A Daily Look Within – Day 1
Elemental Contemplation: EARTH
By Kathy Custren
Earth is the very ground we walk on and it is also what “grounds” us. Writing about my observations of the Earth element should be an easy task. Earth is comprised of carbon primarily, and it is from what all life forms are derived. The Earth element corresponds most often to the North compass point. It is the base of our existence, our home, and we are all fated to return to it upon our demise.
Yet, with the realization that all creation is form, of one way or another, perhaps the very existence and concept of Earth is the most problematic to reconcile. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I feel the kinship, the one-ness, the family sense of being part of everything ever made everywhere. Knowing that and also knowing that form as we know and recognize it is subject to change—quite dramatic change at that—is a process that takes what would ordinarily be a grounding element and makes it more alive and kinetic. The Earth has a magnetic personality, in more ways than one. It can be the very essence of duality, of polarity. It can be high or low, dry or wet, hot or cold—all at the same time. Its very being is one of diverse purpose.
Perhaps it is that very sense of innate life that has been missing from so much of humanity’s realization of this element, Earth. Fire has activity in its light and heat. Air has activity in its movement and sound. The same can be said of Water. But what of Earth? Does Earth as we conceive it, move? Emit anything? Oh, sure, the “planet” Earth has such things as earthquakes and volcanoes that emit smoke, ash and lava, but when you look at a clump of Earth just sitting there, it doesn’t really say or do much. –Or, does it? We know that our planet Earth is in movement, both in its own daily revolution and it yearly circuit around our Sun. Earth is but a small part of our larger universe, which is but a speck in the cosmos of all that exists.
