Directions and Elements

[Lonewolfza]

Insight into this is most welcome.

I wrote my own invocation of the directions and the elements, the way I thought felt comfortable.

East - Water
North - Fire
West - Earth
South - Air

Traditionally however I notice that westerns use:
East - Air
North - Earth
West - Water
South - Air

What are the thoughts surrounding changing the direction of the elements?

[Seabed]

Insight into this is most welcome.

I wrote my own invocation of the directions and the elements, the way I thought felt comfortable.

East - Water
North - Fire
West - Earth
South - Air

Traditionally however I notice that westerns use:
East - Air
North - Earth
West - Water
South - Air

What are the thoughts surrounding changing the direction of the elements?

Thanks, just a little correction: westerns traditionally use the south direction for the Fire element. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Actually, I find that the traditional correspondence is the only correct one. Some specific locations could be exceptions. Just in theory, what would you use if you stand just on the South Pole, or if you are in some space station? [smile]

[Shinichi]

Insight into this is most welcome.

I wrote my own invocation of the directions and the elements, the way I thought felt comfortable.

East - Water
North - Fire
West - Earth
South - Air

Whether or not you can comfortably feel the directions depends on how deep you are initiated into the corresponding forces, how sensitive you are to the forces of the world around you in general, and whether or not your comprehension of the elemental mysteries are flawed or incomplete.

This doesn't just apply to this matter, but to all aspects of magic. Creating ones own path and ones own arts, or adjusting traditional knowledge to better fit your personal path is not disallowed at all, but you need a foundation of some sort first (not merely a book knowledge foundation, but a practical foundation) or you will only go down a wrong path, which may lead to all kinds of harm if you are particularly unlucky and may lead to you acquiring little or no results even in the best case.

What are the thoughts surrounding changing the direction of the elements?

There is a reason why the "traditional" orientation of the elements are the way they are. The directions possess their own mysteries independent of the elements, and the elements organized in their traditional manner are simply in correspondence with the natural polarity of the planet. For example, if you are North of the equator, Earth is North and Fire is South because the North end of the planet most corresponds to the Earth principle compared to the other directions while everything South of your orientation is warmer, and thus belonging to the principle of Fire. While I haven't traveled enough to experience this myself yet, I have also been informed that this polarity reverses once you are South of the equator - the South Pole becomes the most Earthy while everything North, until you get to the equator, is Fire.

So the "directions" of the elements depends quite simply on where you are in the world, on your orientation to the world around you.

However.

You can call the elements from any direction. They are not reliant on their corresponding directions, they are just strongest in those directions because of the polarity of the planet in relation to wherever you are on the planet. There are the Four Winds, for example. If you reach a sufficiently expanded state of consciousness, you can even experience any given element encompass the whole planet, because all four elements are present in every part of the world at any given time.

So depending on exactly what you are doing and why, the directions don't always even matter that much. They are important in certain work, but if you are only offering prayers then you can just sit down where ever and say them.



~:Shin:~