We've been around the Wheel of the Year once together, so for the next iteration, I'm going to concentrate on the four Elements on the equinoxes and solstices and on four concepts that I see as fundamental to Wicca on the other Sabbats. For Ostara[1] we'll start with the Element of Air.
I capitalize those words because I'm using them as proper nouns. The four Elements, as conceptualized by classical Greek philosophy, are not the same as the elements on the periodic table, and when I say Air, I'm not just talking about the stuff going in and out of your lungs. I'm referring to the archetype, the whole abstract concept which includes what you're breathing, but it also includes the whirlwind and the summer breeze, the freezing breath of winter and the surprise of walking past lilacs in bloom.
And symbolically, the Element of Air represents even more than that. The four Elements can also be construed as broad categories with a wealth of symbolic meanings through what we call associations or correspondences. Most Wiccans, for example, cast a circle (or Circle, if you like) as part of their rituals. Each cardinal direction within that circle is associated with an Element. Correspondences differ - sometimes wildly - but I'm going to discuss the system that I use, which also happens to correspond to the one most commonly used. Just keep in mind that none of this is set in stone - or written on the wind. My associations are:
East - Air
South - Fire
West - Water
North - Earth
Now, since East (there's those caps again) is where the sun rises, it's associated with dawn, and also with springtime, as the "dawning" of the year. So Air also represents beginnings, a fresh start, and even "a fresh breath." You'll find that many of our clichés can be used to summarize these sorts of metaphorical connections; that doesn't mean the connections are trite. To me, it's an example of the way a lot of these metaphors are embedded very deeply in our culture and our thinking, as reflected in and mediated by language.
The Wheel of the Year and the circle also correspond. Each of the direction/Element pairings - called Quarters - is associated with one of the solstices or equinoxes, in my understanding. Yule is in the North, Ostara in the East, and so on. Then the other four Sabbats, often called cross-quarter days, take the positions in between. This makes Ostara the perfect time to reflect on the Element of Air.
Air is associated with travel and movement. Thinking back to the days before cars, this makes a great deal of sense; in Renaissance times, ships depended on the wind, and they were the major form of long-distance transportation. Even after that, steam power depended on using air pressure as a driving force.
In several mythologies, birds are the archetypal messengers of the gods, representing both this association with movement and the function of communication. And, after all, speech literally depends on air. Thus the realm of Air became the domain of language, and also of reasoning, deciding, judging, and other intellectual pursuits. Unfortunately, this is where Air can start to get a bad rap.
While this understanding of the Elements does go all the way back to Greek philosophy, the current understanding of it was transmitted to us in the Western world mostly by way of the Golden Dawn. This esoteric organization, most active around the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s, collected and organized much occult knowledge. They are also the origin of the most familiar design of the Tarot deck, which can give a negative impression about Air.
Tarot originated during the Italian Renaissance and is actually the precursor of the modern deck of playing cards. I'm not going to go into too much history here; the upshot is that in the early 1900s, members of the Golden Dawn designed and commissioned a particular Tarot deck, variously called the Rider-Waite or the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS), which has been the basis for most subsequent decks in English-speaking countries.
A Tarot deck consists of 78 cards: four suits, with ten numbered cards and four Court cards in each suit, and twenty-two independent cards with their own sequence, which are now called the Major Arcana. As the deck transformed into modern playing cards, the Major Arcana were dropped, the Court cards reduced to three (jack, queen, king), and the symbols of the four suits became spades, diamonds, hearts, and clubs.
In Tarot, the suits are Swords, Pentacles or Coins, Cups, and Staves, and the suit of Swords is most commonly associated with Air.[2] For various reasons, the Golden Dawn created images for these ten cards that included some of the most negative-seeming depictions in the deck. Now, Tarot images are complex things in and of themselves, and I'm not going to try to explain too much of that right here, so let me just say that some of the cards in the suit of Swords have basic interpretations such as depression and grief.
