Five Elements Course

WELCOME TO THE 5 ELEMENTS

A COURSE IN THE OBSERVATION OF OUR HUMAN NATURE

NEAL ANDREW PRENTICE

AN INTRODUCTION

CREATING OUR LANGUAGES FOR LIFE

This course has been created as a means for those who are pursuing a wholistic approach to health and living to create a language that speaks to that goal effectively. In this course we will explore how the fundamental building blocks of nature travel through all our human expressions. We will address how these have been observed by the wisest amongst us for centuries, and how many healers and teachers of life have observed how our bodies have created systems to manage our relationship to these elemental forces that explain much of what heals and ails us.

Can anyone argue that we are primarily, almost entirely, made of water? Can anyone argue that we could not exist without the warm/fire created within us as well as the fire of the sun from above? Can we question that everything that nourishes us is simply a child of the earth that we consume and digest? And can we argue that everything we accomplish must follow an order of setting roots, evolving upward and creating branches, ways to expand and connect to others? Can we agree that everything productive we do must fall into a system that allows things to flow yet maintain a certain rigidness, an immoveable strength like metal that defines it purpose and its barriers? This is where our discussion begins. But first let’s start off by answering a critical question to anything we study about life, what is the point?

I have found in my long search to understand life that we have a couple of key things. At that top of that list is how do we minimize suffering and reduce our inner conflicts. Having a language that speaks to who we are and what we are going through helps us to make peace with our challenges at hand. When we recognize that we are dealing with a person driven by fire, or by water, it helps us understand the nature of that person. We can see their strengths and weaknesses and better manage our relationship to them. And when we can see our own elemental strengths and weaknesses it better helps us understand our own limitations, our gifts and our natural shortcomings.

The joy of this particular language is that it is simple. We are just working with 5 elements. We can get into archetypes, perhaps even gods and deities and wind up with a library of characters that pull us away from the simplicity we hope to center our lives on, even if what surrounds us gets complicated. And if anyone should question the ability for 5 elements to define all the seemingly complex interactions and characters in life, simply know that your physical body is made up almost entirely of 5 elements. oxygen (65%), carbon (18.5%), hydrogen (9.5%), nitrogen (3.2%), and calcium (1.5%) which make up over 97& of every human. Throw in phosphorous and sulphur and you have 99% of all that creates living organisms. So it is just a game of DNA that shuffles a handful of things around to make all we see as life. In this we can embrace that the forces that define our nature can, in fact, be that simple. It is all in the recipe and what is dealing with what at a given time that unveils the richer story of life.

OUR 5 ELEMENTS

Let’s begin by defining these elements and then let’s unravel a story that maybe helps us observe and make better sense of what is going on within and around us. In the illustration below you will see that our elements, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood, make a circle, each one feeding the next. We will get into that next, but first let’s talk about the traits. Keep in mind we all contain all of these elements, how could we not? We just have one that stands above all else as our dominant gift/responsibility and perhaps we will notice a close second in our reading. The more we proactively evolve in life, the more we will find that we can make strengths out of any of these traits, have more of a balanced soul, if we put in the work. Yet nature will always lead us to honing and employing our natural strengths as our best expressions, testing us to see if we are willing to own the wisdom of being who we are.

INSPIRATION. PASSION. MAGNETISM.

We begin with fire because it is our spark of life and yet it truly must become something we maintain and nurture to serve us in any meaning ful way. Fire is embodied by passion, inspiration, magnetism, and an almost magical alluring quality Fire is the inspiration that fuels our hearts. We are all passionate people to a degree but people with a strong fire element exude passion and warmth without effort. They are naturally inspiring people and they have a magnetism that makes it hard not to be attracted to them, or to see them as beautiful in some way. We love to stare at fire. While fire people may seem blessed with this as a gift, they must also manage everyone wanting a piece of their warmth and magic. Fire centric people can be quick to jump into things yet quick to leave, enamored by their ability to start fires, but not enamored to stick around and take care of them. Of course this is a thing many people do, especially in youth, as we are learning what exactly is a wise fire worth tending to? Who is not driven by their heart, a yearning for love and some warmth to keep them going? So we are all bound as close to this element as anyone coming in from the cold on a snowy day looking for a warm spot by the fire. Yet, where does this element sit in the grand scheme of our personal chemistry, lest we find our selves paying a price for playing with fire?

