{"id":1429,"date":"2009-03-01T01:10:54","date_gmt":"2009-03-01T06:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2009-02-26T08:16:39","modified_gmt":"2009-02-26T13:16:39","slug":"elemental-perspectives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2009\/03\/01\/elemental-perspectives\/","title":{"rendered":"Elemental Perspectives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not Rocket $cience<\/strong><\/p>\n

The system of categorizing the universe that\u2019s most commonly learned by Pagans is called the Elements.\u00a0 Although the four classic Elements (Air, Fire, Water, and Earth) proposed by the ancients aren\u2019t nearly as scientific as the modern-day Periodic Table of Elements, the ideas behind both are the same and the four-element system was actually the basis for the hundred plus modern chart.\u00a0 Magic dictates that we have an acute knowledge of the world(s) around us.\u00a0 And that means we need some sort of system to categorize, prioritize, and organize what we are able to perceive in those worlds.\u00a0 The four-element system works quite well for this because of its simplicity and flexibility.\u00a0 Each Element offers a way to view the universe and provides a niche in which to put our observations and ideas.\u00a0 Relationships between the four realms, though often subjective, are not too complicated to befuddle our minds and allow us to make general conclusions rapidly.\u00a0 When it comes to magic-on-the-fly, this is very handy.\u00a0 It is definitely to the magic-worker\u2019s advantage to study the Elements closely and practice applying the system to the worlds around them.<\/p>\n

This will be the beginning to a series on the Elements.\u00a0 Unlike most such discussions, though, I will not be giving you long, dry lists of correspondences or how to decorate an altar for the Element.\u00a0 Instead, I will briefly try to describe the properties of the Element and then go on to show how working with those properties can be applied to common, every-day situations.\u00a0 Using the Elements as a guide for understanding the world is, after all, the primary reason for learning about them.\u00a0 In other words, this series will be a demonstration of how our magic is applicable anywhere and everywhere.<\/p>\n

The first Element I wish to explore is the one we all are probably most familiar with: Earth.\u00a0 Before we were born, we were experiencing the Earth Element.\u00a0 This Element is the realm of our five senses and what most people call \u2018reality.\u2019 Earth is the measurable manifestations of the other Elements\u2019 activities.\u00a0 In other words, this is where the rubber meets the road.<\/p>\n

The reason I\u2019ve chosen Earth to be the topic of my first article in this series is quite simple:\u00a0 Its most prominent symbol is a really hot topic in the news lately.\u00a0 That symbol is money.\u00a0 Money is a symbol for the ability to make a change.\u00a0 By the way, I didn\u2019t make up that definition.\u00a0 It was actually the result of a quarter\u2019s worth of Economics 103 at the Univ. of WA when I went there back in the early \u201860\u2019s.\u00a0 The professor told us that we were to come up with a workable definition of money.\u00a0 It took a lot of study and argumentation between the students to arrive at that one simple definition but I haven\u2019t heard a more suitable one since then.\u00a0 Along the way of learning a lot about the subject of economics, we found out how wrong our outlook on money had been.\u00a0 Viewed from the perspective of this simple definition, almost everything else about economics can be understood.\u00a0 In the Tarot, the set called Pentacles or Coins represents the Earth Element, which proves how universal it is that money is a good symbol for this Element.\u00a0 And since so many Pagans seem to have a poor (pun intended) understanding about how to keep their Earth altar in order, I offer a lesson in how to un-complicate the issue that occupies so much of the news of late from the standpoint of the Earth Element:<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not make this economy thing too complicated.\u00a0 You turn on the news or read an article about stimulus packages, bank policies, pork earmarks, and all those other buzzwords used by the so-called experts and it\u2019s easy to think that our economic woes are too complex to understand.\u00a0 That\u2019s wrong.\u00a0 It\u2019s as easy as a child\u2019s summertime lemonade stand.<\/p>\n

There are essentially only two kinds of economic activities.\u00a0 You are either spending or getting money.\u00a0 Savings and credit are just ways to put middlemen into the equation.\u00a0 Companies, people, institutions, governments, and (who knows?) maybe even little green men from Mars can either spend money or get money to spend later.\u00a0 Every other facet of this entire economic circus comes down to one or both of these activities.<\/p>\n

