Chapter 4 – Becoming Balanced
After reading the basic elemental profiles and the sixteen elemental characters in Chapter Three, you know for sure that each element has good and bad qualities. We have already started to talk about people who are “too fiery” or who have “an excess of water” or what have you. The obvious implication is that it’s not the element itself that is the problem, but the quantity of that element. In other words, the element is imbalanced.
Balance: A Pagan Essential
In Paganism generally, and especially in Wicca, balance is emphasized. We are neither ascetics nor hedonists. As a religious group, we are not teetotalers, but we recognize the dangers of alcohol abuse. We are a sex-positive religion, but most Pagans choose to be monogamous (eventually) and to practice safer sex. Balance. Neither extreme is right, either magically or psychologically.
In The Charge it is said let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you As instructions from the Goddess, as a spiritual compass, and as good advise, this is the very essence of balance. Mirth is good, but reverence is also good. Too much mirth should be offset by a proper amount of reverence, and excess reverence should be tempered with a healthy dose of mirth.
Balance is nature’s way. Day balances night, and if, at the Summer Solstice, there is much more day than night, it is balanced by its opposite, the Winter Solstice, when the scales of dark and light are reversed. In nature, Growth is balanced by decay, youth is balanced by age, planting is balanced by harvest. As we learn balance, and learn to live our lives in Nature’s paths, we learn to take the bad with the good, and become happier as a result.
In Wiccan ceremony, balance is always sought, and the elements in a well-put together ceremony are always balanced. If the quarters are marked, all four are marked. If an element is represented on the altar, all four are represented. An object may be presented at the center of the circle, or it may be presented to all four quarters, but I’ve never seen an object presented to one, two or three quarters!
Balance is Addition
In that ceremony we just mentioned, we’ll balance our presentation or invocation by going to all four quarters, or putting all four elements on the altar. If at first we thought of invoking one quarter, it’s unlikely we’d say “Oh, it has to be balanced, never mind then.” In other words, we wouldn’t subtract what we have (the invocation), we’d add what we don’t have.
The same is true in your personal elemental makeup. If you’re hot-tempered and have a tendency towards frequent, impulsive rage, you don’t have “too much” Fire, you have Fire unbalanced by Water, Earth or Air. The solution for you would be to increase the elements you’re weak in, rather than trying to decrease your strengths.
All four elements are a natural part of your makeup. Trying to make one of them go away won’t work, and isn’t wise. It’s like an amputation of a spiritual limb. In Paganism, we work with Nature, and the elements are Nature’s building blocks. We don’t want to push them away. We are more empowered when we choose to strengthen something rather than weaken something. Look again at the results of Your Personal Element Quiz. It’s unlikely that you scored a zero even in your weakest element. Even if you did, that element is within you and can be brought out, nurtured and placed into better balance with the rest of you.