FIRE DEEP DIVE

NOURISH. NURTURE. SUPPORT.

Earth nourishes and provides. This is the hallmark of earth natured people. Above all, they live to nourish others. To support others. Much like in our modern world, we walk on the earth and rarely give it the credit it deserves for giving us EVERYTHING. In our cultures we often worship fire, the attractive, magnetic and inspiring, and wood, the hyper driven accomplisher> We just let earth show up and give us what we need with little fanfare. Lest we get lost in the never ending inequity of life, let us focus on the joy of nourishing others. Each of our elements has a natural joy as well as a counter reaction which often results from people trying to grab too much of us, or perhaps not use us enough? That is our mastery of life. What comes naturally is the easy part. Employing our dominant element wisely in life is our masters degree in living. For the earth person it is who do I nourish and where do I nourish things that allow me to feel joyful and rewarded about the process. Of course, we are often nourishing people at the end of the day, so none of us gets out of politics and managing personalities and human drama. Yet there are best practices to all things, that is all we are after. Humility without weakness is key for the Earth soul.

EARTH DEEP DIVE

ORGANIZE. SYSTEMS. RITUAL. ETHICS.

Metal driven people are defined by an obsession with organization, ethics and rituals. Like a metal pipe, they provide a system for things to work within, to flow through. Metal people love systems. Creating them, maintaining them, making sure people follow them. These people are often very direct, to the point, and can easily push emotion aside in favor of rules and regulation. This may seem cold and rigid, but a wise metal person has a heart. They can still bend and flex, they can be shaped, and they provide an important service to life as we all rely on good systems, ethics, and some organization in order to exist in a healthy manner. It is the foolish person who fears systems Asia they are some enemy freedom. This is simply a shadow cast by our human past. Internally we need to love empowering our systems related to living. We need healthy rituals and practices to remind us that life is a thing of wise practices more than it is answers.

METAL DEEP DIVE

EMOTION. SENSITIVITY. CREATIVITY. DEPTH.

Water is the most amorphous and viscous of the elements. It is defined by sensitivity, imagination, intuition, and downward gravity, depth. Natural creatives and philosophers are a deep people. Miners of of thought and emotion you could say. We are all drawn into our emotional worlds, but water people live an emotionally driven world in a much more profound way. Many people prefer to steer away from shadow or suffering. Water people say, shadow, suffering? Let’s go check that out! Water natured people strive to find comfort in all places light and dark, and answers in all such places. Water people tend to be very philosophical, an outlet for their inner challenge to find answers to all things. Water people must create languages and best practices for managing their emotional worlds because they really have no option. It can be a life or death thing for a water person to navigate emotions at high level, as emotional pain and confusion can be as cruel and merciless as anything. Lucky for water, when life gives us a gift, it gives us a resilience to meet the challenges of that gift. While water people may appear to be emotionally sensitive, they actual have an emotional strength beyond most, they just need to tap into that and not become lazy and content with the drama that flows from untethered emotion. The imaginations of water people can run on endlessly and it is easy to get far too lost in fantasy for them. This is the curse of imagination. Water people are also natural healers and comforters. Looking at this element, it is one of our greatest feats in life, managing our emotional worlds, our water worlds. This challenge is multiplied for the water soul. The reward? An intense perception and profound wisdom towards life. Unmatched emotional and purposeful imagination.

WATER DEEP DIVE

DRIVE. ACCOMPLISHMENT. GROWTH.

Wood is our odd element. I say this because it is the one element that is more a result of the other elements than it is a stand alone element. What else makes wood different and is its key trait? Wood is our one element that becomes, grows into something. It is the element that acquires resources and then pushes forward to accomplish things. We all accomplish things. Life demands we all have a wood aspect to what we do. But who gets up early in the morning 7 days week addicted to getting things done regardless of how easy or challenging they are? Who lives and dies for seeing progress and accomplishment? Who walks into any given challenge and says let’s go. This is going to get done! And who is unafraid to grab 5, 10. 100 people and say, let’s go, I am leading this mess and I am not going to stop, even if I am not sure what I am doing yet? This is the wood nature. Wood above all, has the capacity to be highly successful for their endless drive. A wood person knows you don’t have to be smart, just driven , able to get resources, and learn along the way. Keep in mind the wood type is not one to delegate to others and then go home to bask by the pool while everyone else is working. Wood does not like things that easy. Wood is the tree and a tree has one objective, keep moving upward. Grow more branches, get more sun, keep growing. As one might imagine there is often a ton of responsibility to being a wood type. A human tree driven by wood must navigate politics and systems, regulations, and all the countless things and forces of nature that endlessly threaten its ability to grow. A successful wood person learns not think too much or they will go crazy. Just go and do. Just do and trust. It is the wisdom of wood and the tree.

