| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: This was my chance, and it made me the more anxious to go.
It was only months and months afterwards, when I made the attempt
to recover what was left of the body, that I heard the original
quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens.
Yes, two black hens. Fresleven--that was the fellow's name,
a Dane--thought himself wronged somehow in the bargain,
so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village
with a stick. Oh, it didn't surprise me in the least to
hear this, and at the same time to be told that Fresleven was
the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs.
No doubt he was; but he had been a couple of years already out
 Heart of Darkness |
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 Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: joy. The soldiers sang, laughed, and chattered away.
The spirit of nomadic tribes stirred their souls. What mat-
ters it whether you go and whence you come? All that
matters is to walk, to walk endlessly, without ever stop-
ping; to possess the valley, the heights of the sierra, far
as the eye can read.
Trees, brush, and cactus shone fresh after rain. Heavy
drops of limpid water fell from rocks, ocher in hue as
rusty armor.
Demetrio Macias' men grew silent for a moment.
They believed they heard the familiar rumor of firing in
 The Underdogs |