The Court cards, which are often interpreted as people involved in a particular situation, can also take the judging function of Air to an extreme; the Queen of Swords is frequently depicted or described as harsh, even shrewish. The King of Swords is stern and demanding; he's a judge who won't accept an excuse.
With all of this imagery going on, people who work with Tarot a lot, and especially with the RWS deck, can get kind of a negative impression of the Element of Air. There's good reason to think that some of the seemingly negative imagery in this suit isn't drawn directly from concepts about Air, but rather from other mythology that the Golden Dawn incorporated. Regardless, it's important to remember that none of the Elements is exactly warm and cuddly: Fire isn't meant to be played with, Water includes the tsunami and the flooding rains as well as the refreshing drink, and Earth by itself can be as barren and inhospitable as the depths of the desert.
And part of the complexity of Tarot is putting each image in context. While swords are meant for killing, not all blades are intended solely for destruction. Psychologically, the functions of judging, choosing, and deciding are absolutely necessary - when kept in balance.
This is why it's hard to talk about each of the Elements alone. Part of what keeps the Elements in moderation is the way they exist in balance with each other. The spring weather includes the storms which help strip away the last of the dead leaves from last year and the gentle breezes that tease open the new buds. We need both, and the interplay of wind, water, and warmth that moves across the world is what allows for the variations and tempers the extremes.
With all of this in mind - the domain of Air - I invite you to enjoy this Ostara by finding a time when the weather is cooperative and maybe even a place where those sweet-smelling buds are opening. As you reflect on what air and Air mean to you, what roles they play in your life, and how you relate to this Element, take a deep, gentle breath. May it be the fresh start you need!
--Literata
[1] In the Northern Hemisphere, the vernal equinox is approaching, which is Ostara, while in the Southern Hemisphere, it's the autumnal equinox, which is Mabon.↩
[2] This is a point of disagreement which I will address in greater detail in the Litha piece.↩
The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.
Just wanted to say, Oh goody, another Literata piece! :-)
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | Mar 19, 2012 at 05:33 PM
Quite nice to see, as my familiarity with the Elements (apart from their names) and the Major Arcana is largely derived from Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Mages series. I enjoy the opportunity to correct and develop my understanding as needed.
I love the way the associations and connections pile up without becoming stagnant. Are there people/beings/spirits/gods etc. strongly associated with the various Elements? I seem to recall in Roman lore a connection between air (Air?) and Mercury, between water and Venus... but that memory is hazy.
Posted by: Kirala | Mar 19, 2012 at 05:45 PM
A perfect post for today. We are having an unseasonably early and warm spring here. Today we can open the windows and listen to the sounds of the birds exulting. As I look out I can see families out walking without need of a coat or even a sweater. Even the animals seem to be taking a day to just enjoy the sun and the gentle breeze.
Posted by: Mmy | Mar 19, 2012 at 05:47 PM
What a perfect post for today - yesterday, we had howling winds (40+ mph gusts, enough to whip the branches of large trees, and set little ones swaying from the roots up) - today it is snowing, in a very seasonable but still annoying fashion - and tomorrow there's likely to be a great deal of wind, again, though if the weather forecast is right is another question!
This is a season characterized by instability and unpredictability, and if one is not careful, it's easy to ascribe the normal and seasonal squalls to some sort of malice.
But it is just air being air (or being Air, perhaps) and enjoying all the mutability that implies.
Literata, I love your posts; they make me think. :)
Posted by: Sixwing | Mar 19, 2012 at 06:00 PM
Aw, thanks, Kit!
Kirala, just be sure to take what I say with a grain of salt as well - every group, every practitioner, and sometimes every ritual can have their differences! Yes, people at various times and places have associated different beings with the Elements, and yes, I would generally attribute those beings the way you have. But then again, there are always beings that don't fit, and mismatch between different systems, especially if you focus on the Greco-Roman deities who have been carried into astrology.