WOOD DEEP DIVE

A QUESTION FOR YOU

Looking at these elements and recognizing that you have them all, which one best describes what drives you as a person? Not the ones you wished you could be, but what honestly resonates with you? If there was a secondary element that feels like a strength but maybe not your strongest gravity, what would that be? If there was one element that seems like something you naturally shy away from, or feel little desire to empower, what would that be?

To engage the best of us is a challenge, a great challenge. Because we understand what drives us does not mean that we are good at it, or have in any way mastered employing a given strength, in this case, our core element. To this we can make the mistake of looking at these traits and trying to choose one that seems like the best one to choose. Maybe one with less of a struggle? The one that can circumvent our fear of empowering our true nature? This does not have to be us, but it can be. Life will reveal our true nature in time, if we are unsure of what that is. We will find when we deeply heal, that energy pushes our nature forward and demands we follow its wisdom.

Another challenge in addressing this simple question can come from our past. If we were somehow punished or stepped on for expressing our nature, maybe just ignored or under nourished, we can look to other elements as a reaction to our fear of being punished, discarded, or under appreciated. This is a case were we need to reclaim and respect our nature regardless of what others have set upon us to believe. If we see this as an injustice, an unfair burden, we are on the wrong track. Life is a thing of reclaiming our true nature and learning to give that value and navigate the world, regardless of where we come from. Eventually we all wind up withe the same task. Own the challenge. Our best life is always an extension of our true nature.

NOURISHING RELATIONS

There is point to my personal love of this language of the elements. It begins to unfold here as we start to discuss relations to each other. In many studies of archetypes we are left with warriors and healers, kings and queens of this or that, but the story ends there. Life is a thing of interplay. This is what makes life interesting, challenging and why our lives require us to pay attention. We have many relations to these elements just as we can our friends, our jobs, or our spouses. And those can turn on a dime no? One moment all is well and we are nourishing each other, and the next we are at odds, perhaps getting in the way of each other, being put to the test as to our ability to manage conflict. To this we have natural conflict and we have manufactured conflict. We will get there as we dig deeper into this study. For now. We are just going to look at the good stuff. Who, by nature, helps who and how? Let’s follow the arrows and discuss.

I am going to take some liberties here. While I have read and studied on this view of life, I allow myself to write from my experience and perception. So I may have a slightly different interpretation than what you may hear from another teacher. As long as the integrity of something remains in tact, we should allow our selves to observe and let things speak to us life speaks to us, not as a website tells us. So see what you see. If you are turning things upside down, maybe you a have a fear or desire that is tainting your ability tp accept something, But a nuance here or there, maybe you are picking up on something.

FIRE NOURISHES EARTH

Fire nourishes earth. People who nourish have the potential to be the most uninspired people. Creative people? That’s inspiring business. Passion driven people? That’s the whole game. And what about our wood accomplisher. What is more inspiring than that goal at the end of the challenge/ Yet getting up and nourishing people everyday, it is the work of a parent. Tireless we can wonder what it si all for. But if we love our children, we have our fire. So fire is critical to igniting those who have what can Eem to be the most menial of duties. Being inspired and moved. To this I will give you a sort of unusual modern example of this. There are a lot of stay at home moms who look at beauty magazines and daytime shows. This is a sort of strange thing of fire in the allure of models, and emotional dramas adding some spice to otherwise predictable routine of nourishing children. Id this the most ideal way to go about this relationship? Equally there are exercise programs that engage moms to work out in the living room. Now we have a healthy fire and earth relation.

