The use of elements as a symbol has spanned numerous cultures and traditions, reaching across time and borders to influence belief practices of the most ardent practitioners to the most secular individual. In ancient Greek philosophy, earth is one of the classical elements introduced by Empedocles as a way of understanding the cosmos and our place within them. In Hinduism, the earth is represented by a lotus blossom, and Prithvi is the mother goddess and can be the personification of the earth itself.
What many of us are familiar with are the classical elements as they emerged into the realm of modern ceremonial magic, influenced by occult mysticism and The Order of the Golden Dawn. As with the Greeks who came before, the earth element represents heaviness, groundedness, and the material world—that to do with our physical bodies, wealth, and even sensuality. It is important to remember that without the earth, there would be no life. We connect with our center when we care for the earth within us, and similarly by connecting to our home. What is more life-giving than this pale blue dot upon which we hurtle through time and space?
With that in mind, we want to help weave this element into your life. Sink into the presence of this grounding element. Where do you have Capricorn, Virgo, or Taurus in your chart? How does that come up for you right now? Perhaps it is time to sit with your quartz, obsidian, smoky quartz, or tiger's eye and sit in your body? Time to let yourself feel the earth rising to meet you—to feel your body sink into the floor below you and then also realize that the ground below will give to accommodate the space you need.
No journey into this elemental space would be complete without books, particularly here in the earth element.
We've compiled a list of eight novels—for that number is tied to the earth—laced with the groundedness and mysticism of earth:
Red compound makes them angry. Yellow exhausts them. Blue drives them into a state of ravenous addiction. The thief Kai knows about the chemically controlled soldiers of the Eastern forces and their savage, deadly nature. When a robbery attempt at Club Seven goes wrong, Kai is captured by a handler and his bestial soldier-boy. She wakes up inside the military base with no idea what happened to her twin brother, Dex.
This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze...collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Summer and Darce are summoned by the order of Zeus himself to travel to the home of the Gods: Mount Olympus, where they're to face even more ancient Gods and Goddesses.
When Darce and Summer suddenly find themselves separated, Summer must find her inner power and unite them together, before her mortal time runs out.
After escaping Neverland, Elena and Will are looking forward to starting over and moving on with their lives. But plagued by nightmares and the harsh realities of the real world, getting a fresh start is proving to be easier said than done. Just when they wonder if things can possibly get worse, an all too familiar fairy appears to burn what remains of their lives to the ground.
Fully aware that they are flying straight into a trap, Elena and Will set off on a rescue mission to the last place they ever thought they would see again. Neverland.
Alice wakes one day to find herself on the other side of death, in the corrupted fairy tale land of Nod. Unable to remember much of the events leading to her demise, she sets out on a journey to discover her memory and the reason for her presence in Nod. Unknown to her, the man responsible for her death, Jack, is on a mission to find her spirit and end her second life.
In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages...
Sixteen-year-old Rags is the most feared Rustler in the world, and for good reason. When she’s not raiding the post-Yellowstone Kingdom’s established settlements for supplies to keep her frontier, Rondo, alive another day, she’s fending off witch hunt-happy villagers who want her rare blue eyes in an unmarked grave.
But when the Kingdom strikes back, kills Rags’s best friend, and sends its second-in-command to destroy Rondo in four days, Rags must make a choice: seek revenge, or save her loved ones who are trapped in a town bound for slaughter broadcast Kingdom-wide.
Azure Brimvine lives in a world decimated by magic. One where humans have retreated underground from the overwhelming dangers of the surface. But Below is no safer than Above. Magic borne plagues continue to eat away at the remaining human cities. A sickness that doesn't merely kill, but creates aberrations from the stricken: people twisted by magic into something dark, dangerous, and powerful.
But when Azzy's brother, Armin, is infected and cast out into the Above, she sets out after him, determined to be there for him no matter what he becomes.
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