elemental balancing ritual

How I Practice Elemental Magic Beyond the Traditional Elements

Elemental magic

This is how I practice elemental magic without relying on the traditional four or five elements. Instead of deciding that an experience belongs to fire or water, I treat the force I am actually dealing with, movement, stillness, creativity, emptiness, connection, as an element in its own right. I call the practice the Elemental Balancing Ritual and I have worked it for years. If you have found correspondence tables useful but limiting, this is written for you.

When people talk about elemental magic, they usually start with a familiar map. Fire means one set of things. Water means another. Air, Earth, and sometimes Spirit complete the system. The correspondences are useful, and I am not interested in telling anyone that a traditional model is wrong simply because it is traditional. What I discovered is that the model stopped working for me when it became a substitute for encountering what was actually happening.

If I decide in advance that a feeling, a behavior, or a situation belongs to fire, I have already constrained what I can learn from it. I have given it a folder and filed it away. I may have a label for the experience, but I have not necessarily met it. That is the problem I eventually had with correspondence-heavy elemental work. I could make an association, but the association was often doing more work than my actual experience was. [1]

My answer was not to invent a larger and more complicated table of correspondences. It was to treat the thing I was actually working with as an element in its own right. Movement became an element. Stillness became an element. Emptiness, creativity, connection, truth, and love became elements. I approached each one as a force with its own felt presence in my life, instead of forcing it into a category that had been made before I encountered it. [1]

That approach became the basis of what I call the Elemental Balancing Ritual. I have practiced it for years, through changes in my magical work, my creative life, my relationships, my bodywork, and the parts of myself I would rather not have faced. This is not an attempt to turn those years into a tidy success story. It is an account of a practice that repeatedly asked more of me than I expected.

The ritual is not a fixed ceremony with a script that someone else can perform exactly as I do. It is a way of working. I choose a force that is alive in my life, give it sustained attention, and let the work show me what that force actually means in practice. Sometimes that happens in meditation or qi gong. Sometimes it shows up in a difficult conversation, a creative block, a decision I do not want to make, or an old pattern I have been carrying for too long. The point is not to impose an answer. The point is to enter into a relationship with the element and remain present long enough to learn from it.

Why I Stopped Treating the Elements as Categories

Traditional elemental systems can provide an accessible language for experience. They can also become a way to avoid experience. If I say that movement is like fire, I can borrow fire’s associations of activity, will, passion, or transformation. But movement is not only activity. It can be a decision, a transition, a resistance, a regret, a carefully planned action, or the gradual change that occurs because I have finally stopped pretending that something is working.

So I began with a different premise: the force I am working with deserves to be encountered directly. I do not deny its relationship to other forces. I do not treat it as isolated from my body, my history, or the people in my life. I simply refuse to assume that I understand it because I can classify it.

“Instead of associating movement with a classic element, I’ve made it into its own element.” [1]

That distinction matters. Calling movement an elemental force did not give me control over movement. It made me more accountable to it. I had to notice where I was moving too quickly, where I was using activity to avoid a feeling, where I was asking a desire to carry more weight than it could, and where I needed to stop before I made a choice I would later regret.

The same was true of fire. I had to let go of the easy assumption that fire simply meant passion. In my work with fire, I came to see how readily passion can become consumption. A fire consumes its fuel. A fixation can consume a person. If I pursued intensity without asking what I was feeding, I could burn myself and the people around me. [2]

This is why I do not present the Elemental Balancing Ritual as a better correspondence system. It is not. It is a different orientation. It asks, “What is this force doing in my life?” before it asks, “What does this force correspond to?” The answer is often inconvenient. That is part of why the practice has been useful.

How the Practice Actually Works

The practice begins by choosing an element. In my case, that may be a classic element, but it has more often been a force or condition that I need to understand. I do not select a theme because it sounds impressive. I select it because it is already present, because it is creating friction, or because it is asking to be understood in a more complete way.

A working is not a month-long essay assignment. A month is simply a container for attention. I record what happens as I work. That may mean journaling after meditation, noting a pattern in a relationship, writing down an energetic shift during qi gong, or recognizing that the same question is returning through several apparently unrelated situations. The record matters because it keeps me from revising the work into a story that only makes sense in retrospect. It lets me see what I was actually resisting, what I was repeating, and what changed slowly rather than all at once.

I use whatever practices are appropriate to the work at hand. Taoist dissolving work and qi gong have been important for me, particularly when I am experiencing a blockage, a tension, or an emotion that I am trying to suppress. The practices are not there to make the difficult material disappear. They give me a way to stay with it, notice it, and work with it without immediately acting it out. During one later creativity working, I changed the sequence of my Sphere of Art work, qi gong, meditation, and mediation of the relevant forces in order to see whether the practices could become more synchronous. That is characteristic of this approach. I experiment, pay attention, and revise rather than treating the first arrangement as sacred. [6]

The following table describes the structure I have used. It is not a list of rules, and it is not a promise that every working will develop on schedule. It is the discipline that has allowed the ritual to become more than a series of passing ideas.