Money that sits in your pocket does nothing except maybe give you some peace of mind.\u00a0 While it sits there, in whatever form it might be in (cash, credit cards, gold doubloons, whatever), it serves no purpose except to wear a hole in the pocket.\u00a0 Money is only a way of keeping from hauling around wagons of grain, barrels of bear, tons of steel, or shiploads of imported cars.\u00a0 It\u2019s a form of energy, energy to cause change.\u00a0 If you spend X amount of dollars, you get back something valued at X.\u00a0 Once you get your brand new X machine (or whatever), you can use it.\u00a0 That\u2019s a change.\u00a0 You can argue about what the real value may be, but the fact that you\u2019ve spent your hard-earned money to buy it says you are making a change and that change is valued as X amount of money.\u00a0 When you spend X dollars, those dollars go to the people who make the X machine, the people who sold it to you, the folks who got the raw materials together for making it, the people who designed it, etc., etc..\u00a0 But, remember, if they just let the dollars sit in their pockets, there is nothing getting done, no change, and therefore no economic activity.<\/p>\n

When dollars fail to make changes, that is, get spent, the economy goes in the tank.\u00a0 Economic stimulus means dollars change hands for goods and services.\u00a0 Every other activity is just smoke and mirrors.\u00a0 When politicians argue over what will or will not stimulate the economy, they\u2019re really arguing over who gets their hands on the dollars first.\u00a0 ANY dollar put into the system and used in ANY way stimulates the economy.\u00a0 A dollar spent by the congressman on a high-priced call girl is just as stimulating as a dollar spent on feeding your dog.\u00a0 (Okay, I\u2019m not talking about that kind of stimulation.)<\/p>\n

In the long run, money is useful ONLY for goods and services.\u00a0 Playing with money, sometimes called investing, is a way of gambling.\u00a0 Gambling that you can increase your supply of money without providing some sort of goods or services.\u00a0 I know the argument that investing creates jobs, blah, blah, blah.\u00a0 And it does; no doubt about it, but only after the dollar has been spent many times on its way to the factory floor.\u00a0 Everybody is trying to get a bigger piece of pie and your tax dollar has been put on the table as sustenance for their hunger.\u00a0 So, in the broader scope of things, investing is just a way of trying to get more money for the money you\u2019ve decided to gamble.\u00a0 And ask anyone who has been in the stock market lately, it is a gamble.<\/p>\n

What about credit?\u00a0 Credit is just another way of speculating (gambling).\u00a0 In this case, it\u2019s a gamble that the future will be as rosy as we think it will be.\u00a0 Credit is a way of gambling on the future while getting paid for it in the now.\u00a0 It\u2019s a loan and it must be paid back one way or another.\u00a0 Our current economic mess is a way of paying for the credit extended in the past.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the gamble didn\u2019t keep paying off as we\u2019d hoped.\u00a0 Our loan will be paid for in watered-down dollars.\u00a0 And, because our banks have over-extended their loan capacity, we all are paying for the atmosphere of plenty in the recent past that made investors think the future would be even better.<\/p>\n

This country is not alone in this.\u00a0 The whole planet is having the same set of problems.\u00a0 As we use up the goods of the planet (sometimes called natural resources), it becomes more expensive to get them.\u00a0 And there are more mouths to feed and people who want those resources.\u00a0 This means it takes more money (you know, that stuff that is supposed to represent our ability to make changes) to make the changes we need\u2026 like getting food and stuff.\u00a0 The short story?\u00a0 Life is getting harder.\u00a0 The long story?\u00a0 The politicians don\u2019t want to say that out loud unless they\u2019ve got some way to make it look like they\u2019ve figured out to make your life easier.\u00a0 This, of course, means somebody else\u2019s life will be even more difficult.\u00a0 But, (and you can take this to the bank) somebody will be paying big for the problem.\u00a0 The argument in Washington D.C. really is over who will get to be first in line for that colossal pile of \u2018stimulus\u2019 money.<\/p>\n

