-Your astrological sign can be your element. For example, I am a Taurus, so my astrological sign would be Earth. This, however does not have to be the case.
-You may meditate to find the element you are most connected to.
-You may be connected to all of the elements.
-The elements are Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.
-Depending on belief, there is a fifth element called 'akasha' aka 'Spirit'.
you can tell by when you are born, but I also know that if you are drawn to the moon you have a water element, if you are drawn to mother nature you are earth, if you are drawn to the sun or fire you are a fire element, try this meditation, visualize all the elements, and if you find one that gives you power or love and exception from a element then it's your element, try it and tell me if this meditation helps you.
There are four physical elements are earth, air, fire and water. These are ways of describing vibrations of energy that make up reality. Everyone has these four elements in them, and have access to them. The idea that you need is how to balance them. The elements are present in your physical makeup, your psychological make up and your spiritual makeup. Balancing them helps to clear emotional blocks, limiting beliefs and negative thought patterns. Now, there may be an element that you have an afinity towards. That just means you need to work on the others that much more. Balance is the key.
The fifth element, Spirit, is what gives life to the other four. It is our connection to (insert God/the Universe/Buddha/the Great Spirit or whatever god you perfer here). We strengthen that connection through devotion, refinement of our character, our energies and aspiring to the higher principles that these deities represent.
If you want to learn the elements, start with meditation. Then do some form of energy work. Then basic ritual. There are suggestions on my profile for where to learn these things. Then take each element, in turn, and spend several months meditating on each one. Feel the emergy, meditate on its symbol, bring up the feeling of the element within you. Learn how it feels, and how it makes you feel. There are good influences and bad influences with every element, so you need to be able to keep them balanced.
Study the elements in this order: earth, air, water and fire. This is important. This is the order of the elements from the least active to the most active. This is the safest way to learn them.
Be patient. You can rush it, but you will not have the best effects possible. If you are not a patient person, learn.
I can also offer a (scientific) explanation as to why! After reading through the replies in this post, I can assume that only about half of the people here are truly informed on any sort of elemental knowledge. The rest of you are just speculating on the elements based on what you WANT them to be like... That's not the way the universe works.
Light is created when (for the sake of physics simplicity) "particles" interact with each other. These particles release energy in the way of photons. These photons interact with matter by either being absorbed by it or reflected off of it. There are many different wavelengths of light that vary greatly, and the visible spectrum is only a very minor part of this. SO! Is light energy? YES!!! However, energy does not an element make. Elements are the things that bind and create matter, not the things that interact with it.
That being said, darkness is not an element either. Darkness is the absence of light. The End....
I work with the void, but I don't consider void energy an element either. Why? Because the void is the source of many different types of energy apart from elemental energies (even though elemental energies are also derived from it). This means that it is only indirectly related to matter, not directly related to it. It's impossible to physically manipulate the void (unlike with all of the other elements). Fire can be started or extinguished, water can be contained/frozen/boiled, earth can be dug-up/moved/melted, air can be moved/manipulated, spirit pertains to life. Life can be created/extinguished/manipulated. All of this can be accomplished by contacting elementals associated with each of these elements.
Darkness is (as mentioned before) the absence of light. It cannot be manipulated even with matter, particles, energy, spirits, or anything in-between. Light can be manipulated by physics (such as gravity wells, but it cannot be manipulated by magical means (even the spirits and elementals have no control over the paths that light takes).
That being said, I've seen some very intelligent comments here, as well as some not-so-informed comments. I don't claim to be a source of all knowledge in astronomy or many other topics of magic, however... I have an extensive knowledge of elements, what constitutes them, how they affect life and matter, and how they can be worked with. I also have a running knowledge of elementals as well as energy manipulation of all sorts (elemental or otherwise).
If anyone has any comments or questions pertaining to what I've said here, or about anything that I have knowledge of, please feel free to PM me, and I'll share what I know.