Part of the workingWhat I doWhat I am watching for Choose the forceI name a force that is already active in my life, such as movement, stillness, creativity, connection, or emptiness.Whether I am choosing the work because it is real or because I want an escape from what is real. Give it a containerI work with the force over days, weeks, or months, with regular meditation, bodywork, reflection, and notes.Repetition, resistance, unexpected connections, and where the force shows up outside formal practice. Meet the material directlyI use questions, meditation, dissolving work, dream work, conversation, or ordinary observation to stay present with what arises.The distinction between an immediate reaction and the deeper issue beneath it. Adjust the practiceI change a technique, a sequence, or a focus when the work shows that the current approach is no longer adequate.Whether the adjustment is an honest response to the work or another way of avoiding it. Decide whether to continueI review whether the force still has more to teach me, is changing into another force, or has reached a point of integration.Whether I am leaving because the work is complete or because it has become uncomfortable.

The themes do not unfold in a clean line. A month of creativity can expose a problem with connection. A working on stillness can bring up money, responsibility, shame, grief, or a decision about the work I am willing to do. That does not mean the element has failed. It means the element is functioning as a lens. It shows me where the force is already operating, including places I did not expect to find it.

I have learned not to require a particular kind of result. When I began working with connection and truth, I wrote that I did not normally do two elements together, but these did because they went hand in hand. I also wrote that the start was not what I had imagined. That was the point. If I wanted balance, I had to open myself to how balance might show up in ways I did not expect or plan for. [7]

You can learn the full system and how it works in my class The Elemental Balancing Ritual. I walk you through step by step how to connect and work with elements for the purposes of doing deep inner alchemical transformation.

What Fire Taught Me About Desire and Responsibility

My work with fire gave me an early lesson in why direct experience matters. I did not want to reduce fire to enthusiasm or action. In a dialogue with Dragon, fire became a question of passion and consumption. A person can be burned by what they fixate on, desire, or obsess over. The problem is not that desire exists. The problem is what happens when desire takes up all of a person’s energy and becomes the sole way they know how to feel alive. [2]

That shifted the question for me. Instead of asking how I could have more fire, I began asking whether I was consuming something or being consumed by it. There is a difference. Consumption can be a deliberate release. Obsession can be a form of surrender to a force I have refused to understand.

Fire also became a question of responsibility. When I create a spark, I have some responsibility for what I nurture. That might be a creative project, a relationship, a commitment, or any action that invites a consequence into my life. I cannot claim the excitement of beginning something while refusing the responsibility of seeing what I have started through. [2]

This is one reason the ritual is not just inward-looking. Elemental work shows up in consequences. If I am dealing with anger, desire, ambition, or intensity, I have to consider what my actions do to other people. I cannot call an impulse magical simply because it feels strong. A strong feeling is not a justification. It is material for the work.

“Fire just is. The association of doing and activity is meaning attributed to fire.” [2]

In later fire work, I returned to the difference between a warm fire and a vengeful one. I have failed myself and other people. Failure can cause a person to harden, become reactive, or try to burn away the discomfort. It can also force a reassessment of what matters. The choice is not always easy, but I would rather cultivate a fire that warms and sustains than one that keeps recreating the conditions that caused the pain. [2]

Movement Was Not Activity

Movement seemed like an obvious element at first. It was not. I expected movement to be about action, change, and forward momentum. Those were parts of it, but they were not enough.

At one point I began calculating movement. I would look at a possible movement I wanted to make and explore the timeline of that movement, where it could go, what could happen, and what factors would need to change. This gave me a way to assess whether a particular movement was wise, whether I should let it go, and whether the desired result was worth the effort involved. [3]

That was important because I can be impulsive. I have learned that a desire to change something does not automatically make a given action the right movement. Sometimes movement needs design. It needs preparation, timing, and the willingness to see what will be required after the first step is taken. Directed movement is not the same as frantic movement.

Movement also taught me about resistance. It is easy to describe myself as someone who wants change. It is harder to recognize the ways I may be attached to an old role, a familiar failure, or a story about why something cannot change. The force of movement does not only ask, “What are you doing?” It asks, “What are you refusing to move away from?”

The long movement work also showed me that every transition contains its opposite. By the time I was moving out of one long phase, I could feel movement slowing into stillness. This was not a contradiction. It was a reminder that the elements are not clean boxes. A force can change its expression as the work changes. [10]

Stability Was the Capacity to Adapt

The stability working corrected another assumption I had been carrying. I had treated stability as if it meant having the right external conditions: enough money, a predictable schedule, an uninterrupted path, or a situation that would not change. Those are the trappings of stability, but they are not stability itself.

