| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: very parts and fragments plucked from Himself, shall He not feel
every movement of theirs as though it were His own, and belonging
to His own nature?"
XXXVII
"But," you say, "I cannot comprehend all this at once."
"Why, who told you that your powers were equal to God's?"
Yet God hath placed by the side of each a man's own Guardian
Spirit, who is charged to watch over him--a Guardian who sleeps
not nor is deceived. For to what better or more watchful Guardian
could He have committed wach of us? So when you have shut the
doors and made a darkness within, remember never to say that you
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer: that they had received orders over their two-way radio from the Base
Commander to evacuate their post and head for San Antonio, New Mexico,
a town 28 kilometers northwest of the Guard Post. The Base Commander
had noted that portions of the cloud were heading northwestward and,
fearing that fallout from the cloud would contaminate Guard Post 2,
had ordered the military police to evacuate. The chief monitor,
however, had found no significant radiation levels anywhere along the
northern part of Broadway nor around Guard Post 2. The Base Commander,
after being contacted by the chief monitor, drove to the foxholes and
ordered the guards to return to their post. This was the only
unplanned incident during the onsite monitoring (1).
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: leaving him alone, at Sergius's own request. The cell was a dual
cave, dug into the hillside, and in it Hilary had been buried.
In the back part was Hilary's grave, while in the front was a
niche for sleeping, with a straw mattress, a small table, and a
shelf with icons and books. Outside the outer door, which
fastened with a hook, was another shelf on which, once a day, a
monk placed food from the monastery.
And so Sergius became a hermit.
III
At Carnival time, in the sixth year of Sergius's life at the
hermitage, a merry company of rich people, men and women from a
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: it in a crevice before the door, and hung wild asparagus over it, till it
looked as though it grew there. No one could see that there was a room
there, for she left only a tiny opening, and hung a branch of feathery
asparagus over it. Then she crept in to see how it looked. There was a
glorious soft green light. Then she went out and picked some of those
purple little ground flowers--you know them--those that keep their faces
close to the ground, but when you turn them up and look at them they are
deep blue eyes looking into yours! She took them with a little earth, and
put them in the crevices between the rocks; and so the room was quite
furnished. Afterwards she went down to the river and brought her arms full
of willow, and made a lovely bed; and, because the weather was very hot,
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