Water or Fire? What “element” represents your spirituality the most?
Find out here.
The idea for this article came from an oracle, fun fact. I elaborated on it and realised there was a lot of material I could add to it. Here’s the result. I hope it helps you.
The spiritual side of you can be compared to one of these two elements. Generally speaking, these represent teaching/learning styles and depend entirely on natural inclination since birth (call it personality, or whatever you prefer).
I’m not saying it can’t be earth, air, metal, space, wood or what-have-you (depending on your religion, there are more than 4 alchemical elements, most notably in Eastern religions). What I’m saying is, when it comes to spirituality, it’s more common to see water or fire approaches to it. If I were to take an educated guess as to why, I’d say it’s because Earth tends too much towards materialism, and Air can get excessively rational and analytical, neglecting our feeling side which is so important for spirituality; And a similar thing might happen to the other extra elements. So even if your own temperament is melancholic (earth) or sanguine (air), you might still feel drawn to water or fire spirituality.
I’m using these 2 elements as metaphors because they encapsulate a lot of the qualities I’ll discuss in the article; But if you find a better metaphor, feel free to replace it in your mind.
The reason it’s important to know your element is it can save you a lot of frustration when deciding on whether or not to say “yes” to the master you found — especially in the beginning of your path.
No, I don’t care what people usually say (that beginnings are always hard) — it’s not true for spirituality. It should be easy as a piece of cake, and the difficulty only comes in with time as you opt for vows and oath-bound paths if you’re so inclined. But the beginning? Difficult? Bitch, please. We’re all born with the potential! Babies don’t have it difficult! So once again, I’ll repeat: stick to your element first. Branch out later. You’re welcome in advance.
First of all: water and fire do not represent traditions. They represent specific teaching/learning styles within any tradition.
Some Zen masters are more choleric (fire), whereas other Zen masters are more phlegmatic (water), and they’re all practising the same school of Buddhism: Zen. This is valid for every tradition, lineage, school, religion, and belief system. Don’t be thinking “oh no, I’ll have to convert because this tradition I’m in is too phlegmatic and I’m more comfortable with fire” — that’s a misconception. It’s not the tradition, it’s just the master. I guarantee you there’s at least one master compatible with you, there’s no need to switch traditions so fast.
The idea is to match a beginner disciple with a master according to a common element of comfort. Water master with water disciple, fire master with fire disciple. We can “go avatar” at a more advanced stage, not yet (yes, I know you were waiting for that joke).
In order for this comfortable beginning to happen, we need to get familiar with who is who. So, without further ado:
Signs of a water master
Contrary to popular assumption, no, water masters aren’t “calm and sentimental”. Anyone can be these things. They’re not “feminine” either (the last water master I learned with was a man. And I’ve seen many others), so forget these stereotypes for a moment.
Forget, also, literality. We’re not being literal here. I’ve seen and keep seeing water people (both masters and disciples) using fire, earth, and varied imagery — super valid, because all elements interconnect and we can’t really think of them in isolation. I’m using a metaphor here. If you interpret my article literally, you won’t understand it.
Water has to do with uniformity, orthodoxy, and a lot of focus. If in doubt, just look at water. It fills up the container forming a “layer” of this liquid that extends from wall to wall without empty spaces in between (uniformity). Water engulfs and absorbs anything you throw at it, making these bits and pieces float according to the existing currents (orthodoxy). All the droplets that form this layer of water are organised and focused on going more or less in the same direction (focus).
Water masters concern themselves with arriving at the essence of each individual practice, teaching, or even word. This can seem extremely pedantic and frustrating for a fire disciple, but a water disciple will appreciate the depth that sets in very early on. They’re very orthodox, with a talent for preserving age-old traditions without adapting any part of it for the modern days (okay, sometimes they adapt. A tiny bit. Reluctantly). The shadow side of this orthodoxy is these masters can be prone to unnecessary gatekeeping and prejudice (if immature), so watch out for that and go for the mature ones instead.