EARTH NOURISHES METAL

Some of these relations are a little more obvious while others are a little more subtle. Metal has two aspects. What it is using to organize or uphold, and what it is organizing, managing, or directing. The second half of that story is the following topic. Here we say that out earth comes metal. All things need to be nourished. Something greater must exist for metal to exist. Metal falls under something and then it works within that something to run its systems. That something is product of resources, nourishment is resources, it is anything that provides resources, raw materials to anything. It is the existence of nourishing things that provides a landscape in which metal can exist and be purposeful. Metal must be grounded. Firmly planted. This is a trait of good systems. Earth provides a basis, a foundation that allows systems to function and a purpose for those who create and govern those systems, that is metal.

METAL NOURISHES WATER

We talked about water being amorphous. Without boundaries it just goes everywhere with no direction. Water people are like this. They not only need visions, they need boundaries to work within. When a musician plays jazz, they have room to be creative but they have set some boundaries.We know when something sounds like jazz and when it ceases to sound like jazz. In this metal people provide critical boundaries that allow creative energy to prevail into something meaningful. Schedules, places to go, bills, ways to generate value, you name it. Water is life giving, the most life giving element, but it needs to be directed or it will become wasted and useless. Metal can be overbearing and over restrictive, yes. It can stop water from flowing, but wise metal knows not always how to create the best path for water, but how tot manage and maintain that path.

WATER NOURISHES WOOD

Wood people, at the front of many achievements get the credit for a lot. They are the movers and shakers. And while they may be the drive, they are not always the brains or vision behind what they do. Water people bring imagination and vision. Wood people often get the credit for visions that were never their own. The accomplishment they may deserve the pat on the back for, but the vision. How many business people stumble on the inventions of others and then take them and turn them into successful ventures? More than you know. And how often, blinded by a constant drive and a million details, does a wood driven person need to seek counsel of someone that can step back and look at the big picture or find a creative solution around a challenge to move forward. Change and adaptability is a trait of water All things are critical to the forward thinking fixated wood driven soul.

WOOD NOURISHES FIRE

What fuels a fire? Come on. How easy is this. It almost seems silly this nonsense could apply to people, yet we are ancient things born from a world of elements. And much of the world operates under some surprisingly obvious, predictable and simple rules. Passion without a goal or purpose, and end game is what? The two things easily squandered in life are fire and water. Left amuck water just seeps into the ground. Left static it becomes toxic. Fire left to its own devices either burns out, are starts to burn everything around it. Fire needs wood like water needs metal. It needs something to contain it and give it purpose. Wood says to fire, put your self here and we will accomplish great things. This, in life, is when our hearts find their proper course of action. A proper vehicle to out our hearts to work for. How can we master our hearts, our passion, without something that makes them learn when to burn brightly, and when to step back. Wood creates a journey for the heart a consistent aim, and then fire can apply its magic. The other quality fire and earth have together, with wood as a close second, is the ability to get too lost in themselves. Water can collapse into self absorption. Fire can spend jours looking in the mirror at itself. By connecting to greater cause we are counterbalanced and so wood helps fire from getting lost in itself and fie ignites the cause of wood. Every goal needs an inspired cheerleader and salesperson and one who can ignite others if the wood character lacks that ability which many do.

RESTRAINING RELATIONS

We cannot talk about the things in life that nourish and empower each other without addressing those things that, by nature, restrain or oppose other things. This is all part of the balance of life and the balance of being human. Can we see and embrace the things that help set healthy limits for us, that counterbalance us? Of course there are situations when counterforces can walk right over us, which is an imbalance and we will get to that in more detail. For now let us just look at the general relationship between restraining elements as each of us, by our nature, have a restraining effect on certain types of people, personalities and situations.

WATER RESTRAINS FIRE

Things that are deep and thoughtful slow down things that are excited and often prone to act solely out of passion and excitement. Things that have a powerful allure on the surface are also exposed by the things that have a powerful intuitive sense of what lies beneath the surface of things. This is is one way of looking at the way water restrains, that is keeps in check, the element of of fire. Like all of these retiring relations, a wise fire appreciates the ability of water to keep from burins out of its boundaries, unchecked by wisdom, vision, and thoughtful purpose. A self absorbed fire sees this as an offense. How dare you put out my fire! How dare you look beneath the surface and expose my weakness or perhaps alternative schemes. Wise water never never seeks to extinguish anyones fire, but it has a gravity to counter balance fire almost as a duty and service. Like a self absorbed fire, self absorbed water can snuff our fire by overthinking, over analyzing, placing too much caution upon fire, pretending that endless analysis and emotional investigation can lead to the best outcome which is never the case. Fire has its wisdom even if water rules the domain of wisdom. It does not own wisdom. It does not command wisdom. Water just reveals wisdom.