There's also a whole other line of thinking that describes each Element as the home of a type of being particular to that Element. The names usually given are sylphs for Air, salamanders for Fire, undines for Water, and gnomes for Earth. These creatures, called elementals, have their own lore, which, again, varies depending on sources. I don't want to just go on and on, so please keep asking questions about what you want to know more about!
Posted by: Literata | Mar 19, 2012 at 06:05 PM
It's a bit like that here too, mmy. We're heading into such warm weather that breezes are going to be very welcome things for the next few months, I think. But for today, it's just about perfect.
Posted by: Literata | Mar 19, 2012 at 06:07 PM
My philosophy prof is something of a Platonic scholar (i.e. a scholar of Plato, although I think he may also be a Platonist). According to him, each element represented to Greek philosophers a way of imagining something's nature. In humans, Fire is the force of life, Water is related to motion (I'm not sure how, I tend to nod off in philosophy), Earth is the physical substance of our bodies, and Air is the organization of structure of our bodies.
Posted by: Leum | Mar 19, 2012 at 06:13 PM
The weather's been glorious here. I spent yesterday going for a long walk and taking photos of a couple of graveyards and a ruined church.
TRiG.
Posted by: Timothy (TRiG) | Mar 19, 2012 at 07:09 PM
Well, that's cheerful!
The weather's been lovely here too. But, since some of us are never satisfied, I find that I'm not quite ready for spring after all. It all seems too much too early. And that's an ungracious way to greet the gift of a mild March, isn't it?
the suit of Swords is most commonly associated with Air.... The spring weather includes the storms which help strip away the last of the dead leaves from last year
Which made me think of this poem:
This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet
Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.
At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up --
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,
The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house
Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,
Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.
"Wind," by Ted Hughes
Hmm, not particularly sylph-like. Maybe tomorrow I'll be in a gentler frame of mind.
Posted by: Amaryllis | Mar 19, 2012 at 10:50 PM
Sixwing, you did a better job describing the inherently changeable nature of Air than I did!
Posted by: Literata | Mar 20, 2012 at 07:17 AM
Good morning, Guru Literatacharya! :)
Posted by: Raj | Mar 20, 2012 at 07:30 AM
This is much more likely an issue with me than with the piece, but I found this piece pretty confusing.
when I say Air, I'm not just talking about the stuff going in and out of your lungs.Okay so far.
Makes sense to me.
Huh? What does any of that have to do with air? *doesn't get it*
...bwah? I do not understand why this mapping rather than another, or why this should be the most common. Is it just tradition, or are there associations I'm missing? I mean, I can see in the northern hemisphere south=hot=fire, and I guess if you live on the west coast of something west=ocean=water, or am I being too literal? (I usually am for this sort of thing.)
Posted by: Froborr | Mar 20, 2012 at 09:51 AM
Man did I bork the formatting on this one. Sorry all.
Posted by: Froborr | Mar 20, 2012 at 09:52 AM
I learned it with fire as south and water as north, but with the way Literata describes as an alternative method. (Something about alchemical v. astrological patterns, maybe? I'm not quite awake yet.)
Air also gets scent, which works for me with flowers and so forth.
For me--and in Tarot--air is power and knowledge, and a good deal of abstract intellect, which I'm not so into, but it's also freedom and change, which I am. And thinking about it, maybe I just need to reassess the way I look at power and knowledge: freedom is having power over yourself and your decisions, and knowledge--or abstraction--is being able to take a step back and see what changes you need or want to make.
Posted by: Izzy | Mar 20, 2012 at 10:12 AM
Also, awesome post!
Posted by: Izzy | Mar 20, 2012 at 10:12 AM
Aw, thanks, Literata!
I just ... kind of broke my brain playing with the concepts of air and knowledge and intellect.
One of the big things air does is move and change. One of its defining characteristics is its constant movement. I tend to think of knowledge as a static monolith, but it isn't, is it? It changes all the time, as new bits are added on and old bits are discarded as incorrect, or less correct. Just because we are forever adding doesn't mean that we aren't also forever taking away - forever moving, shifting, and sometimes undergoing huge changes that uproot everything we thought we knew prior (germ theory, relativity, computing...)
