Elemental Enneagram – Fire
I come to the last of 4 posts as an introduction to my thinking of the Enneagram through the images of the 4 elemental images of the Ancient Western World. Please heed the note at the bottom. I really do want feedback.
Element 4: Fire. This element offers a couple benefits: light and energy or heat, so the images will be broader than the last 2. You will also note, that while I begin with the more positive sides of the images, the impact of either too much or too little of the element are notes when we move Out of Essence (my phrase for living a perceived disconnection from the Divine Essence)
- Ones: Refiner’s Fire and pure light. Out of Essence the One is either blinded or is blinding to those around them. And woe to you if you are the slag in the refiner’s fire.
- Twos: Both images relate to the hospitality nature of the Two. First we have the baking oven, especially after a loaf of bread of tray of cookies is taken from it. The other is the light in the window offering a place in the darkness. Of course the Out of Essence images offer the cold shoulder of inhospitality.
- Threes: The kiln/forge and the projector. On the one hand we have the poles of industry and inactivity. On the other hand we have the power of illusion and image.
- Fours: I see the bonfire and the firework. Fire and light at its most dramatic. Too much? we have the burn zone of the wildfire.
- Fives: The search light and the incubator. These fire images provide the place to hold and then hatch wisdom and life as well as the one searching in the darkness for truth.
- Sixes: I see the hearth and campfire. They provide light and heat as a circle of security for the gathering of companions, yet the shadows lurk just beyond the reach of that circle.
- Sevens: At first I had the firework here, but instead I have the living flow the gas fueled flame, and the full spectrum of the rainbow. Rainbows are great, but it is hard to find definition with them. And the gas line can become over filtered and the flame is lost
- Eights: I kept returning to the living rock of magma and of our Sun. Lots of heat and needed at the core, but beware the eruption of the volcano. And while we need the light of the Sun to reveal life, it is not meant to be gazed upon or to come too close to.
- Nines: Without the fire of the Nine we have the darkness of sleep and the void before creation. I see the glowing light of the Golden Hour just before sunrise and just after sunset. I also see the simple and peaceful light of the candle flame.
I hope soon to take these ideas and approach them from each Enneatype as a way to provide a fuller picture of each type.
Note: I Welcome your help! These are ideas and possibilities for images in understanding and exploring the Enneagram. These are all Tentative, and might/will need further development. You can help by commenting on what you think works and what you think will work better. Thank you, David