WOOD RESTRAINS EARTH

Some relations are more subtle. Fire and water a re classic story of seemingly opposing elements. No one says, they get along like wood and earth! Wood and earth seem like they should be the best of buddies. Look at it this way. Things that grow of a sweet spot of being nourished. If we are lazy on a couch we can endless consume. But if we engaged with life, we find we want what we need and nothing more. Excess gets in the way of growth and energy as much as being undernourished. So, wood regulates earth. It is wood that says, okay enough, no need to nourish me to death. Wood is fueled by all the elements but it is the great regulator of things. For tree to grow it has a recipe of what it needs. The ideal amount of water, nourishment, as well as the need to drop leaves and replenish it self. There is an aspect to all of the elements in which we wish our element could rule life. For earth, if I could just nourish everything it will all work out. But life is much more than that for all of us in our elements is it not? Wood humbles earthen this regard. It is not enough to nourish. And I am doing you a favor because if you try to nourish everything you will ultimately fail and collapse. I can show you how to wisely nourish says wise wood.

FIRE RESTRAINS METAL

We think of metal as rigid. Strong and immobile. The danger of metal is getting too rigid. Systems that become suffocating and cease to breathe, to allow for wiggle room. Metal loves predictability, rules and order. But this is not life. There is no such lasting place in life. Metal too, must adapt and accommodate the chaotic nature of life, even if it does not want to. This is where fire comes into play. Fire softens metal. If you have forged your self into something and have your systems and rituals, you don't want to be messed with. This is a thing to get to a place where we have a wise system a working method of how we engage with life. Yet when we must adapt, if we are the metal type, as some things love to change and adapt, water for one, fire is the instigator. .Once again it is all in wisdom. A reckless fire can create unnecessary havoc to metal person. However, a wise fire can inspire meaningful and necessary change, rallying the elements around metal, time to adapt and change. You need to bend here. And fire is not going to let you stay stuck in your ways. Life is about the movement of energy and fire is powerful force in the clearing of obstacles and in inspiring change evolution. Metal just hates that, until it gets a chance to settle into a new predictable system and set of rules it can religiously follow.

EARTH RESTRAINS WATER

We talked about water being the most amorphous element, capable of running amok in a dozen different directions. And we talked about metal helping water to channel its energy purposefully. Thank you metal, says water. The earth, however, absorbs water. Water says, what gives earth? Why you gotta soak me up? I got places to go and things to do. Yet all things have states of excess. An excess of water is over thinking. It is stagnancy from being water logged. It is too much too deep, too intense, too self absorbed. Earth is the savior of water in this. When water is absorbed by earth, it is not about purpose or direction. It is about counter balancing waters ability to see and feel everything. Every angle, every option. The potential and viewpoint anything at any given time. This cannot be channelled. That which grows, wood has value in vision, imagination, intuition. That which nourishes really doesn't. Water says lets think about this, investigate this. Earth says , shut up and help me get some dinner on the table. We have a vision, we don't need your clever imagination, can you just help move these pallets? The earth in its wisdom is blessing to water. Take the load off. You don't have to solve everything. I don't need you to. In fact there are a lot of situations where everyone will be just fine without you, really. Water has a very sneaky ego as it really lives to heal and to uncover truths that can lead to wisdom and happiness. But there is a certain self righteousness that can come into the most noble of water souls. Earth reminds water it is valuable but expendable, especially when it is left to its own devices, thinking it is only secret sauce or source of life in the universe. The earth understands water and what it brings to life as much as anything. It just has far more practical and fundamental things to tend to.

