Earth. Of all the elements, this is the one that causes the least amount of excitement. Most people tend to dismiss it as “just dirt”.

Yet where would any of us be without dirt?

On the most basic level, it is our foundation. It is what we stand on, build on, live on. It is where we are able to sit or lie down when we need rest. It is where we grow our food. It is where we grow trees for shelter. We gather mud or clay to make bricks. We mine metals to protect us and make our structures sound.

When we die, many of us choose to be buried in the ground, where our bodies would become one with the Earth again. There has long been talk of the circle of life: man harvests corn to eat, man dies and is buried, man’s body nourishes the Earth to help the corn grow, another generation of man harvests corn to eat. Yes, that is a very simplified cycle – but in essence that is the circle, and the Earth is central to the process.

In the Bible, God creates the first man Adam from dirt. In Greek mythology, Demeter is the Goddess of the Earth and is the most compassionate to man. Many cultures have some version of “Mother Earth”. The Earth and all that grows in it are seen as maternal, caring, embracing and warm. I often think of my special Weeping Willow tree that I took solace in as a child.

While some people are drawn to the beach because they hear the siren call of the ocean, there are many others that are drawn to the sand. Children will play for hours building castles in the sand. I love the feel of sand running through my fingers, or stretching my feet back and forth through it as I sit on the beach. I love to soak up the heat through the sand, or lie in a field and feel the soft grass underneath as I smell the honeysuckle. I can remember rolling down hills as a child, and there was no greater activity in the summer.

My grandfather plants a garden every summer, and he feels incomplete without it. He must get his hands into the dirt. Somehow that part is even more important than the harvest at the end.

In the book “Twilight” the character Bella says her favorite color is brown, “"Brown is warm. I miss brown. Everything that's supposed to be brown; tree trunks, rocks, dirt- is all covered up with squashy green stuff here." Brown is warm, it is the color of Earth, our Mother.

Earth may not be exciting, but when have any of us ever thought of our Moms as exciting? Would we want her to be? Not really. We want warm, comforting, stable, and nourishing. That is what the Earth element encompasses.