Likewise, a single person's intellect is not static, but a fluid thing, moving from one concept to another as quickly as it can - and wants to - grasp the new one. For me, at least, staying in one place intellectually is stifling; I know a lot of people who feel the same way.
These too are changing things, and I don't know that I'd have seen that without the Air association as presented here. There is some real resonance here for me.
Whoa. /keanu
Posted by: Sixwing | Mar 20, 2012 at 11:17 AM
Sorry, Froborr. I should have mentioned that I'll get into the whys and wherefores of the rest of the system in future posts. Yes, as Izzy said, Air is scent, so incenses, essential oils, flowers, and other scented things can be used as symbols of Air.
The Element and direction associations do have lots of variations. To me, Fire in the south makes perfect sense in the Northern Hemisphere, what with the sun always being a bit south even at its zenith. Earth is in the north because the opposite of warm and bright is cold and dark, which describes caves, that is, literally being inside the earth, pretty well.
That said, there are variations like Izzy mentioned. I initially practiced with Air in the north and Earth in the east, at least in part because I was having a lot of unhappy experiences with freezing cold winds.
And then there's another approach that says you should call the Elements in directions that make sense depending on your local setting. So, if you're on the east coast of the US, you probably call Water in the east. To me, these are archetypes, not local spirits, so I don't shift around that way, but it works for some folks.
Does that help?
Posted by: Literata | Mar 20, 2012 at 01:00 PM
Oh, and it's also true that in general the weather travels east to west, and specifically in some temperate areas the prevailing winds are from the east, plus the fact that in Western Europe, where most of this was codified into its present form, the biggest body of water is mostly west-ish. So it's a melange of literalism, metaphor, cultural attributions that have gone so deep as to be nearly taken for granted, and happenstance, which to me have become mixed together well enough that the system works pretty naturally.
Posted by: Literata | Mar 20, 2012 at 01:10 PM
I just want to say that Literata's application of the Wiccan philosophy of Elements to certain issues in my own life over the past year has helped me immeasurably. Sorry; I can't be more specific without revealing rather more personal details than I'm comfortable revealing. Let's just say that I'm still a mess, but a considerably smaller one than I was before Lit's help :-)
Namaskar, Literatacharya!
Posted by: Raj | Mar 20, 2012 at 01:20 PM
Thank you, Literata, that does make quite a bit more sense on the flowers thing. Your explanation of why Earth would be North also makes sense (although I would actually more immediately associate Water as being the opposite of Fire, but that may be too many RPGs talking); I'm afraid I still don't get why Air is East, though...
I think my problem is that "East" means nothing to me. South I associate with hot and North with cold (so I would probably put Air there, nice cool breezes as a break from the horrible fiery sun), just from knowing a little geography, but I have no real associations with East or West, so I don't really get what either of them has to any of the elements...
Posted by: Froborr | Mar 20, 2012 at 01:28 PM
Ah, see, I knew that, but did not think of it, and now the whole thing makes *much* more sense.
Kind of highlights how my city-boy-ness can get in the way of this sort of thing...
Posted by: Froborr | Mar 20, 2012 at 01:31 PM
Oh, good, I'm glad that helped. I'm glad you asked, too!
Sixwing, I love your insights. I also wonder if the connection between speech and knowledge was more immediate for a less literacy centered culture. I've been socialized to think information=books or at least text, which can give a highly misleading perception of the stability of knowledge.
Posted by: Literata | Mar 20, 2012 at 01:47 PM
I'm afraid I still don't get why Air is East, though...
In my culture, "East" is a dogwhistle for "bloviating politicians and making my money disappear", so the sinister overtones of East = Air = Danger seem perfectly obvious to me.
