Earth Element: Correspondences, Alchemy & Magick

Working with the earth element can be so important as witches and as people looking for their center to work on our grounding. I created this article for you to know the main features of these elements and how to use their energy in all areas of your life.

The Earth Element: main features

In its three mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, the Earth is the element of all nature, considered by many traditions to be the most sacred and divine of the elements.

Fertile and creative, nourishing and luxuriant, it embodies both the most poetic characteristics of a welcoming and maternal womb that welcomes life and nourishes it and the more “practical” ones of constancy, patience, and strength. The Earth is maternal and nourishing and practical, concrete, solid, and powerful.

It is pure matter (as opposed to the spirit, which is air). As such, also from an astrological point of view, this element confers the qualities of concreteness, practicality, efficiency, and confidentiality.

The Earth creates and preserves life, and the earth signs love to build, avoiding any waste, proceeding in life with the prudence of those who know that each summer will follow winter, in the cycle of the seasons, which is the cycle of life.

Its direction is North, and the instrument is the pentacle.

All creatures with hooves, such as deer, horses, and bison, or with legs like bears and wolves, are under his protection.

The Goddesses of the Earth are Demeter, Freya, Parvati, and the Gods are Dionysus, Cernunnos, Osiris, and Pan. The nature spirits of the Earth are the gnomes.

The earth’s magic brings creativity, concreteness, rootedness, prosperity, and life. Taking care of nature and the environment, respecting it, and recognizing its sacredness is already a principle of magic.

When the moon is in the earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn), all the works and rites based on the earth have better success: sowing, planting, transplanting, weeding (in the waning moon), working with crystals, purification with salt and the earth (in the waning moon).

The parts of the plants corresponding to these days are the roots.

According to matriarchal cultures, it is the feminine principle par excellence. The Great Mother opens to the fruitful intervention of heaven. In its bowels, it welcomes and transforms the seed of the gods, a seed to which the Mother gives power. It is therefore endowed with magical power.

The matter is opposed to the spirit but simultaneously indispensable to the universe’s balance.

The shamanic culture has always held Mother Earth in high regard, nurturing a deep love and respect for her and benefiting from her fruits and her Spirits.

As in any ancient natural culture, man has always been considered an element part of this universe, one of the children of the earth itself, a particle inserted in a broader context. With the advent of anthropocentric cultures, Nature has been plundered and wounded in its sacredness.

Man has become the ruler of all things, and animals, woods, trees, waters, and the earth itself have had serious consequences with effects that inevitably reflect on the man himself.

Shamanism benefits from the Earth (and Water, Fire, and Air) and its Spirits to know, to learn, to heal, to the divine, and to travel.

The element of the Earth is depicted with a triangle facing downwards, with a horizontal line in the center. It is located on the pentacle in the lower-left point. The Earth element is usually associated with the color green, brown, or any color of the earth tone.

The Earth is the element of all nature, in its three kingdoms mineral, vegetable, and animal, considered by many traditions the most sacred and divine of the elements.

Fertile and creative, nourishing and luxuriant, it contains both the more poetic characteristics of a welcoming and maternal womb that welcomes life and nourishes it and the more “earthly” ones of constancy, patience, strength.

It is pure matter, opposed to the spirit, air, and fire. According to matriarchal cultures, it is the feminine principle par excellence, the Great Mother open to the fruitful intervention of heaven. In its bowels, it welcomes and transforms the seed of the god, to which the Mother gives power. It is therefore endowed with magical power.

The Earth creates and preserves life, avoiding any waste, aware that winter will follow each summer in the cycle of the seasons, which is then the cycle of life.

It is a stable, lasting, rooted, and solid energy, strongly connected to daily reality, to the world of experience and senses, and at the same time maternal and nourishing.

The zodiac signs belonging to the element of Earth are Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn and represent respectively the fertile and wildland, the cultivated land, and the winter land.

How to connect with the earth element?

The earth’s magic brings creativity, concreteness, rootedness, prosperity, and life. Taking care of nature and the environment, respecting it, and recognizing its sacredness is already a principle of magic.

Chanting a Prayer for Earth

An easy and powerful way to connect with the earth element is by chanting a prayer to celebrate it and honor it. You can use a pre-existent prayer, or create a custom-made one yourself—your choice.

Spending time in nature is the best way to make it happen.

Cave: Allows access to the earth’s bowels and is, therefore, a gateway to the Underworld. Generally, the caves are dark and sometimes dangerous places, where the sunlight does not reach and therefore more in contact with the telluric powers. They are also populated by Dwarves, custodians of the riches of the Earth.

Valley: It recalls the earth’s womb, the receptacle of celestial forces. It is a place of fruitfulness and transformation.

Grass: The growth of grass expresses the activity of the earth’s vegetation that are collected and made available for medicinal and therapeutic purposes, as well as magical rituals.

Hills and Mountains: are places where Spirits and Divinities live.

The greater the height of the mountain, the greater the proximity to the skies, the greater distance from civilization. All this creates a sense of isolation that allows moments of deep internalization.

Wood: It is the sacred and initiatory place par excellence inhabited by supernatural forces. There were real cults linked to the woods, to the point that Christian laws in Swedish Uppland prohibited their beliefs and practices.

The wood is a place to meet Spirits and Gods. It is also where one retreats for a period of regeneration, waiting to enter the new cycle of life. It is a place of regeneration and knowledge. It sometimes presents dangerous spaces like any initiatory place.

However, it is also a source of life and an area of protection as is alluded to in the Nordic myth in which Lif and Lifthrasir find refuge during the Twilight of the Gods, feeding on dew waiting for the beginning of the new cycle.