“Real stability comes from within and its not about being in one place or having everything work out just fine.” [12]

I came to see stability as the ability to adjust and adapt to what comes while retaining some sense of purpose and drive. That idea became practical rather than abstract. It meant recognizing where I was seeking external validation, practicing how to read my own emotional reactions, and learning to make choices with their consequences in view. [12]

The working also helped me understand why body practice was part of elemental work for me. In qi gong, intentional movement and breath made me aware of stability as an energetic foundation that allowed movement to occur. Stability was physical, emotional, mental, and energetic at the same time. It involved working elemental energy through the body, developing healthier ways to express emotion, working with thought, and cultivating the energetic body. I did not experience those as separate projects. They became the conditions that allowed other elements to be worked with without being overwhelmed by them. [12]

Stability did not mean avoiding risk. It meant refusing to confuse reactivity with courage. I could still take risks and make decisions, but I had to ask whether the reaction was worth the consequences. That was a useful counterweight to the intensity of fire and the forward pull of movement. [12]

Stillness Was Not Passivity

Stillness was one of the longest workings I did, and it changed my understanding of discipline. At first, stillness sounds like the absence of movement. In practice, it was an active decision not to let every reaction decide the meaning of a situation.

When I was caught in a narrative about another person, I was often not seeing that person. I was seeing the story I had built around them. Stillness gave me a way to notice that. It did not require me to deny an emotion. It required me to acknowledge the emotion without allowing the first heat of it to define the whole context. [9]

That distinction was not theoretical. It mattered in relationships, work, creative disappointments, and the old patterns that came up when I compared myself with other people. In stillness work, I had to sit with disappointment long enough to distinguish between the feeling itself and the narrative I was constructing around it. I could feel something, examine what happened, and make a change without deciding that the feeling was the complete truth. [9]

I stayed with stillness for three years. By Month 35, I was ready to be done. I wrote that I had gotten a great deal from the work, but that it was time to no longer be still. I was ready for something different. At the same time, I knew the work would remain profoundly part of my life. It was embedded deeply in me. [4]

That is what sustained practice can do. It does not necessarily produce a moment in which the element has been mastered and will never return. Instead, it changes the baseline from which I meet the rest of my life.

“Yet the stillness has also taught me to be much more comfortable with me.” [4]

Stillness made me more comfortable with myself. It also made staticness harder to tolerate. Both were true. I had to learn that a practice can be valuable even when its completion means moving on.

Emptiness, Compassion, and the Parts of Myself I Would Rather Avoid

The element of emptiness brought me into a more difficult kind of work. I had spent a great deal of time trying to fill emptiness, escape it, or distract myself from it. That is not unusual. What was difficult was recognizing the patterns I built around avoiding it.

During that working, I began sitting with behaviors I did not like in myself. I noticed passive aggression, pettiness, the ways I could push people away, and the ways I sometimes looked to another person to fill something that was my responsibility to face. I did not find a quick answer. I tried to ask a more useful question: “What will this get you?” [5]

That question slowed me down. Instead of judging myself for the feeling, I could look beneath the action to the wound that was driving it. I could be compassionate without pretending that the behavior was harmless. There is a difference between making excuses and recognizing that a pattern has a history.

Some days of that work were genuinely hard. I wrote about feeling like I was in an ocean, buffeted by waves and trying to hold on to whatever grounding I could find. That is part of the record, and I do not want to erase it. Elemental work can be difficult because it puts me in contact with the material I have kept out of sight. It is not always elegant. [5]

The point was never to make emptiness disappear. I began to understand that I could sit with it, breathe through it, and let it speak instead of treating it as something that had to be immediately filled. That changed how I communicated with people and how I recognized the difference between a superficial want and a deeper need. It also reinforced a lesson I have had to learn more than once: internal work does not come to an end because I have identified one pattern. [5]

Creativity Needed Protection, Not Endless Output

Creativity was another long working, and it forced me to revise what I thought creativity was for. It is easy to romanticize creativity as inspiration, intensity, and productivity. I have felt all of those things. I have also learned that creativity can be damaged by treating it as a resource I can extract from without limit.

By the final month of a two-year creativity working, I understood that I needed to protect my creativity and protect the people, practices, and conditions that helped protect it.

“My creativity is what feeds my soul, but its also my livelihood.” [6]

To let anything consistently get in the way of it is to disrespect a fundamental part of myself. [6]

That realization affected how I worked. Instead of trying to write and publish a book every month, I began to recognize the need to slow down, pace myself, and take care of myself. The result was not withdrawal from the work. It was more focused writing and a better relationship with the work itself. [6]

Creativity also showed me that a theme can become most visible when I feel least creative. Personal conflict, grief, anxiety, and emotional compartmentalization all affected how I was able to work. I had to see that my creative life was not separate from those things. When I worked with the emotions I had been bottling up, the creativity working did not become less relevant. It became more honest.

At the end of that phase, I wrote that the Elemental Balancing Ritual had never been easy because it requires me to face the areas of my life that require change. I also wrote that without it, my life would have been much more chaotic. That is not a claim that the ritual prevents chaos. It is an acknowledgment that the practice gives me a path forward when I am willing to follow it. [6]

Connection and Truth Cannot Be Separated

Connection and truth became a paired working because I found that they were not separable. I could say I wanted connection while still hiding from my own feelings, avoiding accountability, or trying to manage how I was seen. I could insist on truth while using it as a weapon instead of a way of becoming more present.