METAL RESTRAINS WOOD

The metaphors in this language get predictable and almost ridiculous. How could all this silliness be so accurate? What chops down wood? What do type A driven people, people hell bent on growth dislike more than anything. Politics, bureaucracy, and systems that slow them down. Most of our systems are not designed to speed up the growth of things. They are designed to slow things down. This is because we cannot have world of endless unchecked growth or we will all suffocate each other. Metal restrains wood by slowing down growth. You want to grow a new branch? Well I have some forms for you to fill out and then we need to run things by the team. Once again we have a delicate balance of what wisely restrains growth and what snuffs out healthy growth. This relationship is huge part of what defines healthy cultures and governments. One could say a dictator is one who single handedly takes over the lemon of metal. Chopping down and controlling the growth of whatever they choose unchecked by any balance of power. Indeed people get off on organizing things to death. It is the control freak. But wisely lopping off branches and giving something a good trim? This is favor to the tree, they wood type. Metal teaches the wood stye the joy is being able to grow branches even if that is replacing them. It is not about taking over the forest.

PHASES AND ELEMENTS

So we need to cover this notion of phases. I mentioned to you we can create am increasingly complex story out of our little world of 5 elements. One way to do this is talk about phases. I mentioned we all have a forward primary element, and then secondary strength that tends to fall behind our primary strength. And then remaining elements all have various levels of importance and evolution depending on the individual. Because of the complexity of our human nature, the complexity of how we express behavior, and because of timing and position, we all will find times in our lives when life will call upon us to put something forward that is not in our main wheelhouse. We may be averse to igniting things. Maybe we don’t like to get too deep about anything. Or perhaps we prefer being in cruise control and like to avoid being to the one to push accomplishment s and goals forward. Yet life life is asking us to do just these things. Life through s us all into the fire at some point. It will through us all into the depths of the ocean at some point. And it will ask us to step up and show we can find the drive to commit and push toward some worthy goal if we want to find our way to any given reward. This is a thing of wisdom. I may not be water driven person but I am in a phase of water, meaning it is time to address my emotions and my emotional world. I don’t have to stay there. I may not like it. I may feel I do not have the tools, but I have to figure it out. Or perhaps we are that person always waiting for someone else to light a fire under us and life is saying, sorry, not today. This is a phase of life where you have to learn to light your own fire and keep in burning. And maybe you have to find your charm and allure, engage your ability to magnetize and inspire people. Again this may not be your long term expression, but this is a phase that demands you become “fire forward.” The good news for you is that if you pony up, life will get you back to your wheelhouse. Life wants you to be a complete person, have all the tools you need to navigate your life, but it does not want you to settle into anything that is not grounded in what is your core natural strength. So we are sucking it up, stepping out of our comfort zone, and we are discovering that just because we have dominant element, it odes not mean we cannot draw power and purpose from things out of our wheelhouse. Sometimes it is an exhilarating and refreshing break to step out of our comfort zone. IT can be tedious and one dimensional being anything for too long.

A QUESTION FOR YOU

What phase do you feel like you are in? Is life asking you to ignite a flame? To nourish your self and take a moment to savor the simple act of being nourished? Take a good look at the systems and processes you have been operating under, the organization of your life, and maybe revisit this, double checking your ethics and your daily rituals? Or is it a time to just get energy moving, to head toward a goal with a head of steam, prepared to put in the extra time, energy, sacrifice and commitment needed to get anywhere meaningful? Or maybe it is time to put logic aside and tackle some deep emotional healing? Most importantly, can we answer this question form wisdom and ot from fear, perhaps seeking to hide in a an element out of comfort and familiarity? How do we know? Oh, we know know. We always know.

There is no escape from following the wisdom of phases. There is falling asleep at the wheel, but we can only do this for so long before life stats to punish us for our laziness or fear of confronting a given weakness. Facing the challenges of our lesser elements also gives a bigger picture of the rewards and challenges of what others must deal with. Anything can be fun and interesting when we begin. But mastering any part of our self is long and challenging thing, showing up day to day and keeping to our best practices rain or shine, through joy and struggle,

THE ELEMENTS AS A PATH TO ACHIEVING VISIONS

Having a vision is the easy part. We all stumble on the way to achieving visions let alone just finding a proper vision to hang on to and follow. Where we stumble often has ties to our inherent weaknesses, or perhaps an overconfidence in leaning on our inherent strengths? This is an investigation in to the steps of realizing anything worthwhile through the story of our 5 elements.

