The elements give us a way to see where life has got stuck. In Paul Francis’s books, a lack of fire shows up as depression and feeling unable to move on; trouble with water as holding on, wallowing in the past and unresolved grief; trouble with earth as being ungrounded and never fully arriving; the transformation practicesTransformation practices. The family of journey-practices in which the self is deliberately taken apart, reduced to something formless, and reformed: burials, burnings, dismemberments, sky burials, dissolvings, cocoonings, poisonings, shapeshifting. A mini death-and-rebirth: cleansing, loosening of identity, and preparation for the greatest transformation of all. Read the full answer help with each. On the courses this is developed into a fuller teaching about the Wheel of Life.
What does it mean to be stuck in an element? #
Not in those words, but an element can be lacking, feared or held on to, and three of the elements show how. When fire is lacking, “We may feel stuck and unable to make the changes necessary to move on from a situation that is making us miserable.”1 Water issues include “wallowing in the past and not letting things go, holding on to things, unfinished and unresolved grief”.2 Earth issues include being ungrounded, feeling we do not belong, or that we have “never fully ‘arrived’ here.”3 The fuller teaching on being stuck in an element is given on the courses.
What does health mean here? #
Balance. Health means the parts of us and the realms being honoured and in balance, rather than one taking over. For the two spiritual realms: “A balanced spiritual practice, one that is not top-heavy and ungrounded, one that is not hierarchical and Fallen, is one that understands and works with both of the spiritual realms equally.”4 How this applies to the elements is taught on the Wheel of Life course; the books apply it to the realms and to the parts of self.
How can the elements help us get unstuck? #
By working with the element we lack or fear. Each transformation practice brings an element’s medicine: burials help with groundingGrounding. Returning fully into the body and physical reality; the bedrock of safe practice, and how every journey ends. More about this and belonging, burnings “can teach us to embrace the fire element and not be afraid of it”,5 and dissolvings help with letting go. All of them involve being “taken completely apart and reduced to something formless, and then being reformed again”, and so they are practice in letting go of old forms.6 See What are transformation practices and shapeshifting?
What is the purpose of working with the elements? #
Healing and letting go. In the books, each transformation practice helps with the element a person finds hardest: grounding through burial, power through burning, letting go through dissolving. The Wheel of Life course, and a future book in the series, take this much further, into the cycles of the seasons and of a human life. See What is the Wheel of Life?