The work quickly turned toward self-worth, expectations, old relational patterns, and the question of whether I valued myself for who I was or only for what I could do for others. I had to examine the gap between what I thought and felt internally and the actions I was taking. If those things were not consistent, I needed to ask why. [7]

This was not simply a private matter. Connection is relational. It required more honest communication, a willingness to recognize the impact of my choices, and a willingness to sit with pain I had caused without immediately trying to escape from it. I found that acceptance was not passive surrender. It was acknowledging what was present so that I could stop spending all of my energy fighting the fact that it was present. [7]

This phase also illustrates why the ritual should not be mistaken for a purely psychological self-help system. I worked with spirits, including Suvuviel and She Who Watches, as part of the connection and truth work. I experienced them as presences and guides. But the work did not become a guide to spirit contact. The spirits did not exempt me from responsibility. If anything, their presence made it harder to avoid the work I needed to do. [7]

Is This the Same as Working With Elemental Spirits?

I have worked with spirits, archangels, goddesses, places, and other presences over the years. Those relationships appear throughout my work. Dragon was part of my fire work. Suvuviel and She Who Watches were important to my connection and truth work. In other workings, I have experienced particular currents, contacts, and spiritual relationships that shaped how I understood the force I was engaging.

That does not make the Elemental Balancing Ritual a guide to elemental spirits or elemental beings. Those are related but different subjects. My working with classic elemental spirits such as sylphs and gnomes, for example, has included a separate walking practice in which I open myself to their energy and experiences through a specific state of being. That is a valid subject in its own right, but it is not the central method of this ritual. [11]

The core of the ritual is working with a force as an element, whether or not a spirit is involved. The main question is not, “Which entity will tell me what this element means?” The main question is, “How is this force already operating in my life, and what happens when I stop trying to reduce it to a correspondence?”

The techniques are similarly secondary to the relationship. I have used meditation, qi gong, Taoist dissolving work, dream work, and the Sphere of Art. I have changed the order of those practices when the work showed me that a different arrangement might be needed. During an earlier switchover from emptiness to time, I also shifted to an elemental fusion system because my existing daily meditations no longer matched the energetic changes I was experiencing. [8]

None of these techniques are universal requirements. They are tools that have been useful in my own practice. The practice remains experimental because I am willing to observe, assess, and adjust rather than declaring that one method must fit every element and every stage of life.

What Long-Cycle Practice Changed

The most important thing the Elemental Balancing Ritual taught me is that a force does not reveal itself all at once. The first month can be useful. It can also be misleading. It is easy to mistake an early insight for the whole working, particularly when the insight is emotionally satisfying or seems to solve something I have been struggling with.

A longer cycle makes that harder. It exposes repetition. It exposes the difference between recognizing a pattern and changing my relationship to it. It shows me that a force can move through different parts of my life over time. In creativity, I began with ideas about output and purpose, but eventually I had to confront pace, protection, accountability, and emotional presence. In stillness, I began with the need to pause but stayed long enough to learn the difference between presence and stagnation. [4] [6]

Long-cycle work also creates transitions. When one element is ending, the next may already be appearing. At the end of creativity, connection and truth were beginning to show up. I could see them as preparatory work before I formally started that next phase. The elements do not wait neatly in a queue. They overlap because life overlaps. [6]

This is why I do not think a reader needs to copy my timelines. I worked with some forces for months and some for years because the work called for it, not because I had a universal calendar. A shorter period may show that the force needs more attention. A longer period may show that the working has become an identity, a refuge, or a form of avoidance. The decision to continue should come from the work itself, not from a rule about how long a ritual ought to last.

How Do You Start Working This Way?

Choose one force that is present in your life now. It might be a familiar classical element, but it does not have to be. It could be a force like responsibility, grief, trust, hunger, attention, courage, or rest. The important thing is that it is real enough to resist easy explanation.

Give yourself a defined period of attention. A month is useful because it is long enough to move beyond a first impression, but it is not a promise that the work will be finished at the end of the month. Keep notes. Notice where the force appears in formal practice, but also notice where it shows up in your choices, your work, your body, and your relationships.

Ask direct questions. What is this force doing in my life? Where am I trying to control it? Where am I letting it control me? What am I calling an elemental truth that may actually be an old story, a fear, or a convenient excuse? The questions should not be used to interrogate yourself into submission. They should help you become more honest about what is present.

Use practices you can genuinely sustain. Meditation, walking, journaling, conversation, bodywork, art, or another discipline may provide a container. What matters is regular contact and a willingness to record what happens without turning every experience into proof of a theory. If something becomes too intense, too confusing, or too destabilizing, slow down. There is no prize for forcing an element to reveal itself on command.

At the end of the period, do not only ask whether you got a result. Ask whether your relationship to the force has changed. Are you more capable of recognizing it? Have you identified a pattern that needs more work? Has the element become more complex than it was when you started? Those questions will tell you more than a neat conclusion will.

