The Four Elements

What are the Elements?:

The four elements — earth, air, water and fire — are the very elements (or energies) of life. Since long before written history, there's been an understanding of the elemental balance needed to sustain life. Many indigenous traditions honor the sacred circle, formed by the four elements, and seen in the Zodiacal wheel.

Elements and Astrology:

In your own birth chart, the mix of elements shows you what you're working with in this life. Your cosmic blueprint may be heavy on the fire, but lack earth to ground you. Each element behaves differently, and is one of three qualities — how these mix in your chart, taking into account the planet and house placement, shines more light on your nature and life lessons.

Who began to group the signs by Elements?:

In recorded history, Ptolemy is credited with making the association between the four elements and the signs of astrology in the 2nd Century AD. Using longstanding theories of the four elements, he assigned three signs to each element. The Greek philosophers found the four elements in all of life, and their Zodiacal wheel of cosmic energies reflected that balance.

What do the signs of a certain Element have in common?:

Fire, Air, Earth, and Water, the four elements, sometimes called the Triplicities, play an important part in astrology. The term triplicities comes from the fact that there are three signs associated with each of the four elements. Here are the signs divided by element:

• Earth.....Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn
• Air.....Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
• Water....Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
• Fire.....Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius

• Earth signs: the body, practical, sensual, grounded
• Air signs: the mind, intellectual, ideas, detached, social, conceptual
• Water signs: the emotions, imaginative, nurturing, introverted
• Fire signs: the spirit, inspired, energy, instinctual, outgoing, active

Element Compatibility: Zodiac signs can be broken down into the elements of Fire, Air, Water and Earth. If one learns the characteristics of these elements, he/she will understand, which signs share common features and with whom they are more compatible.

When these elements are translated as personality traits or temperament, they become important features of the delineation. Here are brief readings of each of the four elements and delineations of a situation when one's chart contains two of the elements having similar strength. For the few who have a balance in elements, the concepts of elements should be considered balanced.  That is they tend to reflect common sense (earth), action orientation (fire), thinking and communication skills (air), and the ability to feel and intuitively know (water) in reasonable proportion and don't rely overly on any of these traits at the expense of another.

Just as it is important to observe the element that is strongest in the chart, it is also important to note the element, if any, that is not significantly represented in the horoscope. A reading, that may be appropriate when such an absence is noted, is also provided below.

Many astrologers consider the element of each of the planets when determining which of the elements may be more significant in a horoscope. My method for evaluating the strength of an element in a birth chart is to assign a value of 4 to the element associated with the Sun; the Moon element is assigned a value of 3; Mercury, Venus, and Mars sign elements are assigned a value of 2 each, and Jupiter and Saturn each have a value of 1. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are disregarded because their element is more societal affecting large groups of individuals born during a period. Using this approach, if as many as 8 points are concentrated in one element, it is considered a preponderance in that element.

So how do the signs get along with each other? Here’s a quick rundown of what the signs can expect from one another when they meet.