Not that my handful of readers will really notice, as I just cut and pasted, but for me the difference between the old, incorrectly spelled hagtesse.blogspot.com and the new, recently freed and mine-for-the-taking correctly spelled haegtesse.blogspot.com with the E is a big deal. It was bugging me, shall we say.
Anyway from now on new posts will go over there where the URL isn't misspelled. Hurrah!
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Verticality
I've never really understood it, I guess. Oh sure I used it, plenty of times, but as a system it just seemed kind of random. I mean, yes, there are four directions, and four (classical) elements, and I can even see putting them together as they are both symbolic of the whole, a good idea when casting a circle. But they never felt like they fit together.
I tried shuffling them around a bit, until I found a way that grounds me in my location, my landbase as Hecate would say. It helped, a little. I've been putting water in the east, since the Atlantic Ocean is in that direction relative to me. And so earth has gone in the west, as the rest of the country stretches out in that direction. And fire in the south does make some sense, as does air in the north for me, the two being (respectively) hot and cold from where I am, and yes, in New England, air or wind is usually cold. When I use them like this, I can feel it rooting me here in this very particular space. I can feel the entire U.S. before me when I face west. It is very grounding.
But still, it does seem rather arbitrary to me. It feels like there were four of one thing and four of another so somebody decided they have to go together. It just doesn't resonate with me.
I don't have a problem with the elements themselves being earth, water, air, and fire; and it strikes me that that really is quite similar, at least metaphorically, to the states of matter, solid, liquid, gas, and plasma (of which the sun is a miasma, of course).
Not too long ago I was told in a meditation that connecting what was above with what was below would help me strengthen my memory. The image I got was that of a neuron or nerve cell, which looks a lot like a tree. Trees of course being a symbol of the whole, or the individual, or individuation, as Jung would say; but also a Tree is rooted in the earth and reaches up into the sky. It connects earth and air, below and above.
Since then when I am outside even for a moment I do a very quick visualization: I reach down deep into the earth and then far up into the sky and connect the two, with myself as the mid-point. It's the old grounding meditation, really, just the quick version.
But then I noticed something. Because below earth there was fire. As the core of this planet is molten rock, this makes sense. And then coming back up there was water, seeking the level, hugging the earth; and then above that air.
I find a vertical ordering of the elements makes so much more sense to me. Fire, even, can connect the inside and the outside--go far enough up and there are the sun and the stars, which are again fire. I like the circularity of it, as I've always felt that deep within and deep without are really the same place. And for me as an Aries (though a repressed one) fire being the connector really works.
I like the idea too of it being a pillar; I can feel myself in the center of things more easily than with the directions as horizontal, though I'm not sure why. Maybe because instead of sitting in the center with the directions around me I actually am the center this way. The elements are nearer this way, maybe, part of me myself.
So then from above to below it is air, water, earth, fire. I don't know quite how I would work this into the context of a ritual or creating a ritual space, but it very much resonates with me, so I thought I'd share.
I tried shuffling them around a bit, until I found a way that grounds me in my location, my landbase as Hecate would say. It helped, a little. I've been putting water in the east, since the Atlantic Ocean is in that direction relative to me. And so earth has gone in the west, as the rest of the country stretches out in that direction. And fire in the south does make some sense, as does air in the north for me, the two being (respectively) hot and cold from where I am, and yes, in New England, air or wind is usually cold. When I use them like this, I can feel it rooting me here in this very particular space. I can feel the entire U.S. before me when I face west. It is very grounding.
But still, it does seem rather arbitrary to me. It feels like there were four of one thing and four of another so somebody decided they have to go together. It just doesn't resonate with me.
I don't have a problem with the elements themselves being earth, water, air, and fire; and it strikes me that that really is quite similar, at least metaphorically, to the states of matter, solid, liquid, gas, and plasma (of which the sun is a miasma, of course).
Not too long ago I was told in a meditation that connecting what was above with what was below would help me strengthen my memory. The image I got was that of a neuron or nerve cell, which looks a lot like a tree. Trees of course being a symbol of the whole, or the individual, or individuation, as Jung would say; but also a Tree is rooted in the earth and reaches up into the sky. It connects earth and air, below and above.
Since then when I am outside even for a moment I do a very quick visualization: I reach down deep into the earth and then far up into the sky and connect the two, with myself as the mid-point. It's the old grounding meditation, really, just the quick version.
But then I noticed something. Because below earth there was fire. As the core of this planet is molten rock, this makes sense. And then coming back up there was water, seeking the level, hugging the earth; and then above that air.
I find a vertical ordering of the elements makes so much more sense to me. Fire, even, can connect the inside and the outside--go far enough up and there are the sun and the stars, which are again fire. I like the circularity of it, as I've always felt that deep within and deep without are really the same place. And for me as an Aries (though a repressed one) fire being the connector really works.
I like the idea too of it being a pillar; I can feel myself in the center of things more easily than with the directions as horizontal, though I'm not sure why. Maybe because instead of sitting in the center with the directions around me I actually am the center this way. The elements are nearer this way, maybe, part of me myself.
So then from above to below it is air, water, earth, fire. I don't know quite how I would work this into the context of a ritual or creating a ritual space, but it very much resonates with me, so I thought I'd share.