If you want a full walkthrough of this process sign up for the elemental balancing ritual class, where I walk you through step by step how to apply this process to your life and magical work.

Why I Still Call It Balancing

Balance does not mean a life without difficulty. It does not mean that every force reaches a permanent equilibrium. I have not found that kind of balance to be real or useful.

For me, balance means being willing to respond when something in my life has become distorted, neglected, overfed, or disconnected from the rest of me. It means letting a force be more than a label. It means recognizing that the pursuit of balance may show up in ways I do not expect and would not have chosen. [7]

The Elemental Balancing Ritual has changed because I have changed. That is not a failure of the practice. It is the reason I continue to value it. I do not need a system that tells me everything before I begin. I need a practice that asks me to pay attention, tells the truth about what I find, and gives me a way to keep working when the answer is not convenient.

References

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 12

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9-21-2021 Today I’ll be switching over to Ouranos (Uranus). This morning my magical partner and I collected dew from the bottles and afterwards we talked about partnerships and feasts and I note this only because it happened while we were collecting and distilling the dew for the archaeus work and since such conversations are happening its worth noting as a relevant and related to the energy and efforts of the work we are doing.

I meditated on plate 12 of The Mutus Liber. It’s almost the same as plate 9 though there are subtle differences. I didn’t get any specific insights beyond what I’ve already gotten, but I noticed the triangle shape again and the offering to Mercury.

Also I did switch over to Ouranos (Uranus)/Metatron and felt a sense of welcome. Last year, the creativity work was ended in such a weird way, because of events. It felt like this month is actually a redemption tour of sorts and I got the cover of my newest book today, so that felt significant as well.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 11

8-22-2021 Last night I switched over to the Neptune current and worked with Ratziel, the archangel of the book and key. I did the ritual under the full moon, which is conjunct with Saturn and Jupiter. It felt appropriate because I had wrapped up the work with Saturn. What was nice is that I got to do the Sphere of Art in Eugene finally. I felt like doing that work, down here, really sealed me to this new space I am living in. I feel this deep sense of contentedness and peace, something I haven’t felt in a while, if ever. It surprises me to feel it, but I know I’m home. I know this is where I belong, at least for the forseeable future.

Today I’m continuing to unpack my home. It feels off to finally be putting art up that I haven’t seen in a year, and to be unpacking books, but mostly it makes me happy to be in an environment where I feel wanted and welcomed, even if its just by myself. I finally have a space of my own, and I didn’t realize how much I needed it. I feel welcomed in other ways as well and this has helped me feel at peace with my move, because I know I belong here.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 10

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7-21-2021 today I switched over to Binah/Saturn. Given that I recently did a Saturnic ritual it felt appropriate. I had a continuing realization that it doesn’t matter what I do in the short term, because what I’m really dealing with is my own pain and suffering and I am the author of that, for the most part. It helped me come to an important realization and a sense of peace about the choices I need to make in order to move forward with a number of things. I think my time of chaos is coming to a close. I will still have some grieving to do and other processing, but I can do it and I can also commit to the path forward that will pay off down the line.

7-23-2021 The last couple of days have involved a number of job interviews. What’s been interesting for me is realizing that I’m juggling these different possibilities and trying to decide which ones I’ll explore and which to let go. I let go of one because it was clear I wasn’t the right fit. I feel this very Saturnic weaving coming into play which is actually helpful because I’m ruling out what doesn’t work for me, in favor of figuring out what could work as well as what I want to do with what I’m learning. And through it all I’m also recognizing I’m going to have to make short term sacrifices to get to where I want to go.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 9

6-22-2021 I find it dryly ironic that as I switch over to Chesed today I recognize in full how much my situation has changed on the material front. When you live with someone else, you don’t always fully recognize how much that can shape your perception of the cost of living. Then if you become single or go out on your own you start to realize how much your situation has changed and how you have to plan accordingly. Today it really hit me how much my situation has changed and how this is one of the consequences of choosing to leave. It’s not a fun feeling to sit with, but I need to do it and accept the consequences of my choices. This is part of that path of finding my connection and truth and the cost that comes with it.

6-24-2021 Yesterday I got the divorce papers. It kind of brings home that we’re done, although I’ve been having that realization in other ways as I wrote above. In one sense I question whether I’ll really be able to figure out what’s next. My mom told me this kind of stuff is hard and I believe it, especially when you’re having to pick up all the pieces of your life and sort them out as best you can. I am trying my best and that’s all I’ve got…

Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 8

5-22-2021 I posted a cartoon on Facebook that essentially had this person find this oracle, which told him that some of his problems were of his own causing and I wrote that the one thing all your problems have in common is you. My friend Colleen pointed something out that I felt was rather appropriate since I’m working with martian energy this month. She pointed out that all your problems having you in common is actually a form of abusive self-dialogue because sometimes other people are the cause of your problems and you aren’t the reason the problem is happening. Her response really got me thinking about how far too often I’ve blamed myself for problems that have happened and taken too much responsibility on when perhaps it really was someone else’s responsibility. It’s definitely something I am going to work with further this month.

