| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: him with laughter, contempt, or violence; many ignored him; a few
beat him up; some said he just wanted to get at their firewood;
most said they, like the chief, felt fine. But a dozen or so
natives came to him privately where he had been tossed into the
bushes after his most recent beating, and asked him for the medicine.
"We are somehow not really happy living like this," they said, "even
though it is the way of the world." The doctor gladly gave them the
medicine, and in a few days they began to show remarkable signs of
recovery. No longer desiring to eat dirt or jump out of trees, these
natives corrected their diet, improved in health, and began to apply
themselves to such activities as making baskets, repairing their huts,
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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 Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Or under quilt, one cometh not to fame,
Withouten which whoso his life consumes
Such vestige leaveth of himself on earth,
As smoke in air or in the water foam.
And therefore raise thee up, o'ercome the anguish
With spirit that o'ercometh every battle,
If with its heavy body it sink not.
A longer stairway it behoves thee mount;
'Tis not enough from these to have departed;
Let it avail thee, if thou understand me."
Then I uprose, showing myself provided
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