INVESTIGATE

SOME THOUGHTS ON FREEDOM

When we are people of privilege, people afforded some freedom of choice, perhaps a lot of freedom, we are confronted with a challenge. Fortunately it is a good challenge. One of the great challenges of what we perceive as freedom is the notion that we can be whatever we want to be. The real reward of freedom is being what we are meant to be. It is in our ability to pursue what resonates with our nature with wisdom. What we despise about our shadow past is not that we did not get to choose to be whatever we wanted. It is that our roles were often unrewarding. Our ancestors worked too hard for nothing. They were expendable, and their health and well being were secondary to making someone else prosperous and powerful. We are released from this, never fully, but from the worst of it and now we can be whatever we want to be if we just put in the work. Woe is the one who falls into this trap. How many of us get lost in all the options presented to us in our lives? How many of us find our selves constantly questioning if we have chosen the right path? How many of us go to grocery store and wonder, do we really need all of this? It’s nice, but really? Wouldn’t it be great to have half of the options and all those options being things we know nourished our health?

This has everything to do with our discussion of the elements because this language dares to define us. And any attempt to define us is an assault on our egos attempt to define freedom. It is an interesting fact that people sell each other on this idea we can be what ever want to be, eat what ever we want to eat, love whatever we choose to love, and yet science knows we have DNA. We are genetically wired for some things over others. Some foods over others. Some relationships over others. And even some work over others. Is freedom fighting our DNA? Fighting our inherent strengths and weaknesses. In life there is pushing boundaries and there is fighting with our nature. We need to know the difference. We all need ot practice pushing our boundaries from time to time. But fighting our nature endlessly, is a failed game of the ego. It is the ultimate privilege to be able to fight the nature of things and get away with it, which we can never do forever. The nature of things always wins.

To this point we can look at the sort of pyramid of power structures in societies throughout history. Those rise have the privilege to play with, create chaos with, and fight the nature of things. Those who sit at the bottom do not have this privilege and suffer for any attempt to do so. When we find freedom, the first inclination is to possess and emulate the wealthy and powerful. They get to eat whatever they want, we want to eat whatever we want. There was a time when only the rich had lawns. They had to be cared for and manicured and no one had the time or property to do so. This is why everyone went crazy for lawns in the mid century. Sitting on top we get to manipulate the nature of others. We get to tell people what to do without regard to their best expressions. We can people people in positions not best suited for them as means to show the importance of our ego over wisdom and compassion. And so we have a natural association with freedom, evolution and power, that attracts us to opposing the nature of things, including our own nature. This creates an energy, an actual ecosystem, and we enter these ecosystems all the time. As disfunctional as they can be, we can achieve great rewards for navigating such things. This our human history. It our drama. Each of us, privileged or not, wealthy or not, has an opportunity to define our relationship to our nature. Our relationship to freedom. Freedom we will find in life, is the ability to wisely choose our cages. Cages with doors that open and close freely so we do not have to stay imprisoned by them. Cages that have room for others. Cages that have windows and some room to play and celebrate. Is your body not a cage? Does not not define boundaries of what your soul can and cannot do with it?

Smash any idea you may have that your ultimate freedom is having the ability to do whatever you want. Your ultimate freedom is n the ability to pursue being who you are meant to be knowing that has its strengths and weaknesses, Knowing that must exist within the never ending drama of life, like every other path we could choose. When we embrace our limits, our nature, dare to define our selves, we are free to find our most profound wisdom. We become open to the magic of wise and meaningful interactions. We are free to discover that right and wring are relative and we can let go of having to be right about anything. What is right but what is honest and true to its nature? Being present in our true self dispels blindness and ignorance and reminds us all we can do with freedom is pursue what it means to be a human being, which is something like everything else in existence. A thing with a predefined purpose and expression. Look at the sun for goodness sake, the most powerful force in our solar system, and yet what is it free to do? Its power comes from the fact it is not choosing to do anything. It is not trying to define itself as anything. It is fully being its completely predictable self. If you want to shine, own your self, your deign. Freedom is an illusion.

We will never master life. Life is it's own master. We can only be good listeners.

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Design: Wunderwerk
Images: Wunderwerk

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