I did some more of the wood element workshop. The main focus was on working with the ligaments and it was quite intense work. Naturally some internal stuff came up and I worked through it, releasing grief with each release of the ligaments. It did make me reflect on some realizations I’ve been having around my life and the way people have shown up in the past. Afterwards I meditated with the alchemical substances for Mars and Geburah and worked on releasing judgment of myself and others. Working with Geburah in that way is interesting, because typical it is a rather severe energy to work with, yet, I think sometimes people ignore the more subtle ways to work with a given Sephiroth. In this case, learning how to release judgments of yourself and other can be just as relevant as any other work you might do in that sephiroth.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 7

4-22-2021 Today I moved into working with the alchemical aspects of the sun. I feel it’s appropriate because I’m at the dawn of my new life, with the sun beginning to show me the way forward. I don’t know how I’ll get where I’m going yet, but I see some possible ways forward. And I am focused on my connection and truth to lead the way forward.

4-25-2021 The last few days I’ve been doing a lot of door dash, but I’ve also had the opportunity to talk with a friend of mine, S. V.. We ended up talking for a few hours but our respective life changes and other such things and it was good to have such a discussion and also discuss possibilities. Today I took the day off from driving so I could work on some projects, but most importantly I made time to read and paint, and go for a walk. The relaxation is as important as the work, it fuels the work and makes for better manifestation.

I feel a sense of calm and peace pervading my being. Some of that has come from a session with Ingo Komenda, and some of it is my own continual internal work. I haven’t felt this free to just be in quite some time, and it makes me reflect and recognize that as sad as recent changes have been, I think they have been necessary changes. I move forward into the unknown, with anticipation and excitement for what possibilities I’ll discover, what experiences may be had, and enjoy the journey, letting the light of the Sun guide me.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 5

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2-23-2021 I switched over to the alchemical substances for mercury yesterday, which in relationship to connection and truth is all about communication. In the meditation work I’ve been doing lately, I’ve been focused on recognizing contractions, where a block forms because of one’s internal defenses. I think of it as a form of compartmentalization, because this sense of contraction seems brought on by a need to try and dissociate with an experience. Or maybe that’s just my experience with it.

I’ve also been continuing to read The Body keeps the Score which essentially discusses how the body internalized traumatic experiences. Reading the book has helped me more readily recognize my own trauma from past experiences, but also consider how trauma is created and what role you can play in the trauma another person has experienced because of your actions.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 4

1-22-2021 I switched over to working with the alchemical substances for the moon. I’ve also figured out how to integrate Bua Gua into this work as well as some work with elemental spirits. I’m feeling rather excited at the possibilities of what could be done with this work and the evolution of my work with the sphere of art as well. I also ended up doing some dream work, which was appropriate with working with the moon. That dream work helped me have a pivotal realization around my own sense of worth and how I’ve let that be compromised sometimes. That realization will help me make better choices with how I take care of myself and with the people I allow into my life on a personal level.

1-25-2021 In the Happiness Trap the author makes an important point: We aren’t good or bad people and the arbitrary value judgments we place on ourselves creates a tension within ourselves when we feel a need to label ourselves as good or bad. This got me thinking about how I’ve labeled myself in the past, and how those labels have shaped my identity in ways that have ultimately been more harmful than helpful. So I’m giving myself space NOT to label myself as good or bad, but simply to be and to allow myself to let go of those values judgments of my identity and instead recognize that I’m simply a person who has made choices, and instead of even defining those choices as good or bad, I’ve simply acknowledged that those choices have had consequences and impacts that should be noted and considered carefully. It’ a different way of looking at things, but its helpful.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 3

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12-22-2020 Today I started integrating the Sphere of Art work with the Qi gong work I’m doing. I did the sphere of art ritual and then worked with the alchemical substances for the underworld. Then I did the qi gong work and followed up with meditation, where I also mediated the alchemical substances for the underworld. It was an interesting experience because this time I felt the underworld energies mesh with the qi I had cultivated during the qi gong work. There didn’t seem to be any conflict with the connection of the energies, but of course I’ll test this carefully.

I’ve been reading the 48 laws of Power and what strikes me about this book is that I learned these laws from my dad. I doubt he ever read the book, but so far the laws discussed fit his behavior. He knew how to create an air of mystery, when to keep his mouth shut, but also when to make a scene. He was a cypher and I learned a lot of this from observing him. Of course I’ve also learned some of these laws just from my own experiences, but its fascinating to read this book and recognize my missteps (where I didn’t execute the laws successfully) as well as my successes with those same laws. I’m only part way through the book but it is quite illuminating, especially when you are already putting some of those laws in to action.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Connection and Truth Month 2

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11-23-2020 One of the skills I’m practicing now, from The Happiness Trap is recognized when I’m hooked on a story I’m telling myself. By recognizing that I’m caught in the story, I can then step back and unhook myself from it and refocus on what really matters. It’s proving helpful in terms of recognizing the internal stories I tell myself and diffusing them. It’s also helping me be more productive again, because I’m not letting those stories dictate my day and take over my energy.

