Sky vs. Ground
Zeus vs. Typhon
Mind vs. Matter
Path vs. Pylon
attention, intention, the chicken and the egg
 
We have cultures full of stories, stories full of hierarchies
Yet some seem to wish the world were flat
We have alternative systems to redistribute power
Yet all the while Nature tells us that
Lightening strikes only on occasion, viscous and swift
Yet electricity always flows, neutral as it goes, until the bits shift
So mind the matter and the matters of mind, watch what you do with it
One way will flow, one way will grow, three way be the source of it

Elemental observations in everyday life – from shamans and scientists

A mystical throwback* and a short essay update to modernize the ‘elementalism’. Thanks to the many sources and the one source.
(* The throwback is referring to a shared ‘Post from the Past’ which was presented on FB from 5 years ago today. That post is shared later on in this entry.)

The classical elements were concepts that helped our ancestors tap in to various ways of knowing – spiritual and ecological knowledge, as well as proto-scientific knowledge. Most folks reading this base their life, knowingly or not, on scientific ways of knowing. Science teaches us that ‘the elements’ are not simply Earth Wind Water Fire and Quintessence; there are chemical elements – unique atoms – and a whole weird world of particles and finer yet.

Are the ‘classical’ elements still useful, given our scientific progress? Continue reading →