The Elements: Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Spirit

Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Spirit · A seven-lesson course · Wyrd House Witchcraft

Welcome

Come in. Sit down. Take off your shoes, if you like, and put your feet flat on the floor.

Feel that? The floor holding you up. That is where we begin.

This course is for the person who has met the elements in passing and wants to know them properly. Who has called the quarters in circle, or read the tables of correspondences, and felt that there must be more to it than a list. Who suspects that earth, water, air and fire are not just symbols, but something you can feel: in the weight of a stone, the cold of a stream, the first wind of the morning, the warmth of a hearth. And who has wondered what witches mean when they speak of a fifth.

Over seven lessons you will meet each element on its own, slowly, with time to get to know it. You will learn where the idea of the elements comes from, from the Greek philosophers to the Victorian magicians who gave the witches their circle. You will learn what country people did with earth and water and wind and fire long before anyone called it magic. And you will practice: a meditation, a full ritual, and an incense blend of your own making, for every element.

You do not need any experience. You do not need a coven, a temple, or a forest. You need a corner of a room, a candle, a notebook, a few simple ingredients, and an open window.

How the course works

There are seven lessons. The first lays the foundations. The next five go deep into one element each. The last brings them all together and out into your life.

1. Meeting the Elements: where the elements come from, the directions, and the safety foundations for all the incense work
2. Earth: the north, the body, the strength of being held
3. Water: the west, feeling, flowing and remembering
4. Air: the east, breath, word and the dawn wind
5. Fire: the south, the hearth, the sun and the will
6. Spirit: the center where all four meet
7. Walking with the Elements: carrying the five into your days, your year and your land

Each lesson follows the same shape, so you always know where you are.

• Teach. The history, the qualities and the folk practice of the element, told plainly. What is old, what is newer, and what scholars still argue about.
• Meditation. A guided journey to read aloud slowly, or to record in your own voice and play back.
• Ritual. A complete working for one person, in an ordinary home, with everything you need listed and every step numbered.
• Make. Something for your hands. In the element lessons, this is a loose incense, burned on charcoal, with safety notes.
• Before you go. A small practice for the days until the next lesson, and a pointer to what comes next.

After each of the first six lessons there is a short check-in: three questions, to help what you learned settle. Two right answers out of three lets you move on. It is not a test. It is a pause.

How to pace yourself

You can work through the whole course in seven weeks, one lesson a week. That gives each element time to show itself in your ordinary days, which is where the real learning happens.

You can also follow the year. Begin with Lesson 1 whenever you like. Take Earth in winter, Air in spring, Fire in summer and Water in autumn, and Spirit at the turning of the year. This is slower, but very rich.

Or take the lessons in the order that calls you. If you are flooded, start with Earth. If you are stuck, start with Fire. Just do Lesson 1 first, because it holds the safety guidance for every blend that follows.

Whatever pace you choose, do the meditation and the ritual before you move on. Reading about water is not the same as standing by it.

What you will need

You will find a full shopping list in Lesson 1. In short:

• A notebook for your Elements Journal
• Candles, including one white or clear candle
• A heat proof censer or bowl, filled with sand or fine gravel
• Quick lighting charcoal discs and a pair of metal tongs
• A mortar and pestle that you use only for incense
• Five small glass jars with lids, and labels
• A small collection of resins and dried herbs, listed in each lesson, chosen so that you can buy them almost anywhere in the world
• A stone, a cup, a feather and a candle for your altar
• Comfortable shoes and a willingness to go outside

You do not need to buy everything at once. Each lesson lists what it needs.

A word on honesty

We love the old ways too much to make things up about them.

The four elements are genuinely old: they come to us from Greek thinkers of the fifth century BCE, and through Rome, the medieval schools, the alchemists and the Renaissance magicians. The way witches use them today, with each element fixed to a direction, a tool and a point on the pentagram, is much newer. Most of it was set out by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the 1880s and passed into Wicca in the twentieth century. Spirit as a fifth element is newer still, built from older ideas of aether and quintessence. Other cultures, such as those of China and India, have their own element systems, which are not the same as the Greek four and deserve to be understood on their own terms.

We tell you all of this as we go, not to take anything away, but because a practice that knows its own roots is a practice that can grow.

A word on safety

This course works with fire, smoke and plants. Please take this seriously.

Burning incense on charcoal indoors releases fine particles and carbon monoxide. Lesson 1 sets out the safety rules once, properly, and every later lesson refers back to them. In brief: always ventilate, always use a heat proof censer filled with sand, handle charcoal only with tongs, never leave it unattended, and keep a carbon monoxide alarm in the room. Do not burn incense in a home with pet birds. If you have asthma or another breathing condition, or if you are pregnant, work with your blends unburned, outdoors, or on a gentle resin warmer instead.

The elements in this course are a language for the body and the psyche. They are not medicine. Nothing here is a substitute for a doctor, a therapist or your own good sense.

A word on sourcing

Some of the oldest incense materials are now under real pressure. In Lesson 1 you will find a short guide to buying resins and herbs well: which frankincense to look for, which dragon’s blood to choose, and why we leave white sage and palo santo out of this course. Wherever we can, we suggest something that grows near you.

If you are in our Year and a Day

If you are also working through our Year and a Day, you have already met the elements, the center and the casting of the circle there. This course goes further into each element, with its own meditations, rituals and blends, and it fits alongside your Year and a Day work without repeating it.

Before you begin

Find a small place in your home that can be yours for the length of this course. A shelf, a windowsill, the corner of a table. Clear it. Put a candle there and leave it unlit for now.

Then open your notebook, and on the first page write: I am made of earth and water, air and fire. I am here to meet them.

When you are ready, turn to Lesson 1.