(Not that I agree with the conflation. But, well, one can't help the subtext one grows up in)
Posted by: hapax | Mar 20, 2012 at 02:31 PM
The weather generally travels West to East here, blowing in off the Atlantic. It's changeable, though.
TRiG.
Posted by: Timothy (TRiG) | Mar 20, 2012 at 03:07 PM
These are always so fascinating. Thanks as always, Literata.
While swords are meant for killing, not all blades are intended solely for destruction.
Perhaps there's also a certain amount of implication meant, rather than outright menace? There's a bit in a Pratchett novel where someone is comparing a sword to a projectile weapon, and observes that the projectile is meant to kill, whereas the sword is 'for holding'; it functions in combat but is primarily to say "Don't make me use this."
Oh, and it's also true that in general the weather travels east to west, and specifically in some temperate areas the prevailing winds are from the east
I hadn't heard or much thought about this before, but now I'm going to have to look into it, because I'm almost sure in this area (Ottawa) and even this entire latitudinal region (northern Ontario, southern Manitoba, southern Quebec) it often goes west->east. It's been a joke for years in my family that those of us in the west can just report what the weather is like today, and those in the east will 90% know what they'll be getting in three days. I've been able to reliably use that as a rule since moving from west to east, too.
Posted by: Will Wildman | Mar 20, 2012 at 03:13 PM
A lot of our weather comes south to north, and that which doesn't generally blows in from the west. My area is weird, and I blame the mountains for that particular oddity of the microclimate.
I also wonder if the connection between speech and knowledge was more immediate for a less literacy centered culture. I've been socialized to think information=books or at least text, which can give a highly misleading perception of the stability of knowledge.
I really bet it would be.
And then there's also the connection of air being the medium of speech, and thus the substrate of the transfer of information (which we kind of still get, in a sideways way, with infrared if not radio transmission) -- and now my brain is broken again.
Posted by: Sixwing | Mar 20, 2012 at 03:22 PM
Derp. I think I just conflated heat of air and infrared. Derp derp derp. >.<
Posted by: Sixwing | Mar 20, 2012 at 03:22 PM
Well, I just made a paper-bag mistake.
I was conflating the jet stream with the tendency for there to be a dawn breeze. As I understand it, which is obviously not very well, there is a slight tendency for dawn breezes to be from the east because the air is being warmed as the planet turns towards the sun. Those breezes are easterly (from the east).
The jet stream is westerly, again, as I understand it, because of the way the planet's rotation stirs the atmosphere.
So yes, in most places, major weather patterns probably move west to east. Dawn = east = air through dawn breezes is what I was misremembering.
I obviously failed at connectedness with nature on the first try on this one. I can plead several reasons but will just throw myself on the mercy of e community. I apologize!
Posted by: Literata | Mar 20, 2012 at 04:16 PM
Reminds me of a scene in Stargate SG-1, when the humans are offering guns to a group of rebel Jaffa -- the Jaffa are reluctant because the human weapons seem unimpressive compared with their "true weapons" -- primarily staff weapons: a six-foot-long staff that can fire lethal projected energy bolts.
SG-1 stages a demonstration, showing how, despite the fact that their P-90 submachine guns seem primitive and crude compared to the elegant energy weapons, the staff weapons are slow, difficult to aim, and accurate only at close range: they were designed to be used by an elite guard charged with keeping slaves in line -- its primary use was to shoot *one guy* so that all the *other guys* would cower in fear.
O'Neill drives the point home by holding up the staff weapon and declaring "This is a weapon of terror" and then the P-90: "This is a weapon of war"
Posted by: Ross | Mar 20, 2012 at 06:01 PM
Hmm... I guess it is just here that our weather mostly comes from the East. Interestingly, the river frequently acts like a sort of wall for storms; more than once I have looked across the river (I live three blocks from it) and seen storm clouds massing over the Pentagon (I cannot see the Pentagon itself, but I can see the air above it, if that makes any sense), even though it is a bright, sunny day here.