Water masters are also notorious for making you read / watch / experience a ton of material on your own and report back to them. Not saying that research isn’t a part of fire practice too (it is! But it plays out different… Scroll down), but water masters place a lot of attention and importance on making sure their disciples learn to take an introspective approach to acquisition of knowledge.
Another tell-tale sign is their habit of having set-in-stone programmes you can go through and “graduate”, reminiscent of Academia. These, they will say, are flexible and adaptable to each individual disciple… But only insofar as providing feedback and troubleshooting. The flexibility in terms of welcoming external input or (gasp! Sacrilegious!) new ideas and hypotheses is almost always zero.
Signs you as a disciple might be drawn to water
Water wants to deepen.
I’ve only recently realised this obvious fact. For a moment, I thought I was dumb for not realising that it had nothing to do with me; then it hit me… Hold on a second! This word, “deep”, sounds familiar. I have been called that so many times. But in truth… Am I deep? I don’t think so. It’s almost like an automatic reaction people have, “oh, look at her, she is spiritual, that must mean she’s deep”. These two things aren’t always synonyms, though! All this time, people had been sending me off in the direction of water masters because they thought I wanted depth. But no, guys, I’m not a mermaid who lives in the depths of the sea. I’m a phoenix. I’d much rather bask under the sunlight. Gimme fire.
Anecdote aside, here is what is TRULY means to feel comfortable with water:
- You’re fascinated by the past, interested in preserving the old and passing down something precious;
- Depth of learning takes precedence over practicality for you. If you can get down to the very core of something you’ve been researching, this is more important than finding an immediate use for the knowledge acquired;
- You have ultimate goals that could take a lifetime to achieve: enlightenment, death of the ego, unconditional and relentless dedication to the well-being of all, etc. So much so, that you might be prone to losing track of short term goals.
- Some of your standards are a bit all-or-nothing. For example, you might spend years looking for a tool until you find the one that is just right.
Signs of a fire master
Contrary to popular assumption, no, fire masters aren’t “brutal and passionate”. Anyone can be these things. They’re not “masculine” either, so forget these stereotypes for a moment.
Forget also literality, once again. A fire master could very well dedicate themselves to Poseidon, Yemọja [or insert deity of the sea here]. That’s a broad thing, just like being a Zen master, and many teaching approaches can exist within a tradition (including “fire”). Bear in mind this is an article about teaching styles, so it’s valid for all traditions, but I am not in favour of appropriating. Go for one tradition and stick with it.
Fire has more to do with inspiration, expansion, and revelation. If in doubt, light a fire and look at it. This element doesn’t care about walls, it will burn the walls too. If you want to contain it, you need to cut the fuel or keep this fuel in one place only. Placing physical barriers in the middle of an open flame is futile, it won’t “cut in half” like water. We consider fire to be inspired because it goes wherever the hell it wants — a flame will make its own way through the landscape without responding to a predetermined trail (different from water, which you can easily redirect with pipes). Fire expands on its own and you don’t need to collect buckets of it for it to fill a room. And finally, fire reveals what’s hidden because it brings light — but it does so without a filter (or “carelessly”, as some people put it, although it’s not really careless, these people are just close-minded).
Their shadow side is a tendency for control and manipulation — but that only happens if they’re immature.
Fire masters concern themselves with constantly transforming a practice to suit the dynamic character of life. You’ll hear them harping on and on about “alchemy”. I recently got to know a fire master in the same Buddhist tradition I am initiated in (a woman, by the way), and her teaching style is so unorthodox that I can only imagine water disciples feeling outraged if they found her. For example, she once mentioned “wearing different archetypes for different moments of your life”. If you’re too watery for that, you’re probably thinking “but that’s absurd! You’re stopping yourself from exploring each one in depth or painstakingly looking for their essence!” — indeed, you are. But it’s not a matter of shunning one thing and embracing the other; It’s more a matter of prioritising one thing over the other for the beginner stages of learning. Some people are happier with movement, mutability. And if you don’t cater to this enthusiasm early on, you’ll kill it. What is spirituality without emotional investment? No good. And the thing is, not everyone is emotionally invested in stillness. So, I’m sorry to disappoint the close-minded crowd, but fire masters are valid too and I’ll defend them.
