The Earth Element corresponds to the Sensation function, in the Jung typology, and is the most stable and safe element – energetically, the one with the slowest vibration and therefore dense.

The earth is the world of the body, of the physical senses, and of the very objects with which we relate. It is the Earth that gives shape and gives reality, solidity, and structure to everything that exists. That is why the Earth is associated with forms – because it is with the forms we contact before perceiving the essence that animates them. Because the Earth polarizes in the senses, it tends to cling to its need for security over the real and distrusts everything it can not see, touch, smell. All that appeals to the senses and to the physical pleasure that comes from the relation to matter is an appeal to the Earth that exists in each one of us.

The lack of attunement with the element Earth speaks of the difficulty in dealing with the practical issues of survival, in meeting the needs of shelter and sustenance, in properly nourishing the physical body, in fulfilling the obligations of daily life.

“In the visible world, the Milky Way is a tiny fragment; within this fragment, the solar system is an infinitesimal speck, and of this speck our planet is a microscopic dot. On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded.”
― Bertrand Russell

The Earth Signs

Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn – are in touch with the here-and-now reality of the material world. They rely more on their senses and their practical reasoning than on the inspirations, theoretical considerations or intuitions of other signs. They have an innate understanding of how the material world works, with the added patience, perseverance, and capacity for accomplishment that it represents. It is to the material world that they will seek a sense of security.

Hence the proverbial materialism of Taurus, accumulating resources, possessions, money, automobiles, houses, and persons whom it may call its own (Taurus is the sign of attachment); hence also the excessive preoccupation of the Virgo with order, perfection and discrimination, enslaved by an analytical mind and in a permanent attempt to find the perfect form for the world (Virgo is the sign of perfection); and hence Capricorn’s excessive preoccupation with power, status, public image, the ambition to find a place of prominence in social structures-but enslaved, on the other hand, by a sense of responsibility that makes him arid and sacrificed for obligations that are self-imposed and do not even belong to him.

"Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled." The Kybalion

The Principle of Polarity

In a universe divided between matter and spirit, polarization in the practical and concrete world (which is, after all, only half of life) may limit the ability to see beyond form, leading to a narrowness of views, to a attachment to routine and order, lack of ability to deal with more abstract dimensions of life.

At its best, Earth signs are open to the realities of the spirit and committed to larger, broader ideals that have the power to guide their activities. Under the inspiration of Heaven, living the responsibility on Earth.

Notes:

Always think of the Earth as concrete, detailed, practical, safe, energy that influences our capacity for solid realization, as well as a greater affinity with limits, with the material world and the physical senses.

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