In life, we are faced with pelagic elements. From birth, we define ourselves as philosophers. We study the intrinsic value of life itself. We pertain in, and take note on what the basic features of these elements do and say. Some of which will later become a tangent feeding block of which we define our very existence upon. We refract of the purveyors of life, and use it as a chisel on which to shape and mold our character. Every small object floating about in this earth has some effect upon the overall person you are at this moment.

When you first hear ‘Earth’, ‘Air’, or ‘Fire’ you are attacked into a triggered reaction by your brain. At that moment, you are able to see the element. If I asked you to close your eyes right now and I spoke aloud “Think to yourself that you are alone in the middle of the woods. Complete solitude and desolation surrounds your very being. Now – imagine that is very cold – colder than anything you have felt before. You shiver as if your body were frozen in time… all you’re focusing on is the coldness and how to make it go away. Now, imagine that you just lit a fire. Your body is warm, very warm. In fact, you’re sitting too close to the flame.”  Now – In your mind you just pictured a cold forest with no fire on which to survive upon. Secondly, when I described the flame, you thought of fire – its texture, its dance and melody, its image - not its power. There is no reverence by merely thinking about something. When you think something, you’re not feeling it. If I said “Soil” you’d think of dirt – but not the feeling of it between your fingers.

Earth seems like such a small word for such a magnificent thing. Think of the vastness of the land. Once we comprehend it, we began to see that the world is far beyond the bounds of school and home. Our first reaction is to touch every corner of it: From the widespread hills in New Zealand to the vast oceans in the Pacific Islands. From birth we want to touch everything beautiful around us: The first time you dragged your fingers across water, the first time you smelled a rose. Though, at time you didn’t know it; but you were holding the very essence of beauty in the very palm of your hand.

So again, think, but when you think, don’t just think -feel. Some do not realize how beautiful the earth truly is. A simple thing like feeling soil between your fingers, or watching a butterfly escape from its chrysalis can define ‘beauty’ for many.  Though walking though a forest or snowstorm may sound dreary and horrible to some, nature really does paint beauty in everywhere we look… whether or not we see it, or feel it all the time is beside the point – and the point is: Beauty is there, if you look hard enough.
Think of the earth as a bag. In bags, we store away what we don’t want at that moment. Later on, we may find the bag and say to ourselves ‘Oh I wish I never put that away! I love this!’ To me, that’s how I view every single element on this earth… from a simple thing like a bird casting a shadow on the ground, to a flower charging its way though thick concrete. For many, we are all like flowers breaking though steel ties of concrete. Once we reach the brim of it, we can gaze at the ice blue sky, we can take in the breath and wind of dawn and say to ourselves ‘This is life, this is why I am here.’ Instead of throwing my fists towards the sky, I open my arms outward and let the wind grasp my soul. In the silence, in the stillness of life – I paused and let all my problems wither away as if they were just specks of dust upon a roof. When they fall, they return to the earth. They return to the same soil of which we pick up in our hands and let slip between our fingers. The same soil that makes life: life. You cannot outrun the surge of life. Nor the rugged terrain it brings behind it. Though, at times it seems as if we were born directly into a sandstorm, while others, it seems as if we were born deep within the bottom sands on the ocean. Life has a way of shaping you, whether you want it or not – the irony will sooner or later catch up to you.

Dawn does not say ‘I will rise in silence.’ It says ‘I shall rise in pulchritude.” Dawn has always interested me for some reason. The look of it, the feel, the smell of that 5am light switch. I remember one incident during the summer where I chose to write all night, but instead of writing at my desk, as I usually do, I sat under a maple tree in our back yard. When dawn came, it came quickly. It was if night literally slowly faded into night and in place of a white moon was a brilliant star. The light shone down on the cold earth and let the shadows rise again. To me, it seemed that it the lighting of ten thousand Gods smiling down upon me – a mere human.
I looked all around me; the wind caressed my face and blew backward. In that feeling of such calmness, one can only close their eyes and let the moment stretch out as far as it can go.

To me, I think that my character mostly refracts Earth. But just like the Earth, wind must come with it. Earth cannot exist without air. Even if it simply is just earth – earth has such a terrain that it becomes almost incomprehensible to even the most complex and analytical person.  And though, in all of earth’s complexities and mysteries, I can relate to it in one way or another. Just because the sun doesn’t always hit a flower all the time does not mean that that flower is less than beautiful. In fact, some flowers are even more alluring within shade, within the breeze of dawn.