Earth Air Fire Water: A 40-day and 40-night Transformative Healing Journey, by Stacey Demarco
Blue Angel Music, 9780987204134, 2 CDs (8 tracks) and 240 pp. book, 2017
Humans, and all life, are made of earth, air, fire, and water — both in a material sense and an energetic sense. Earth Air Fire Water: A 40-day and 40-night Transformative Healing Journey by Stacey Demarco is a book and CD package designed to heal your energetic and spiritual bodies through balancing these four elements, working with them through daily affirmations, beautiful illustrations and specialized guided meditations.
Knowing more about how the elements of earth, air, fire, and water blend in our personal energetic make-up can give us an insight into what makes us strong and unique – and help us to determine our shadows or blind spots. This knowledge, which helps us identify our natural positives and negatives, can also help us reduce the things we do that create difficulties for us and increase those that create positive experiences.1
The subtitle of this book and CD package, “A 40-Day and 40-Night Transformative Healing Journey” fits perfectly with this elemental system — 10 days to work with each one, if you choose to break it up that way. Or, you can choose to work with one element for the entire 40 days.
The book contains a short introduction to the elements, a questionnaire with scoring guide, and an explanation of how to proceed with the healing journeys. Demarco supplies a test to see which element is dominant in your system and how the others are represented. There is a section for each element describing what a person with that dominant element is like, how that person appears if the element is in balance or out of balance, what that element offers to the other elements, and that element’s “power spots” around the world. Using this knowledge will guide your progress through the journey. Each section contains imagery and affirmations for meditation throughout the day.
There are two CDs, with four tracks on each, for a total of eight tracks. A generically guided introductory meditation is presented before each meditation on an element. They are meant to be listened to in pairs, but I found the introductory guided meditation powerful enough to be used by itself, independent of working with the elements. The introductory meditation is about seven minutes long, while the elemental meditations are between 25 and 35 minutes. Demarco’s voice is soothing and the scripts are effective in invoking the essence of the particular element.
The meditations on the CD relied mainly on the strength of Demarco’s voice, which was steady and strong against the musical tract in the background. The four elemental CDs contain guided imagery descriptive of their respective element, except for the seven-minute introductory meditation, which worked with earth and water alone. I found the half an hour length a little too long for my personal taste — however, I’ve never been found of meditations that last for more than 15 to 20 minutes. They were effective though in changing my internal energy — with the most effective being the water and fire elements, which are the elements I’m most deficient in.
I chose to work with all four elements during my 40-day journey, beginning with air, my dominant element. I then moved on to water, earth, and fire, in that order. I didn’t notice much of a change within myself during my time with air — and this wasn’t surprising, being that it’s my most comfortable state — but it was another story entirely with water, with which I felt the most change. Not only did I feel it inside — and while not knowing about this process, others remarked that I had become softer and more emotional — but several events and openings transpired in my outer world that I felt corresponded with my work with water.
Demarco writes, “It is said that within 40 days and 40 nights profound change can be enacted and manifested – you will transform in this short time.”2 I would have to agree. During my time working with water, I was able to reconnect emotionally with an old friend with whom I had sudden and painful words several months before and never expected to speak to again. The friendship resumed and is stronger than it ever was. I don’t believe this would ever have happened had I not been invoking the power of water at that precise moment.
The feature that makes Earth Air Fire Water valuable is its flexibility. You might choose to work with the system as written, for the full 40 days, either with one element or all four — or you might want to try working with two, for 20 days each. You might want to work only with the affirmations or imagery, again with any elemental combination. Or, you might simply use the generic guided meditation as a separate morning or evening practice. You might even want to plan a vacation inspired by one of the power spots Demarco suggests! It’s all as personal as your own individual elemental makeup — a rich source of exploration for us all.