11-25-2020 One of the realizations I’m continuing to work through is the realization around expectations that I impose on myself as well as the ones imposed on me in the fast. I tend to push myself very hard, because that was always the expectation put on me. Over the last few months I’ve been trying to work less and relax more. Today I talked with Kat about some of my fears around the expectations I’ve put on myself and it really helped to unpack those further and acknowledge those are really just stories I’m telling myself that don’t serve me. I can be more productive by actually doing less.

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Case Study: Creating the Elemental Balancing Ritual

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I created the Elemental Balancing Ritual in 2004 and I have used it ever since then as a year-long (or more) magical working dedicated to an element that I work with during that year, as a means of both doing internal work and aligning myself with the elemental energy I’m working with. Elements I’ve worked with include earth, fire, and water, but also include emptiness, love, movement, still, and creativity. This year I’m working with the elements of Connection and Truth, which is the first time I’ve worked with two elements, but there’s a reason for it, because of the spirits I’m working with.

My definition of an elemental energy and/or spirit differs from the conventional definition which only recognize 5 elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit in the West and Earth, Water, Wood, Metal, and Fire in the East. I’m not basing my definition of elements solely on a seasonal perspective or from the perspective of what constitutes the Earth in a primal sense of the word. Instead I consider elements to be primal forces that move us and are mediated by us. For emptiness, as an element is something most people grapple with at some point in their lives and it is something that can move a person to take actions to try and fill that emptiness or come to peace with it.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 24

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9-22-2020 This is the last month I’m working with creativity as an element. When I look back over the last couple years, overall, I’m happy with the work I’ve done and how it changed my relationship with creativity. I think my biggest takeaway though was learned in the last couple months. I need to protect my creativity and I need to protect who and what helps protect my creativity. My creativity is what feeds my soul, but its also my livelihood and to let anything get in the way of that is to disrespect a fundamental part of myself that must be taken care of, so it can do the work its called to do.

9-23-2020 I’ve been processing some emotions the last couple days over recent events and how I feel toward certain people. And it’s helped re-reading The Slight Edge, where the author talks about the power of time and how the real power of time is the gradual changes that occur. They aren’t dramatic or loud, but they happen gradually, and if you apply the slight edge to time in a positive way, you make those changes work for you.

For me that slow gradual work is found in trying to find forgiveness in my heart for myself and other people as I slowly detangle and unwind from the recent drama of life. And its also found in coming to grips with my accountability for my actions and choices. The Slight Edge reminds me that it’s all a matter of time and that these moments will inevitably pass to new ones and what will be found in those moments will in part be informed by the work being done now.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 23

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8-22-2020 I started reading Beyond Victim Consciousness today. It had been recommended by a friend and given recent events, I felt like it would be useful to take a look and see what might be applicable to myself. My first impression is that some of the perspectives the author shares reminds me of the Adlerian psychology espoused in The Courage to be Disliked, namely that you choose the perception you have as opposed to how trauma defines. I don’t fully agree with that perspective, but I also recognize how much my own trauma can become can excuse, which really isn’t useful, if I’m going to own my choices and the consequences of them. In that sense the perspective I bring to an event defines that event subjectively. And it is all to easy to use a given perception to justify your actions, choices, blamelessness or blame, so I’m really sitting with that. I’ll be curious to see how the rest of this book can inform my journey forward, as well as what I learn from the past.

8-23-2020 I read some more of Beyond Victim Consciousness tonight. Victim consciousness wants to be right, wants to protest, wants to control, wants to make others as we are and when they refuse we become angry and punish them. An internally focused perspective wants peace and accepts the situation as it is, recognizing that the perspective you apply to the situation dictates the experience of the situation.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 22

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7-22-2020 Today when I did my meditation the archangels told me that the next three months is all about an integration of everything I’ve done before with the Sphere of Art, as well as the Qi Gong I’m doing. “That’s more than enough work for you right there, especially with everything else you’ll be doing.” And they told me that all of this would continue to lay the ground work for transformation. So I accepted what they said and just focused on the integration. It is important to make time for the work you’ve done, to ground it and embody it in you and that time, for me, is right now.

7-23-2020 I’m rereading the Slight Edge and he makes an excellent point that changing how you think about what you do matters, because how you think about what you do dictates how you actually do it, and if you even do it. What makes a person successful at whatever they’re doing is the thought that seeds the actions and keeps them doing what needs to be done, even when the person is seeming to fail. It’s a good reminder for me.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 20

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5-22-2020 I had some vivid dreams last night around some actions and behaviors that I feel a deep sense of shame about. And in the meditation today, the focus was around not just moving to the supernal of Chesed, Geburah and Tiphareth but also around working with that feeling of shame and coming to a place of forgiveness for myself…coming to a place where I wasn’t beating myself for past actions and choices but instead simply acknowledging my responsibility while forgiving myself as well. And to be clear...It’s not that I want forgiveness from anyone else, but rather that I choose to forgive myself as a deliberate action to find healing around things that I did.

