Being in your element
The Triad and the Roots of Being
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Elemental Knowing
Are you a fire-breather? An air-circler? An earth-bender? A water-weaver?
Each of us has our share in the 4 elements. Traits and talents, preferences and positions.
When we understand our elemental composition through astrology, it can help us flow with the shifting elemental composition of the sky. Time itself is elemental. It is a mixing of primordial substances.
Today we have more watery skies, as the Moon and Venus just entered Pisces. Whereas yesterday was airy. Can you feel the difference?
The way you sense and sensitize to the elements is unique. You have your own mixture, your own interface with the constellations of matter. This way of elementally knowing ourselves is as simple as it is mysterious, and as mysterious as it is powerful.
The elemental make-up of individuals is at the foundation of my recent research and offerings in the area of electional astrology — the use of astrological timing to support our actions, endeavors, and manifestations.
In this article I want to share with you some philosophical background on the elements and how they got into ancient astrology in the first place.
Before the emergence of Hellenistic astrology, the 4 elements were the philosophical puzzles of nature itself. How do the pieces make up the whole? What is underneath existence? What drives change? What are the roots of our earthly being?
I am beginning to share discoveries about the use of “radical” ideas in Hellenistic electional astrology. Radical means “root,” and radical electional astrology foregrounds and emphasizes the importance of the relationship between the nativity — the “root” chart — and the electional chart when the individual chooses to act.
It turns out, I have found, the elements are core to this rooted relationship.
A New Class, and an Offering
If you’re a geek for this kind of thing AND you have a background in traditional elections through other coursework or independent study, you will be interested in RADIX, my new 4-week intensive on radical election technique, starting in two weeks.
Or, instead a class setting, you can also learn about your chart through the lens of radical elections by exploring my new offering — the Radical Election Diagnostic & 2025 Personal Report.
Having just sent out the first batch of these reports, I am now looking for 5 more people who want highly detailed insights into their birth chart and how your planetary support system can guide you toward specific times for your happiness & success. LEARN MORE
One more thing, before a philosophical romp through the elements in astrology: the recording of my recent year-ahead workshop in LA, FROM NOW ON: Building your future in 2025, is now available. As you have probably heard, we have a wild year ahead, and I’m helping you engage it with curiosity and grace. You can get the digital download packet here: DOWNLOAD
Alright, now: triads.
Geometry in Astrology
Geometry was my favorite math subject in school, which could have been an early giveaway astrology would cross my path.
Indeed, astrology is a deeply geometric craft, but not just in the obvious ways.
Of course, maybe the most obvious manifestation of geometry in astrology is the aspects. Whether we think of these connections between planets as shapes or conversations, their mathematical reality seems foundational.
The five classical aspects — also known as the Ptolemaic aspects — are the opposition at 180°, the trine at 120°, the square at 90°, the sextile at 60° and the finally the conjunction of 0°. (You can download my FREE 90-minute teaching on the aspects on my website: Get Download).
But geometry in astrology extends far beyond the aspects. It’s woven into the very fabric of how the zodiac signs are defined.
Modality/Cross, Element/Triad
The fundamental qualities of the zodiac signs are determined through two geometrically derived frameworks: modality(cardinal, fixed, mutable) and element (fire, air, water, earth).
During a recent session for Austin Coppock’s astrology course, my colleague Travis Black described modality as the “rate of matter through space.” I found this description apt. A sign’s modality reflects the pace and style of its energy:
Cardinal signs are fast, volatile, and initiate new cycles.
Fixed signs are steady, determined, and focused on seeing things through to completion.
Mutable signs, with their adaptability and duality, deserve a more nuanced discussion—one for another day.
If modality describes how a sign moves, element describes what it moves. The type of matter.
In pre-modern philosophy and cosmology, the elements were not simply energy types. They were seen as the underlying substances of nature. Categories of matter. What stuff is made of.
Some things are purely elemental. The ocean or a lake or stream is… well, water. The mountain is earth, but beneath it their roils fire. And over the millennia, great gusts of wind — air — gradually erode the mountain into a new shape.
Elements in the Human Being
The elements were also thought to mix together in specific ways to compose different kinds of beings. Human beings, for instance, are made up of all four elements. The earth of our bones, the water of our blood, the air of our breath, and the fire of our soul.
Early Hellenistic astrologers like Antiochus of Athens incorporated this philosophy of the elements into their understanding of the birth chart:
“… since everything material is composed from these 4 elements or bodies, it is necessary that man, as participating in the same nature, also share in these elements. And [the ancients] assigned the four pivot points of the birth in accordance with the four mixtures.”
The Thesaurus, Antiochus of Athens. Trans. Schmidt.
In any chart, the four “pivots” or angular whole-sign houses will be composed of one fire, one air, one water, and one earth sign. Since these angular houses of 1st, 10th, 7th, and 4th are considered the most foundational to the person’s life, Antiochus underscored the resonance of the astrological chart with prevailing philosophies of how the elements composed the material world, including human beings.
The pivots or angular houses are in the shape of a cross, where each point of the cross is a different element within the same modality. In the chart above, all 4 pivots are mutable signs. By drawing down these 4 signs into the human form, the birth chart mixes the 4 elements into our being. The cross mixes the elements.
But what about the shape of today — the triad?
Whereas the cross within the circle gives us 4 signs of the same modality, the triad gives us 3 signs of the same element. These triangular groups are called “triplicities,” whereas the cross gives us “quadruplicities” where each point shares the same modality.
In the above diagram, each element shows its cardinal sign on the top vertex, the fixed one on the right vertex, and the mutable one on the left vertex.
The 2nd-century astrologer Vetius Valens is our first known instance where the triangular groups of signs were explicitly tied to the 4 elements. A century earlier, the astrologer Dorotheus of Sidon centralized the use of triplicities in his methods, but did not name them as “elemental” — though I suspect it may have been implicit.
Triads and the Roots of Our Being
More than five centuries before the first known Hellenistic astrologers, the philosopher Empedocles introduced the familiar four-element scheme, referring to them as rhízōmata (roots). This term highlights the elements’ role as the unseen foundations of existence, like how a tree’s roots sustain its visible form.
Even earlier, thinkers like Thales of Miletus and Heraclitus speculated on the archḗ—the primordial substance underlying all things. While Thales proposed water as the source, Heraclitus championed fire. Eventually, these ideas coalesced into Empedocles’ fourfold framework, where each element participates equally in the cosmic composition.
As a whole, humanity must come together as a perfectly balanced mixture of the four elements — just as the whole of nature does. But each of us, unto ourselves, is gifted with a perfect imbalance. We are all unique in our ways of fiery-ness, watery-ness, airy-ness, and earthy-ness. Our special mixture makes us each capable of different kinds of greatness, and different shapes of shortcomings that invite us to connect with others.
Even if the elements are the roots underneath things, we can still feel them. When you hear music, the base line grounds the listening experience even if the upper melody is what you remember. Roots are deeply within us.
I like to think of learning astrology as learning your musical groove. Alongside that self-understanding, you get to appreciate other grooves, other styles of music — other kinds of being. And through this, together we can make something more perfect, more whole.
For now,
Drew
Quick Links:
RADIX, 4-week radical elections intensive
FROM NOW ON Recording, 2025 Astrology Workshop
Attunement Sessions (my signature natal chart offering)
Thank you for your writings and free classes! Loved the aspect class 💫🌞🌗