The Four Essential Elements • Our Existential Dimensions (BTW010)
⁘ Created: 2025-12-20 ⁘ Updated: 2025-12-29
How quaint — the four elements you say? But we're not talking about obsolete ancient physics. We're dealing with universal influences. We're looking into the omnipresent dynamisms in every sphere of life and existence.
Then for a primer into the symbols. Earth: Structures. Water: Adaptivity. Fire: Reactivity. Air: Relations. You: The central fifth element — observer in dynamic space. All of this: A compass into the substratum of your reality.
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By the way, I often hear you mention the four classical elements. Earth, water, fire, air. Allow me to bring you up to speed with modern science. We have since reached a more refined understanding of the building blocks of existence. Atoms compounding into molecules, etc. Why must you speak of these obsolete concepts?
So, with the four elements, we are actually not talking about atomic building blocks of life. We're talking about underlying influences, the dynamic properties that govern all phenomena. Much in way of your four fundamental influences in the standard model of physics. Along these lines, we approach the four essential elements.
With the element of Earth, we have solid presence, structures, containment. With the element of Water, we have fluidity, adaptation, cohesion. With the element of Fire, we have reactivity, transformation, catalytic interaction. With the element of Air, we have diffusion, pervasion, relationality.
Do we also find these in the physical world? Perhaps we do — but that is not our major concern here. We don't look at the four elements as mere physical movers. We look at them as abstract omnipresent principles.
Suppose in the domain of awareness, in the framework of your being itself. There, Earth is your constructed blueprint, the perimeter of your subjectivity, your container field. Water, then, is the flow of your evolutionary adaptation, the cohesion in your current. Fire, then, your reactive impacts, the catalytic transformation your being generates. Air, then, the cohesive expanse, the relational network of your existence.
Then, these four dynamic principles of framing and interaction, conveniently expressed in the symbols of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, go beyond mere naive children's fairy tales. Yes, particular modelings of these principles from the ancient world may well be obsolete, but the underlying abstractions, of which they were born, in themselves are timeless.
Please do not take my word for any of this. This is not meant as a presentation of hypothetical models. Instead, go find the elements for yourself. See if you discover them in your direct experience, reflecting on the dynamics of your existence.
Structures, adaptations, reactions, relations. You will find these anywhere and everywhere. When you attend to these four — Earth, Water, Fire, Air — Structure, Adaptation, Reaction, Relation — in all that life brings before you, in due balance, in there you hold a compass of orientation beyond compare.
A compass not into the flatness of east, west, north, and south — but a compass into the cardinal dimensions of existence itself. You yourself at their center, the fifth element in dynamic space. The four elements for your support, for your company, in our journey of being and becoming. This isn't material science — this is existential science.