The cornerstones of magic - the Elements. Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, and the fifth element that is ever pervasive, binds all together, Spirit. These elements are not just present in the wide world, but in ourselves. Air is our thoughts, our minds, our rational selves. Fire is our passion, that which ignites us to engulf, that which brings us to anger and to love. Our emotions are Water, fluid, changeable, deep. And we find our centre in Earth, stabilising, grounding, strong.
For me, working magic is harnessing these natural elemental energies in the world around and within yourself, and manipulating and using these energies to affect change. But you cannot harness the energies of the world without understanding how they affect you. Spend time in each element: go outside on a windy day, sit by a fire or in the fiery warmth of the sun, float in the ocean, lay upon the warm earth. Listen to how your body reacts, to how you feel physically in each element. Don’t try to rush this, allow yourself the time to feel and instinctively understand each element.
Once you start understanding how the elements interact with each other and within yourself, start trying to summon these elemental energies in yourself. Visualisation will help here. Note: I am not talking about trying to summon the elements in a fantastical sense e.g. conjuring fire in the palm of your hand.
For Air I picture a strong, powerful wind, trees bending in it’s wake, hair and clothes blowing, the sting of cold on your skin.
As a teen, a friend and I stupidly doused a bonfire with petrol, and of course soaked the ground around it. When we lit it, the fire engulfed the petrol, and a circle of blue flame expanded around the bonfire. This image, and the memory of the heat, is what i use to summon Fire.
For Water, I focus on the memory of how it feels to float in the ocean, to feel the power of the sea surge around me. The image of Niagara Falls, all that powerful water, unstoppable.
The strength and immortality of the Earth, how it feels to dig your fingers and toes into the soil, roots writhing through the dirty, flowers blooming, trees rising impossibly tall.
Practice summoning each of these energies, one at a time at first, and then banishing each of the energies from you (for this visualisation will help again: the wind becoming still, a fire going out, the water settling, plants and trees ‘regressing’ back into the earth away from you). You’ll begin to feel when you’ve summoned the elemental energy, your body will feel the same as it did when you spent time in each element, sort of a sense memory. Once you are getting a handle on each element, try summoning all of them at once, and balance the energies within yourself. This will take some practice, and again you will feel when you’ve got it. Banish each of the energies, and feel what it is like to be free of them.
After each exercise it is always healthy to ground yourself. An easy ‘beginners’ way of doing this is by having something to eat and drink, and to consciously change your attention and train of thought to something more mundane. You should also always write up your thoughts and feelings after each exercise in a journal. Whether you call this your Book of Shadows, or your Grimoire, is irrelevant, the important thing is to write it down. What worked? What didn’t? What imagery and visualisations did you use? How did it feel to you? These notes will be infinitely valuable to you in the early days of your craft especially. And remember to have patience. You will not accomplish this summoning and balancing of elemental energies in a day. It will take time. you may find that you attune to a particular element more than others, you may not. Give yourself the time to explore the elements, to fully appreciate them. Look, listen, and feel.
DISCLAIMER: this is how I started as a beginner witch, not how everyone starts. A dozen different witches will give you a dozen different ways to begin. This is merely how I do things. There is no wrong path.