Research takes on a collaborative character. It’s not truly chaotic, it just looks like chaos on a first impression. A fire master will most definitely ask you to share what you already know or have about a subject of discussion, BEFORE they introduce you to the additional nuance you might be missing. No, this isn’t done “just to be nice to the disciple” or (as some water people put it) “to inflate the disciple’s ego”. That’s such a huge misconception! Collaboration, in a fire approach, is about awareness of the present moment — “where are you at? I’ll meet you there”. This is done every step of the way because, again, let’s recap: we’re not diving head-first down the Mariana Trench for deep sea treasures. Instead, we’re going in spirals, expanding towards new horizons but returning to familiar places periodically to eventually crystallize and somewhat deepen these lessons (very slowly, over many years). This is why they share a great variety of content and appreciate the same sharing from a disciple, but will keep track of it for future reference instead of “digging in” straight away. But if a disciple shares a misguided piece of knowledge, it WILL be corrected nonetheless.
Because they’re more practical and action-oriented than they are meticulous, fire masters can be harder to identify or pick out from a crowd. They won’t necessarily swoon over a tool or a piece of clothing made from the finest materials by the hands of a virgin from a long-lost lineage in a remote village in the Alps. Right? If you’re a fire person you’re probably laughing at the pretentiousness. Your fire master could very well look like some guy next door and have a run-of-the-mill ritual space to practise on filled with totally replaceable objects. This is not to say they can’t have an eccentric look about them, but it will most definitely be a product of experimentation… Instead of romanticism.
Of course, depending on tradition, if there is a uniform they’ll wear the uniform (just like the water crowd). See Zen monks. In terms of attitude, though, fire masters tend to have a zero-frills approach to things.
Signs you as a disciple might be drawn to fire
Fire wants to expand.
I want to expand. Maybe you relate, maybe you don’t. I’m delivering some of the wisdom received in hopes that I help those who do relate. Here are some of the signs you might feel drawn to a fire master:
- You yearn for connection with a higher power, not “ultimately” through enlightenment alone, but every step of the way as well. This takes precedence over painstaking purification.
- Practicality takes precedence over depth of learning for you. You’re probably interested in “eventually” deepening individual areas of your knowledge, but this can wait a few years or decades — or better yet, happen naturally with time.
- Your goals are usually short-term and leave the bigger picture in second place (but they’ll ultimately connect, so don’t forget to keep track of your progress along the way).
- You enjoy studying the future (and maybe you have an easy time consulting oracles, with a natural inclination not to obsess over — aka “dive too deep into” — each individual prophecy).
Ultimately, both water and fire are in search of the same goal.
So, this article isn’t intended to create division (although some people I’m side-eyeing now might think so, because to them it’s sacrilegious to categorise).
There are ultimate lessons we all need to learn, and they allude to overarching existential questions that are part of the human experience. Maybe a water or a fire approach to teaching and learning is best for you in the beginning, but this won’t forever be true. In fact, once it gets too comfortable, it’s time to visit the other crowd and learn with them. I ended up doing the opposite to some extent — I first struggled dealing with water masters without speaking their “language” properly (spoiler: I still don’t speak it) — but that was because I didn’t know I was looking for introduction to the mysteries of my tradition in the wrong places (or, to put it more kindly: in the most hardcore and challenging places, considering my natural inclination). This article is here to spare you from doing the same. It is a “I did it so you don’t have to” kind of anecdote.
Natural affinity has nothing to do with how good or bad a master or a disciple is. Repeating now for emphasis. In fact, the last water master I studied with, Nikos, (recommended to me by someone who is in fact water-inclined) was the best so far because he has all the patience in the world and will deal super well even with the “hottest” fire; He’s someone I 100% recommend to everyone regardless of inclination — but I’ll keep repeating that, for some people, maybe it’s best to get in your element first.
Bad masters are a topic for a whole other article in the future and they exist everywhere, at every level, regardless of natural affinity with an element over the other. It has to do with immaturity, and I do have my old tales about that (as well as some second-hand and third-hand accounts), so stay tuned.
