How we calculate your elemental distribution

Our goal is to bring the elements to the forefront of your self-discovery and healing journey by giving you visibility on your unique elemental composition and how to work with the elements to enhance your well-being. In case you’re keen to know the details of how we calculate your elemental composition, this blog post is dedicated to laying it out for you. Each of us has different levels of astrological knowledge but one thing that is a key value for Elemental Being as a community, is accessibility. Everyone should be able to benefit from astrology and the knowledge of the elements, it’s quite literally our birth right. So the goal is to give you a clear understanding and perhaps introduce you to some new terms/ideas, without getting too deep into the nitty gritty of astrological theory. 

Some important definitions

Before we go into the methodology, it’s worth clarifying the way we define certain terms at Elemental Being, for clarity’s sake. With astrology in widespread use, terms may be defined differently depending on who you are talking to. No shade here, language is subjective, that’s precisely why we want to set the record straight on exactly what we mean when we use these terms:

How we map the elements

Our method is based on calculating the distribution of the four elements (Fire, Air, Water and Earth) based on a snapshot of the sky and planets, when you were born. The 12 astrological signs are expressions of the elements, so using the signs, we can determine how much for each element you have in your distribution. Aries, Leo and Sagittarius are Fire signs, Libra, Aquarius and Gemini are Air signs, Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces are Water signs and Capricorn, Taurus and Virgo are Earth signs. 

If you know your exact birth time, we provide you with your full elemental distribution and dominant element. If you’re unsure about your birth time, we provide only the distribution of your known planets and placements. We don’t want to suggest we know the full picture of your psyche and personality when there are some missing indicators. Working with the distribution of your known placements is still highly useful as it contains key planets like your Sun and Moon, two of the main indicators of your personality, as well as other personal planets.

While there's no single "most accurate" method to map your distribution, we do believe that our method is robust and takes into consideration 3 aspects that elevate the relevancy of your report. 

What we take into consideration

Here are the 3 key factors we consider in calculating your elemental distribution:

1. A weighted approach - we give differing values to each planet or placement, based on how much they influence you personally. Not all planets are created equal in that sense. The Sun has the most influence on your identity and gets the most points in our system. We give similarly high points to your Ascendent (aka Rising), Moon and your personal planets (Mercury, Mars and Venus). Your social planets - Jupiter and Saturn, impact everyone born in the same year as you and are therefore very slightly less specific to you. Finally, as you might expect, the generational planets - Uranus, Neptune & Pluto, impact your entire generation. This is because these planets move quite slowly and therefore stay in the same astrological sign (and element) for long periods of time. Social and generational planets can increase their personal impact on you if they interact with your personal planets in some way, otherwise we place slightly less focus on them, and therefore in our weighted system they get slightly less points.

2. Ascendent & Sun Ruler(s) - We also take into account the rulers of key placements like your Ascendent (aka Rising) and Sun. A ruler is a planet that rules the sign and house that a planet falls in. The sign and element of your ruling planet(s) will add flavor to how these placements are expressed. For example, your Ascendent influences your approach to life. If you have a Water Ascendent and it's ruled by a planet in a Fire sign, it’s likely that you will have a Water based approach to life with some flavor of Fire, considering the ruler of your Water Ascendant is in a Fire sign. If you understand this concept - congratulations. If not, don’t sweat it. It will be much easier to understand your elemental distribution and that’s why we do these more complicated calculations for you.

3. Dispositor Pattern - As mentioned above, each planet is reporting to a planet that rules the sign or house it is in. In some cases that ruler is also reporting to another planet based on its own position. It can end up as quite the breadcrumb trail… What we do is look to who is at the end of that trail and we call this the final dispositor. We take the element of the final dispositor(s) into account because it impacts a large number of the planets in your astrological chart in some way and so will likely impact your overall nature. If you don’t have a final dispositor and have lots of ruling planets, we exclude dispositor points from your calculation.

This method is based on traditional astrology and also takes a more psychological approach following some of the key theories proposed by Stephen Arroyo in his book - Astrology, Psychology and the four elements. We believe our method to be powerful in uncovering the key elemental influences on your psychological makeup. 

One way to think about Astrology is by considering that the answer you get, depends on the question you ask. In this case, our question is - “how can we use your elemental distribution to understand your psychological framework, personality and approach to life”. For a full in-depth elemental reading, we also ask - “what might we interpret from the elements that you are most dominant in and those that you are least dominant in towards understanding how you might achieve overall balance across all elements”.  

The last thing to say is - please use your discernment. Don’t embody anything that you do not resonate with. Keep this in mind when exploring any Elemental Being report. We propose based on the data we get and methods we use, but the validation will come from you.

To order your elemental report, click the following link to head to our shop - Elemental Being Reports.

Stay balanced, elemental being!