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The Element Diary – For at least one week, keep a detailed record of your feelings, linking them with their associated Elements. Make entries for first thing on waking, mid-morning, lunchtime, midafternoon, early evening, and last thing at night. You may also find it helpful to note any triggers you can identify which may have brought on these feelings.

After just a week of this you will already have a far greater understanding of the ways the Elements work in your life. You will also find that you start to have far more control over the ways you react to people and events around you. One of the effects of this is that you can begin to avoid situations, and sometimes even the people, which affect you badly. The next stage is to begin to find ways of effectively dealing with your feelings. Not by suppressing them but by balancing them.

The first step towards this is to find simple, easy to recall images which, for you, instantly identify each Element. For some people this means remembering the Elements as they actually experienced them in nature, for others it can be visualizing the colours. I have a series of mental ‘video clips’; time-lapse images of clouds rushing across the sky, a volcano erupting, waves crashing on the shore, and a cliff face I used to visit often. Whatever your personal triggers, when you recall them they should immediately invoke each Element totally; in terms of all the senses, as well as the internal feelings of each. If you don’t already have a series of memorable images then spend some time working on them. One Witch I know spent time creating abstract pictures of each. She made these pictures close to the Elements in nature; on a hill, in the sun, by a stream and in the garden surrounded by freshly turned earth. Whilst drawing her pictures she focused on all the aspects of each Element, revisiting the feelings, sights, sounds, smells, etc of each, and she dedicated them to each Element. The effort she put into these images was well worth it, as every time she wants to recall them they come easily to mind. Another, who is a singer, worked on finding musical tones which bring the Elements immediately to mind. Once you have decided which form is best for you, practise it regularly until you can recall each Element fully whenever you want.

After this you will need to identify ways of sending them away with equal ease. For a mental picture you might imagine a particular Element fading until it is no longer visible, or see it being covered by a coat of ‘paint’ which causes it to disappear. Sounds can be imagined as getting quieter, and so on.