Only two factors are involved in this stimulus package that need be of any concern:\u00a0 how much money is to be spent and how fast those dollars will circulate.\u00a0 Now, the government is going to spend money no matter what.\u00a0 After all, they\u2019ve got a money habit that won\u2019t quit and they can legally print it.\u00a0 The number of dollars the government puts into circulation determines the price of things.\u00a0 When lots of dollars get pushed into the economy, each dollar\u2019s buying power gets diluted and it takes more of them to buy things (make changes).\u00a0 This is called inflation and no matter how you look at it, that is what\u2019s going to happen when you print money without there being an increase in goods and services.<\/p>\n

How fast a dollar changes hands is an extremely important factor.\u00a0 If a dollar circulates quickly, the overall economy is good; if it slows down, the economy is bad.\u00a0 This is true regardless of the inflation rate.\u00a0 Look at it this way: if one dollar gets passed around to five people today, then five people have made a dollar.\u00a0 If it has only passed hands (been spent) twice, only two people made a dollar today.\u00a0 The circulation rate is actually more important than the inflation rate.\u00a0 If the stimulus package gets dollars circulating at a rate fast enough, how inflationary it is will matter very little.\u00a0 A robust economy means the lifeblood of the economy (dollars) is circulating well.\u00a0 If that circulation rate goes below a certain level, the economy collapses.<\/p>\n

That is what\u2019s happened at the moment; the patient (our economy) has fainted due to poor circulation.\u00a0 And it appears to have gone into shock.\u00a0 The usual dose of smelling salts didn\u2019t seem to bring them around so they are being rushed to the hospital for more drastic measures.<\/p>\n

In the mean time, until the patient returns to run the business, everyone else should stop standing around gawking and get back to what they were doing before.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry, this happens sometimes; the patient will be fine after a little time in the hospital and probably a long time in therapy.\u00a0 Of course, there\u2019ll be one heck of a doctor\u2019s bill.<\/p>\n

Despite the overuse of metaphor in my example, I think you get the idea.\u00a0 When you look at something and think about it as an example of one of the Elements, it becomes easier to get a handle on it and makes dealing with it easier.\u00a0 Of course, nearly everything in the universe can be viewed from any of the Elements because there\u2019s hardly anything that isn\u2019t a mix of all of them.\u00a0 But before trying to understand something as a combination of the four classics plus Spirit, practice looking at it from one Element alone.\u00a0 When it becomes natural to dissect a problem into four Elements and you can bounce from one perspective to the other with ease, you will be amazed at how much more effective your magic will be.<\/p>\n