Posted by: Froborr | Mar 20, 2012 at 09:05 PM
@Froborr: Huh. Our weather seems to come from the _west_.
Since major storm systems often appear on the radar to suddenly split and veer off at angles as they get close to here, we like to joke that the CIA weather machine is duking it out with the NSA weather machine.
Posted by: Ross | Mar 20, 2012 at 09:46 PM
TW: violence
Perhaps there's also a certain amount of implication meant, rather than outright menace? There's a bit in a Pratchett novel where someone is comparing a sword to a projectile weapon, and observes that the projectile is meant to kill, whereas the sword is 'for holding'; it functions in combat but is primarily to say "Don't make me use this."
That's fantasy, though. In the real world, knives are used as weapons plenty - much more than guns in this country. For exactly the opposite reason: they aren't about display. They're silent, and easy to obtain, and easy to conceal, and easy to maintain, and they don't need ammunition. We don't exactly have swords, but we have machetes and flick knives, and they're used because they're not about implication but about function. You can keep a flick knife in our pocket all day; you can go from village to village with a machete and never need to load it. This really happens.
A home owner with a gun has a weapon that's largely about posture fighting: it's a weapon to make you feel safe and to brandish. You can brandish a gun threateningly with no experience at all. Knife weapons, on the other hand, are about use. Frightened teenage boys in rough areas may carry them for reassurance (which is how kids end up getting stabbed), but if you plan to use it to threaten someone you need at least a bit of practice. You can brandish a knife unless you can handle the idea of stabbing someone - and that's a much harder, more intimate thing to do than pulling a trigger.
Seriously, people, let's check some privilege here. Weapons do not exist solely in the dimension of fantasy. Modern swords kill people every day.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | Mar 21, 2012 at 07:11 AM
Yeah, Froborr, I live just a bit closer to the Pentagon than you do, and the last few years' experience with the local weather pattern probably contributed to my thinko.
I can understand some of what folks are saying about swords, and swords vs guns, but I still have a big problem with both: they're simply made to kill people. The American idea that a gun magically keeps you safe is the small-scale version of MAD. Knives can be tools, although as Kit points out, they don't have to be, and rifles can be for hunting, but handguns and swords exist for one reason and one reason only, which is inherent in their design: humans killing other humans.
So, yes, the Swords in the Tarot deck are symbolic of a lot of things, and some of those are good and necessary and so on, but they are also inherently dangerous, and the deck is right to acknowledge that.
Posted by: Literata | Mar 21, 2012 at 08:08 AM
Uh, I guess a trigger warning for violence here.
When I lived in DC, the weapon of choice was knives. There were a couple of stabbings near my house during that year.
Posted by: sarah | Mar 21, 2012 at 12:30 PM
And one of the most aggravating things in the world is debating this point with gun enthusiasts, even when those enthusiasts are arguing, in the same conversation, that I should get a gun for self-protection. "Handguns aren't for killing people, they're for lobbing bullets away from you at a really high speed. Saying they're for killing people is stupid, you can use them for other things, like target practice." The fact that handguns aren't precise enough to be any good for target practice is apparently irrelevant.
Posted by: Leum | Mar 21, 2012 at 01:20 PM
Target practice to what purpose? The only not-killing-people purpose I can think of is killing animals, and far's I know one doesn't hunt with a handgun. Unless it's a hand-eye coordination improval method, but surely there are ways to do that that don't involve things that go bang.
I'm reminded of the bit from--is it Tom Clancy? where Our Hero is arguing that either he's a good enough shot to knock a weapon out of a hand at some largish number of paces or he's a bad enough shot to hit a guy in the butt at point-blank range when he meant a kill shot, and the opposition (probably the prosecution, come to think) can't have it both ways.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Mar 21, 2012 at 01:45 PM
Not generally, no.