Connecting with Trees

It participates in the three different states of being and at the same time in the three layers of the universe:

• Utgard, the Underworld with roots that sink into the earth
• Midgard, the Middle World whose trunk represents the surface plane
• Asgard, the World of the Gods with branches reaching towards the heavens

The tree is an image of the vertical ascent towards the Upper Floors and is fundamental in shamanic cultures and of great importance in ancient civilizations. The tree takes on the concepts of wisdom, sacredness, and divine power.

It is a means of transport through the states of being and the cosmos. Often in Nordic myths, the warrior or hero is compared to a tree, symbolizing the nobility.

Branches

Nourished by the sap that rises from the roots, the branch with its fruits possesses the tree’s life force. As it appears in the “Carme di Sigdrifa,” the Rune Medicine is connected to the branches, then Shamanic Medicine.

This science is taught by Valkira Sigrdrifa in Siegfried. In the Northern Tradition, the female element often transmits knowledge to the one who passes the initiatory tests placed before him.

Why connect with the earth element?

The earth is what we live on. Without it, where would we be?

We build our houses on earth from things we take and create from the earth. The bricks are clay, earth, and sand taken from the earth and baked in a furnace. The felled and planned trees furnish our houses. We plant seeds in the earth. We grow food to support our bodies and our animals.

Everything we do is on earth. We eat, sleep, live and breathe on earth. When you think of the earth, you can easily associate the North and the Earth as strength, stability, courage, slow change, and sometimes coldness. The Earth element is also helpful in taking root when you seem fickle or shaken or even a little out of control or undecided.

How to use all this in your practice?

Performing rituals for money, prosperity, fertility, stability, foundation, and work.

You can work with any spell or activity involving creating images in the soil or sand, burying, or planting.

Use earthy scented plants such as patchouli and vetivert, mosses and lichens, peanuts, dry and stiff plants, heavy low-growing plants, and plants with deep roots.

Work with the magic of heavy or dull crystals, such as coal, emeralds, and peridot.

Connect with creatures with hooves, like deer, horses, and bison, or with legs, like bears and wolves.

Connect with Goddesses of the Earth such as Demeter, Freya, Parvati, and the Gods Dionysus, Cernunnos, Osiris, and Pan.

Connect with elves and other earthly creatures.

Magickal Properties of Earth

Dawn’s Thoughts on The Earth Element

The element Earth is a classical Western element associated with the physical body and material abundance. The energy of Earth is considered cool and dry and is feminine in nature.

Classical Philosophy

In ancient Greek philosophy, Earth was one of four archai that formed the basis of everything in the universe. Plato associated the element of Earth with darkness, thickness, and quietness and visualized it as the shape of a cube. Aristotle believed Earth to be the heaviest element.

In ancient Greek medicine through to Medieval Times, the element of Earth was associated with black bile and the melancholic humor.

In Magic(k)

The element of Earth is one of the four (or five) elements of modern Western magical systems, the others being air, fire, water and sometimes spirit or aether.

The elements are usually invoked during a ritual in order to balance the energy in the sacred space or the practitioner herself, but may also be invoked independently to lend their energy to spellwork within its sphere of influence or to help the practitioner balance out an excess of earth energy.

The element of Earth relates to stable foundations and rules health, wealth, prosperity, employment, and fertility. It is often evoked for stone, crystal and knot magic and spells related to the hearth and home, to gaining material things including money and employment and to general security and family matters.

Earth is often evoked from the North in the form of spirit creatures associated with Earth, including gnomes, Fauns, Goblins, Satyrs, Dryads or Sylvestres or by calling upon divinities or other spirits associated with Earth and Gods and Goddesses of Earth such as Demeter, Ceres, the Horae, Persephone, Proserpina, Hades, and Pluto.

When creating sacred space or purifying areas, objects or individuals for ritual, Earth may be used as salt or ocre sprinkled around the area or used to make a mark.

Earth may be represented on an altar by stones or crystals, a bowl of salt or soil. Colors used to represent air include dark earthy colors, such and brown and black and green.

The element may also be represented by statues of animals associated with the element of Earth, such as the bull, the stag, the dragon, the wolf, the owl, the cat, and the sphinx.

Healing Magic

In ancient Greek medicine, the element of Earth is associated with the humor black bile. Earth and black bile are cold and dry. An excess of black bile causes melancholy.

In Alchemy

The alchemical symbol for Earth is a downward pointing triangle bisected by a line. Earth is cold and dry and represented by salt.

Correspondences

Earth Plants

Plants that correspond with the element of Earth are nourishing, nutrient and calorie dense and often store for a long time. Alternatively, they may be earthy smelling or grow near or within the soil.

All grains, ivy, red poppy, thrift plant, vetiver, mushroom, potato.

Earth Stones

Minerals that correspond to the element of Earth are generally dark or green in color and often lack sparkle. They are usually heavy and cool as well.

Onyx, jade, halite, amethyst, and fluorite are all associated with the element of Earth although any stone can represent Earth in a pinch. A dish of soil can also represent the element of Earth.

Metals

Lead

Planetary Correspondences

The element of Earth is associated with Venus, Saturn and, of course, the Earth.

Symbols of the Element of Earth

The alchemical symbol for the element of Earth is a downward-pointing triangle with a line through it.

Pentacles also symbolize the element of Earth.

In Astrology

The element of Earth is associated with the zodiacal signs Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn.

Tarot

Earth is associated with the Pentacles and the Universe card.

Other Associations

The element of Earth is associated with old age and the season of autumn or winter.