5-23-2020 I decided to sign up for the cloud hands qi gong class coming up in the early part of June. I feel like it will contribute to that deeper exploration of the internal work I’m currently undergoing. This deeper internal work is allowing me to encounter some deeper blockages around shame, rejection, and other issues that I haven’t fully dealt with. This morning I had a realization about my former relationships and how rejected I felt in most of them, which contributed to my reactionary behavior around them. If I was feeling rejected in the main relationship, I’d try and go elsewhere. That in turn would reinforce the behaviors on the part of the other person, creating a vicious loop that really hurt all involved.

Fortunately I’ve managed to change that with a lot of internal work on my part and lately because I’m going deeper its giving me to chance to work on these blockages around shame and rejection that are deeply embedded and begin undoing them and forgiving myself in the process. It’s not easy work, because it really does bring me face to face with judgement, but also with compassion, which makes the supernal work around all of this perfect. I need to find the right balance of accountability and responsibility with self-forgiveness. I think I can do that with this work.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 19

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4-24-2020 This month I switched over to working with Kether, Chockmah and Binah, with the associated archangels, planetary energies etc. The focus of the meditation has involved being present with all three sephiroth and the paths that connect them, while opening myself to the experience of all that being mediated through me. It builds off what I’ve previously done with an aim toward encompassing the entire experience.

Along with that, I’ve been continuing to do Gods play in the clouds Qi gong and the basic Bua Gua walk I’ve learned. What I’m noticing is a distinct change in my chi and ho the energy feels. It’s meshing with the sphere of art work as well. I feel like this is an integral part of the path forward with this work.

4-26-2020 Working with the supernals is different from working individually with the Sephiroth. You’re dealing with the interplay of energies, which can be its own thing, it can be tempting to sort it out, when in fact, it just needs to be experienced as its ow thing. It’s a good reminder to not control the experience, but instead simply be open to it.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 18

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3-23-2020 Last night I transitioned over to Ain Soph Aur/Pluto/Suvuviel. The three veils aren’t typically included in a Tree of Life work, but it seemed appropriate to me that I work with them. But I’ll admit I sense of morbid amusement that I would start working with Pluto on this month, of all months, when we’re dealing with the corona virus. Then again, it really is appropriate because Pluto is about death and rebirth and all of us, in one form or another, are going through exactly that.

Suvuviel is also appropriate because he’s the archangel of the present, and of the spirit cord. He ties everything together with the cord, but he can also unravel the cord. He’s present in all moments, because he is part of the present.

When I connected with Ain Soph Aur/Pluto/Suvuviel, I felt like I was at the very pinnacle of the solar system, looking back at the sun and the planets, at the earth and everything going on and I felt Suvuviel come through and explain that part of this experience is necessarily about seeing the entire picture, looking beyond the immediate circumstance to the underlying patterns. I’m not just looking at this moment in time, but all the work I’ve done the previous 17 months.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 17

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2-23-2020 Yesterday I switched over to Kether/Uranus/Metatron. Modern quabalists associate Kether with Uranus and this makes sense to me because of the current of creativity and sacrifice that runs through Uranus. When I switched over to this month, the switch felt like a departure from the currents of Neptune to this place of being, gentler in a way, and yet also insistent on discovery the potential within the being.

In tonight’s meditation Metatron talked with me about creativity and how the sacrifices a person makes with creativity need to be chosen carefully. What are you willing to give? What are you willing to choose and what are you willing to give away? Creativity doesn’t happen in a void. Potential is boundless until a choice is made.

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Elemental Balancing Ritual Creativity Month 16

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1-22-2020 Tonight I connected with Ratziel/Chockmah/Neptune. I know Neptune isn’t traditionally associated with Chockmah, but I actually think it makes a lot of sense, when you consider that Chockmah is both wisdom and pressure. Chockmah fine tunes everything and when I consider that seat salt is the alchemical substance associated with Chockmah as well as my previous experiences with the planetary energy of Neptune, it seems to make a lot of sense. Ironically, William G. Gray doesn’t set a lot of store by associating Neptune with Chockmah, though he notes its done by modern day quabalists. The irony is that his own explanation of Chockmah and Ratziel completely supports the connection, but it makes me wonder if ever worked with the planetary energy of Neptune.

Ratziel also showed up and what was interesting is that she made it a point to show me how Chockmah and Binah connect and work together. I felt suspended between the saturnic energy of Binah and the Neptunic energy of Chockmah and I felt how that balance played off each other and strengthened each other. It also gave me ideas about where to take this work next. Feeling balanced between both forces made me realize how essential this work is because in finding this balance, I’m also creating opportunities to deepen my connections with the powers and work with the more holistically. There’s a lot more to share, but I’ll do it once I’ve had more time to process the experience and research I’m doing for this month.