The only exception I have ever met was incredibly precise with a long-barrel .22 pistol (I've personally seen her do the "split the bullet with a knife to hit two targets" trick) and used it to hunt small game for the table. And that -was- a long-barrel - even she wouldn't hunt with a shorter barrel.
But most of them have too large a bullet and too little precision to hunt small game, and where I live, it's illegal (not to mention really stupid) to hunt large game with a handgun. There's reasons to carry them - I've rot13'd for animal harm.
Nobhg gur bayl ernfba gb rira pneel n cvfgby uhagvat (va zl bcvavba naq rkcrevrapr) vf gb svavfu n qbjarq navzny gung vf fgvyy oernguvat.
Posted by: Sixwing | Mar 21, 2012 at 01:52 PM
The American idea that a gun magically keeps you safe is the small-scale version of MAD.
I have had co-workers tell me seriously that if Trayvon Martin didn't want to be killed, he should have been carrying his own gun.
We live in a sick, sad society.
Posted by: hapax | Mar 21, 2012 at 02:11 PM
And Martin would be just as dead, only with more bullets in him because whatsisface would have had more reasons to think of him as a threat.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Mar 21, 2012 at 03:51 PM
Plus, then Zimmerman would potentially be covered under Florida's (extremely broad) self-defense law, which right now it looks like he isn't. This would make it much harder to charge him with murder and (more importantly) the police department with obstruction of justice and neglect (or whatever the Florida equivalent is).
Posted by: Froborr | Mar 21, 2012 at 04:00 PM
We live in a sick, sad society.
Yes. Yes we do; and then people want to go on about how USA rah rah rah, and I want to throw up.
It is in no way reasonable.
Posted by: Sixwing | Mar 21, 2012 at 04:01 PM
It is in no way reasonable.
Yes it is. If the plebs kill each other off, then there are fewer of them to try to take things away from the real people, that is, the ones with money and privilege coming out all orifices.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Mar 21, 2012 at 04:10 PM
I think this actually is the reasoning, insofar as there is any. To which my only response is this Bob the Angry Flower comic.
Posted by: Froborr | Mar 21, 2012 at 04:28 PM
"The fact that handguns aren't precise enough to be any good for target practice is apparently irrelevant."
http://hunting.about.com/od/guns/ss/olympicpistol.htm
but, but, those are really specialized pistols and not what most people use.... Okay, here you go: http://www.uspsa.org/
Posted by: jnc | Mar 21, 2012 at 04:51 PM
Literata, thanks for the great piece! I just read this now as I got my laptop back yesterday... I can't wait for you to reach Autumn, because it and Water (and water and quartz and willows) is the one I feel closest to. Over here we're slowly reaching the end of early spring - the snow is going rapidly, and I've seen some willow catkins but the flowers and leaves are still far from showing themselves.
Posted by: Rakka | Mar 23, 2012 at 02:09 AM
Thanks, Rakka! Do you have stone and plant associations for each Element? I have stone associations, and I can understand why willows would go with Water, but I don't know they're the first one I'd think of.
Posted by: Literata | Mar 23, 2012 at 08:41 AM
Not as strongly for other elements - they're more distant to me. If I think about it I have some other associations, but they need that little nudge to come forward.
Fire is amber, but I don't see what plant it would be. And Earth is pine trees, and granite, and nigh immutability. And Air is aspens. (And humans are alders, which also have plenty of väki and are good for heating up a healing sauna.) Of course these are rough associations.
Seasonally willows would belong in spring, but they're a plant I associate very strongly with water - they grow everywhere there is sweet running water here, and they have such strong vitality. Quartz is of minerals the one most resembling water - it's everywhere, fills in the holes, comes in amazing variety of forms and is generally pretty quiet about itself.
Posted by: Rakka | Mar 23, 2012 at 09:27 AM
Um, for fun? I mean, you couldn't really describe me as being particularly pro-gun, but is it really so much of a stretch to think that some people might find it fun and relaxing to go to a target range and fire off a few rounds at a paper target? The same way some people find it fun and relaxing to play video games for a few hours or fire off model rockets or just lie on a beach or any number of other things.
