The four elements in everyday life

The four elements sound like a textbook, and a textbook is indeed where they are to be found. But they can be watched just as well on an ordinary afternoon — in the way someone deals with a delay, with money, with an argument or with a plan that has to be made. That is exactly what they are for: four basic ways of tackling a matter.

The order around the circle

The elements are not spread over the zodiac at random. They run in a fixed sequence: Aries fire, Taurus earth, Gemini air, Cancer water — and then the same twice more, until the circle is full. That is why no sign has a neighbour of its own element, and why neighbouring signs often seem so unalike although only a few weeks lie between them.

Fire: starts things

The train is cancelled. Fire is on its feet before the announcement has finished, looks for another connection, speaks to someone, and is on the move again within two minutes. Fire thinks forward and in possibilities, brings warmth to a flagging evening, and would rather decide wrongly than not at all. The flip side: whatever takes a long time loses its appeal. The final third of a project is the place where fire needs help.

Earth: makes something that lasts

Earth asks what it costs, how long it holds up and who is going to do it. Earth is the person whose renovation actually gets finished, whose tyres are changed in good time, and who reads a contract before signing it. Earth likes repetition, because repetition produces skill. The flip side: a proposal that has not yet been costed strikes it at first as an imposition — even when it is a good one.

Air: sorts and talks

Air has to say a matter out loud before it knows what it makes of it. It compares, gets a second opinion, finds the counter-argument at once and sends you a link late at night. In a group that has got stuck, air is the one who turns a thought around until things suddenly move on. The flip side: the decision comes late, because one more possibility would still be conceivable, and whatever has been talked over already feels almost done.

Water: notices how everyone is doing

Water knows that something is wrong at the table before a word has been said. It remembers who was hurt and when, and it keeps people for years. It gives a promise slowly, but it keeps it. The flip side: it takes on moods that do not belong to it at all, and afterwards it needs time to itself. A purely factual answer comes hard to it, because for water almost nothing is purely factual.

Four at the same table

A weekend is to be planned. Fire already has a destination and wants to set off tomorrow. Earth works out what the accommodation costs and asks about the journey back on Sunday. Air proposes three alternatives and argues for each. Water says little and remarks that one of the group would probably rather stay at home this time. Each of the four answers is right, and none of them is enough on its own. That is how the division works: not as a ranking, but as a sharing out of the work.

No one is only one element

Your sun sign is one piece of information among several. The Moon and the rising sign often fall in other elements, and then you get exactly the mixtures that make people interesting: fire that comes in quietly, because the rising sign is a water sign. Earth that talks a great deal. When a description only half fits you, that is usually the reason — look it up under ascendant.

When an element is missing

It happens that an element is barely represented in a chart — and not by a bare count of the planets, but where it counts: in the Sun, the Moon and the rising sign. That is no deficiency, and certainly no judgement. Most often it shows up as a sensitivity: anyone with little earth often talks a great deal about money and order. Anyone with little water takes feelings for a subject that could just as well be handled factually. And what is missing is often fetched from outside — through the partner, the colleague, the friend who keeps bringing one back down to earth. Which sign carries which element, and what follows from that in interpretation, is set out under four elements and zodiac signs.