My next article in this series will be on the Water Element.\u00a0 I will pick a topic from the current news again to illustrate how using Water as the perspective point can provide useful information about the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not Rocket $cience The system of categorizing the universe that\u2019s most commonly learned by Pagans is called the Elements.\u00a0 Although the four classic Elements (Air, Fire, Water, and Earth) proposed by the ancients aren\u2019t nearly as scientific as the modern-day Periodic Table of Elements, the ideas behind both are the same and the four-element system was actually the basis for the hundred plus modern chart.\u00a0 Magic dictates that we have an acute knowledge of the world(s) around us.\u00a0 And that means we need some sort of system to categorize, prioritize, and organize what we are able to perceive in those worlds.\u00a0 The four-element system works quite well for this because of its simplicity and flexibility.\u00a0 Each Element offers a way to view the universe and provides a niche in which to put our observations and ideas.\u00a0 Relationships between the four realms, though often subjective, are not too complicated to befuddle our minds and allow us to make general conclusions rapidly.\u00a0 When it comes to magic-on-the-fly, this is very handy.\u00a0 It is definitely to the magic-worker\u2019s advantage to study the Elements closely and practice applying the system to the worlds around them. This will be the beginning to a series on the Elements.\u00a0 Unlike most such discussions, though, I will not be giving you long, dry lists of correspondences or how to decorate an altar for the Element.\u00a0 Instead, I will briefly try to describe the properties of the Element and then go on to show how working with those properties can be applied to common, every-day situations.\u00a0 Using the Elements as a guide for understanding the world is, after all, the primary reason for learning about them.\u00a0 In other words, this series will be a demonstration of how our magic is applicable anywhere and everywhere. The first Element I wish to explore is the one we all are probably most familiar with: Earth.\u00a0 Before we were born, we were experiencing the Earth Element.\u00a0 This Element is the realm of our five senses and what most people call \u2018reality.\u2019 Earth is the measurable manifestations of the other Elements\u2019 activities.\u00a0 In other words, this is where the rubber meets the road. The reason I\u2019ve chosen Earth to be the topic of my first article in this series is quite simple:\u00a0 Its most prominent symbol is a really hot topic in the news lately.\u00a0 That symbol is money.\u00a0 Money is a symbol for the ability to make a change.\u00a0 By the way, I didn\u2019t make up that definition.\u00a0 It was actually the result of a quarter\u2019s worth of Economics 103 at the Univ. of WA when I went there back in the early \u201860\u2019s.\u00a0 The professor told us that we were to come up with a workable definition of money.\u00a0 It took a lot of study and argumentation between the students to arrive at that one simple definition but I haven\u2019t heard a more suitable one since then.\u00a0 Along the way of learning a lot about the subject of economics, we found out how wrong our outlook on money had been.\u00a0 Viewed from the perspective of this simple definition, almost everything else about economics can be understood.\u00a0 In the Tarot, the set called Pentacles or Coins represents the Earth Element, which proves how universal it is that money is a good symbol for this Element.\u00a0 And since so many Pagans seem to have a poor (pun intended) understanding about how to keep their Earth altar in order, I offer a lesson in how to un-complicate the issue that occupies so much of the news of late from the standpoint of the Earth Element: Let\u2019s not make this economy thing too complicated.\u00a0 You turn on the news or read an article about stimulus packages, bank policies, pork earmarks, and all those other buzzwords used by the so-called experts and it\u2019s easy to think that our economic woes are too complex to understand.\u00a0 That\u2019s wrong.\u00a0 It\u2019s as easy as a child\u2019s summertime lemonade stand. There are essentially only two kinds of economic activities.\u00a0 You are either spending or getting money.\u00a0 Savings and credit are just ways to put middlemen into the equation.\u00a0 Companies, people, institutions, governments, and (who knows?) maybe even little green men from Mars can either spend money or get money to spend later.\u00a0 Every other facet of this entire economic circus comes down to one or both of these activities. Money that sits in your pocket does nothing except maybe give you some peace of mind.\u00a0 While it sits there, in whatever form it might be in (cash, credit cards, gold doubloons, whatever), it serves no purpose except to wear a hole in the pocket.\u00a0 Money is only a way of keeping from hauling around wagons of grain, barrels of bear, tons of steel, or shiploads of imported cars.\u00a0 It\u2019s a form of energy, energy to cause change.\u00a0 If you spend X amount of dollars, you get back something valued at X.\u00a0 Once you get your brand new X machine (or whatever), you can use it.\u00a0 That\u2019s a change.\u00a0 You can argue about what the real value may be, but the fact that you\u2019ve spent your hard-earned money to buy it says you are making a change and that change is valued as X amount of money.\u00a0 When you spend X dollars, those dollars go to the people who make the X machine, the people who sold it to you, the folks who got the raw materials together for making it, the people who designed it, etc., etc..\u00a0 But, remember, if they just let the dollars sit in their pockets, there is nothing getting done, no change, and therefore no economic activity. When dollars fail to make changes, that is, get spent, the economy goes in the tank.\u00a0 Economic stimulus means dollars change hands for goods and services.\u00a0 Every other activity is just smoke and mirrors.