| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: Cut me loose!" moaned the prisoner.
A young woman, carrying on her strong back a bundle of tightly
bound willow sticks, passed near by the lonely teepee. She heard
the wailing man's voice. She paused to listen to the sad words.
Looking around she saw nowhere a human creature. "It may be a
spirit," thought she.
"Oh! cut me loose! set me free! Iktomi has played me false!
He has made me bark of his tree!" cried the voice again.
The young woman dropped her pack of firewood to the ground.
With her stone axe she hurried to the tree. There before her
astonished eyes clung a young brave close to the tree.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: Scotland, for the many hundredth time. I cannot get over my
astonishment - indeed, it increases every day - at the hopeless
gulf that there is between England and Scotland, and English and
Scotch. Nothing is the same; and I feel as strange and outlandish
here as I do in France or Germany. Everything by the wayside, in
the houses, or about the people, strikes me with an unexpected
unfamiliarity: I walk among surprises, for just where you think
you have them, something wrong turns up.
I got a little Law read yesterday, and some German this morning,
but on the whole there are too many amusements going for much work;
as for correspondence, I have neither heart nor time for it to-day.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: thought was buried, rose up in front of me, hideous, horrible, with
its hands at my throat. I could have killed it for ever, sent it
back into its tomb, destroyed its record, burned the one witness
against me. You prevented me. No one but you, you know it. And now
what is there before me but public disgrace, ruin, terrible shame,
the mockery of the world, a lonely dishonoured life, a lonely
dishonoured death, it may be, some day? Let women make no more
ideals of men! let them not put them on alters and bow before them,
or they may ruin other lives as completely as you - you whom I have
so wildly loved - have ruined mine!
[He passes from the room. LADY CHILTERN rushes towards him, but the
|
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Tanach: 2_Chronicles 9: 21 For the king had ships that went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram; once every three years came the ships of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.
2_Chronicles 9: 22 So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.
2_Chronicles 9: 23 And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.
2_Chronicles 9: 24 And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, armour, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year.
2_Chronicles 9: 25 And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, that he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.
2_Chronicles 9: 26 And he ruled over all the kings from the River even unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt.
2_Chronicles 9: 27 And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycamore-trees that are in the Lowland, for abundance.
2_Chronicles 9: 28 And they brought horses for Solomon out of Egypt, and out of all lands.
2_Chronicles 9: 29 Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the words of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Jedo the seer concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat?
The Tanach |