Not everyone with a gun *has* to be using it or even wanting to use it to kill people or animals or other things, just like not everyone with a computer has to be planning to use it to unleash cyberattacks on the world or not everyone with a car is planning to compete in the Indy 500 (NASCAR, Formula 1...)
Posted by: truth is life | Mar 23, 2012 at 10:23 AM
No, truth is life, not everyone has to be planning to use it destructively, and target shooting can be enjoyable, but it's a tremendous abstraction. You have to work pretty hard with a gun in order to avoid being harmful; that's not as true for computers, cars, and other more multi-purpose tools. Put it this way: guns push small projectiles at large velocities; computers move electrons around; cars move themselves and whatever they're carrying. Yes, it's possible to see each of those things as an end in itself. We have supercomputer competitions and car races. But those are all specialized abstractions, and computers and cars can serve other purposes that don't involve killing.
Rakka, I definitely see the willow and Water connection. The first tree that comes to mind when I think about Water is sycamore, but they have the same need to grow near water, and I just happen to see more sycamores where I am.
Posted by: Literata | Mar 24, 2012 at 07:37 AM
@truth is life: Um, for fun? I mean, you couldn't really describe me as being particularly pro-gun, but is it really so much of a stretch to think that some people might find it fun and relaxing to go to a target range and fire off a few rounds at a paper target? The same way some people find it fun and relaxing to play video games for a few hours or fire off model rockets or just lie on a beach or any number of other things.
Not everyone with a gun *has* to be using it or even wanting to use it to kill people or animals or other things,
Okay, speaking mainly from personal experience here -- which happened in another (that is, not USA) culture.
Close to every single male adult in the communities in which I grew up had experience with guns. Almost every one of them had been "in harm's way" multiple times. Some had also used guns to hunt and kill animals which were brought home and eaten because that was the only acceptable reason for taking an animal's life. (Absent something like rabies, to put the animal out of pain or to prevent the animal from attacking people/livestock.)
Not a single one of them liked the idea of people engaging in shooting / target practice for fun. They argued that the desensitization that results from such use of guns inevitably leads to bad/sloppy gun discipline.
And bad/sloppy gun discipline ALWAYS leads to tragedy.
[NOTE #1: This is relevant to the shooting in Florida -- people who are skilled / trained at dealing with situations with frantic/panicked people who have guns are trained (at least HERE they are trained) not to draw their own guns -- that action alone will escalate the level of violence. Guns have a "violence priming" effect on most people.]
[NOTE #2: I have actually seen my dad kill an animal with his bare hands. To have shot at it would have endangered the very panicked elderly relative he was trying to protect. He was woken up from a deep sleep by the screams of elderly relative, got up, trapped the animal with a large towel, broke its neck, removed it from the area (safely disposing of it), came back in, washed his hands, made sure elderly relative was okay and then went back to bed.]
Posted by: Mmy | Mar 24, 2012 at 08:19 AM
Mmy, that makes sense. I have been in USA gun culture, and even when shooting for target practice, I have always, always, always seen and heard an undercurrent of references to "real" reasons a gun would be used. I can definitely see it as a kind of desensitization. And I have definitely seen that the idea a gun can be used for "just" target practice does tend to lead to poor handling.
Posted by: Literata | Mar 24, 2012 at 09:19 AM
I suppose part of this is whether one's paganism is based on theory or on place.
I live in the NE USA. For me, the elemental connections are:
East: water;
South: fire;
West: Earth;
North: Air (we have lots of cold air coming from Canada!).
Personally, I have a strong affiliation to North., however once slices it up.
Posted by: Amanda Fisher | Mar 24, 2012 at 11:26 PM
Amanda, that's interesting; thanks for sharing your example of a different system. How do you deal with participating in group rituals where other associations are used, if you ever do that?
Posted by: Literata | Mar 25, 2012 at 10:56 AM