\u00a0 When politicians argue over what will or will not stimulate the economy, they\u2019re really arguing over who gets their hands on the dollars first.\u00a0 ANY dollar put into the system and used in ANY way stimulates the economy.\u00a0 A dollar spent by the congressman on a high-priced call girl is just as stimulating as a dollar spent on feeding your dog.\u00a0 (Okay, I\u2019m not talking about that kind of stimulation.) In the long run, money is useful ONLY for goods and services.\u00a0 Playing with money, sometimes called investing, is a way of gambling.\u00a0 Gambling that you can increase your supply of money without providing some sort of goods or services.\u00a0 I know the argument that investing creates jobs, blah, blah, blah.\u00a0 And it does; no doubt about it, but only after the dollar has been spent many times on its way to the factory floor.\u00a0 Everybody is trying to get a bigger piece of pie and your tax dollar has been put on the table as sustenance for their hunger.\u00a0 So, in the broader scope of things, investing is just a way of trying to get more money for the money you\u2019ve decided to gamble.\u00a0 And ask anyone who has been in the stock market lately, it is a gamble. What about credit?\u00a0 Credit is just another way of speculating (gambling).\u00a0 In this case, it\u2019s a gamble that the future will be as rosy as we think it will be.\u00a0 Credit is a way of gambling on the future while getting paid for it in the now.\u00a0 It\u2019s a loan and it must be paid back one way or another.\u00a0 Our current economic mess is a way of paying for the credit extended in the past.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the gamble didn\u2019t keep paying off as we\u2019d hoped.\u00a0 Our loan will be paid for in watered-down dollars.\u00a0 And, because our banks have over-extended their loan capacity, we all are paying for the atmosphere of plenty in the recent past that made investors think the future would be even better. This country is not alone in this.\u00a0 The whole planet is having the same set of problems.\u00a0 As we use up the goods of the planet (sometimes called natural resources), it becomes more expensive to get them.\u00a0 And there are more mouths to feed and people who want those resources.\u00a0 This means it takes more money (you know, that stuff that is supposed to represent our ability to make changes) to make the changes we need\u2026 like getting food and stuff.\u00a0 The short story?\u00a0 Life is getting harder.\u00a0 The long story?\u00a0 The politicians don\u2019t want to say that out loud unless they\u2019ve got some way to make it look like they\u2019ve figured out to make your life easier.\u00a0 This, of course, means somebody else\u2019s life will be even more difficult.\u00a0 But, (and you can take this to the bank) somebody will be paying big for the problem.\u00a0 The argument in Washington D.C. really is over who will get to be first in line for that colossal pile of \u2018stimulus\u2019 money. Only two factors are involved in this stimulus package that need be of any concern:\u00a0 how much money is to be spent and how fast those dollars will circulate.\u00a0 Now, the government is going to spend money no matter what.\u00a0 After all, they\u2019ve got a money habit that won\u2019t quit and they can legally print it.\u00a0 The number of dollars the government puts into circulation determines the price of things.\u00a0 When lots of dollars get pushed into the economy, each dollar\u2019s buying power gets diluted and it takes more of them to buy things (make changes).\u00a0 This is called inflation and no matter how you look at it, that is what\u2019s going to happen when you print money without there being an increase in goods and services. How fast a dollar changes hands is an extremely important factor.\u00a0 If a dollar circulates quickly, the overall economy is good; if it slows down, the economy is bad.\u00a0 This is true regardless of the inflation rate.\u00a0 Look at it this way: if one dollar gets passed around to five people today, then five people have made a dollar.\u00a0 If it has only passed hands (been spent) twice, only two people made a dollar today.\u00a0 The circulation rate is actually more important than the inflation rate.\u00a0 If the stimulus package gets dollars circulating at a rate fast enough, how inflationary it is will matter very little.\u00a0 A robust economy means the lifeblood of the economy (dollars) is circulating well.\u00a0 If that circulation rate goes below a certain level, the economy collapses. That is what\u2019s happened at the moment; the patient (our economy) has fainted due to poor circulation.\u00a0 And it appears to have gone into shock.\u00a0 The usual dose of smelling salts didn\u2019t seem to bring them around so they are being rushed to the hospital for more drastic measures. In the mean time, until the patient returns to run the business, everyone else should stop standing around gawking and get back to what they were doing before.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry, this happens sometimes; the patient will be fine after a little time in the hospital and probably a long time in therapy.\u00a0 Of course, there\u2019ll be one heck of a doctor\u2019s bill. Despite the overuse of metaphor in my example, I think you get the idea.\u00a0 When you look at something and think about it as an example of one of the Elements, it becomes easier to get a handle on it and makes dealing with it easier.\u00a0 Of course, nearly everything in the universe can be viewed from any of the Elements because there\u2019s hardly anything that isn\u2019t a mix of all of them.\u00a0 But before trying to understand something as a combination of the four classics plus Spirit, practice looking at it from one Element alone.\u00a0 When it becomes natural to dissect a problem into four Elements and you can bounce from one perspective to the other with ease, you will be amazed at how much more effective your magic will be. My next article in this series will be on the Water Element.\u00a0 I will pick a topic from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}