Seven Elements Introduction (Heather Eggleston)

It is said that we are all made of Stars. This is a beautiful sentiment that speaks to a magical quality of life and the interconnection of all things. The same essence that lights Night’s sky also shines through an old man’s eyes. What I see outside me is experienced within me. Now let us take this a step further and suggest that we all are Stars. We are creatures made of Light and movement, particles and waves, song and dance, who constantly climb a ladder to the Heavens and back again. Now imagine the Stars themselves: the Pleiades, Orion, Vega, and the rest as they curiously look down at our Earth and see millions of sparkling Lights moving about, glowing like fireflies, dancing like the Aurora Borealis, creating dynamic constellations among themselves. 

We exist in an age that struggles to remember to even look up to the sky or to feel Earth beneath our feet. There was a time when the map of Night’s sky was the only way to navigate from here to there. Once upon a time the horoscope, an individual’s own Night sky, was her personal map to navigate the twists and turns devised by the Ladies of Fate at the moment of his birth. 

Now many of us live in boxes made of concrete and eat food from boxes, all the while keeping our thoughts safely boxed in. But the soul of humanity remembers a much earlier time in which we were intimately connected with Earth Herself: the elemental reality of Stone, Water, Fire, the Green things, the Mists, Light, and Breath. Instead of existing in boxes we danced in circles and dreamed of cycles in which we rise and fall, like our chests as we inhale and exhale. 

Each of the seven elements infuses existence with its essential nature. They then dance together in an infinite cycle of motion, drumming a rhythm of creation and destruction. This cycle maintains the balance and dynamism that is life. As without, so within. Everything we observe in the natural world has a corollary reality in our individual bodies. 

Stone, like our bones, is the skeletal structure of our Mother Earth that supports her form, maintains memory, and speaks with the voices of ancient ones who have seen cycles upon cycles of life. The waters of Earth: oceans, rivers, and lakes, are her circulatory system. They wash, cleanse, and purify her emotions – just as our own rivers of blood do as they flow through us. The Sun shines his benevolent rays to celebrate his own existence – just as our inner sun generates heat and digestive warmth through the body – stimulating energy and provoking internal processes. The Green: the trees, grasses, plants, and surface dwellers, communicate through their root systems and speak through their leaves, connecting and sharing nourishment through the soil – just as our hearts link together in intricate interpersonal and empathic connections that nourish and support us. The Mists are the sounds carried on the winds, the voice of all Creation. The microcosmic mist is our voice, the exhalation of Breath that passes our unique songs into the world on the sound of our own names. Light is the sacred Mother, the substance of all existence, as well as the mechanisms by which she is experienced. We are made of Light, all we perceive is Light, and we perceive via Light. Breath is the essence of the Father, who sends his animating essence into all his children. And so we are tied together by our very substance, the Light of Mother, and the essence of life, the Breath of Father. We cannot have one without the other. We cannot exist without substance or essence. They are intricately married, Light and Breath, Mother and Father. 

The interplay among these seven elements is evidenced throughout all of Creation. The fire of the inner Sun warms the waters, purifying and clearing out stagnant debris and murkiness. Our bones are warmed by the breath of the Mist calling them to speak of what they have known in their long, long lives. And the Breath exhales itself out over Creation on the song of our voices calling out for a return to Love, an exploration of mystery, and the cleansing of those bonds, like the Green, that hold us all.