I want to talk a little bit about an old Medieval science called Humorism. The idea was that humours are four different fluids in the body, which must be evenly balanced for optimum health. The balance of these humours also affected your mood or state of mind. It was thought that people could be born with a certain imbalance of the humours, and this imbalance caused certain physical traits as well as personality traits. The type of food you ate was believed to affect the balance of your humours, and so certain diets were recommended to treat different imbalances. The four humours are associated with the four classical elements of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. This belief, originating in ancient Greece, was also taught in India. The theory dominated Western medical thinking for more than 2000 years. "Dragons" Fire - Choleric People with this temperament tend to be egocentric and extroverted. They may be excitable, impulsive, and restless, with reserves of aggression, ...

This is my diagram of the "wheel of the year" based on the data for my location. This is something I recommend everyone does - find out the meteorological data for where you live. I have written down the average temperature, rainfall, and sunshine for each month of the year.This has me thinking about the wheel of the year in Elemental terms. It was Aristotle that proposed that each of the Elements has two qualities each. Earth is cold and dry, because it represents molecules moving at their slowest, locked into a solid position. As the molecules warm up, they become more fluid. Water is cold and wet because it represents the liquid state. Air is hot and wet because it represents the water molecules evaporating upwards as they are heated. Fire is hot and dry because it represents the molecules in their ionised state. So, looking at the wheel of the year we can see the hot, cold, dry and wet quarters, which can indicate the Elemental symbolism of the seasons. We are current...

Last month, I finished reading Practical Elemental Magick by Sorita d’Este and David Rankine. There were some interesting facts in there, and this is a topic that I love to explore because when you look into the different beliefs that were held in the past you find a great amount of variety. This lead me to further analyse my own take on the elements. I drew the following diagram to show how I see the classical elements. To me, the elements represent the four fundamental states of matter. At the top of the scale, we have fire, which represents the plasma state of matter. Other examples of matter in a plasma state are lightning, electric sparks, the Sun and stars. When a plasma is deionised, it becomes gas, which is represented by the element of air. The air we breathe is formed of several types of gases, such as nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide. When gas condenses it becomes liquid, which is represented by water. Other examples of liquids include bodily f...

Well hello there, I think I have finally finished my World Tree painting. People ask me what it's supposed to represent. Well this is a symbol of connection. Alan Watts said the Universe is like a tree. Just as a tree produces apples, the Universe produces people. We are the fruit of the Tree of Life. We may think of ourselves as separate individuals, but we are all connected to the tree, everything that is anything is produced by this one tree, nourished by this tree, part of this tree. This is a symbol of Oneness. Around the tree you can see the full spectrum of visible light, each "separate" colour blending into the next, to show there are no lines to separate them, they are united. Humans are the same, we may categorise ourselves into separate groups, but those lines we draw are in our heads. On either side of the tree are two globes, they are supposed to represent the Moon and Sun, Night and Day, Winter and Summer. They are two sides of the same coin, equal and ...

Five point stars, or pentagrams, were first found scratched into Stone Age caves. In ancient Babylonia, the five points represented the five visible planets in the sky. In ancient Greece, the mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras wrote that the number five represented the human, due to the fivefold division of the body, and the pentagram was used as a symbol of health. He also wrote that the five points of the pentagram represented the classical elements, the initials of which spelt out the name of the Greek goddess of health, HYGEA. Medieval Christians wore the pentagram as a symbol of Christ's five wounds, as it was believed to ward off evil. The pentagram was also believed to represent the five senses of touch, taste, sound, sight, and smell. According to the Kabbalah, the five points represent the five upper sephiroth of the Tree of Life, which are known as Justice, Mercy, Wisdom, Understanding, and Transcendence. The pentagram can be found in the stone work of Gothic ...

I have been working on this little painting, it's not finished yet, because I'm not sure how it's going to develop, but my thinking behind it is a diagram of Aristotle's classical elements. This photo isn't brilliant, so what what looks like a black area is actually blue and purple. I am trying to combine the idea of the classical elements, with the scientific states of matter, and the spectrum of visible light. Aristotle  was one of the first to publicly hypothesize about the nature of light, proposing that light is a disturbance in the element  air  (that is, it is a wave-like phenomenon). On the other hand,  Democritus  argued that all things in the universe, including light, are composed of indivisible sub-components (light being some form of solar atom). Today, the theory of  wave–particle duality  postulates that all  particles  exhibit both  wave  and  particle  properties. In the diagram above I have comp...

I've finished reading Wicca Covens by Judy Harrow and am in the middle of reading Witchcraft for Tomorrow by Doreen Valiente. Judy Harrow pointed out in her book that the correspondence of directions to elements is purely symbolic, and not something we should take literally. The elements are not literally found in different directions, because they are of course all around us. Harrow tells us that although most Wiccan covens follow the correspondence of North: Earth, East: Air, South: Fire, and West: Water, not all covens practice in the same way. It is important that we all practice in a way that makes sense to us. Doreen Valiente explains why the common Wiccan correspondence of directions to elements is used. She suggests that it is adapted to the British climate, as opposed to the Greek climate which Aristotle describes. Here we may see Valiente's correspondence in contrast to Aristotle's: I can see why she would describe Earth as "cold and wet" because ...

Last month, I finished reading Practical Elemental Magick by Sorita d’Este and David Rankine. There were some interesting facts in there, and this is a topic that I love to explore because when you look into the different beliefs that were held in the past you find a great amount of variety. I can't stand shallow books that tell you rather dogmatically "this is how it is" without suggesting that there may be other ways of looking at things. I drew the following diagram to show how I see the classical elements. To me, the elements represent the four fundamental states of matter. At the top of the scale, we have fire, which represents the plasma state of matter. Other examples of matter in a plasma state are lightning, electric sparks, fluorescent lights, neon lights, plasma televisions, and the Sun. When a plasma is deionised, it becomes gas, which is represented by the element of air. The air we breathe is formed of several types of gases, such as nitrogen, oxygen...

I don't have a lot of gadgets in my life, all I have is my camera and laptop. Last night when I went to visit my boyfriend's parents, Daddy Evans was keen to show off his new iphone. He had this new app which shows you the stars and planets. All you do is hold the phone up to the sky, or point it in any direction you like, and it will show you exactly which stars and planets are in that direction. This is such a useful tool! When we got home, my boyfriend downloaded a similar app for his android and we had fun walking around the flat, plotting the zodiac around us. It was a cloudy night, not even the moon was visible to the naked eye, so having this app gave us a clear picture of what exactly was around us. I'm grateful to my boyfriend's dad, he always has some neat information to teach me as he's a keen naturalist. He used to be a diver, before health problems got in the way, and he was able to teach me about the tides. I had read about neap tides and spring tide...