Why is this subject, “Fire, Air, Water & Earth,” important in the world?
Nature’s four elements help all people to recognize four cosmos-spanning principles that present themselves as human ideals and values, which everyone must in some manner balance in their lives. In this world where so much feels (and is) out of balance, being made aware of any objectively discernable set of elements-principles-values would seem a good idea.
I’ve come to believe that nature’s four elements might actually be the needed “antidote” to the problems of our modern times. I say this because the four elements give us easy access to the “primitive pole” of our human condition. This is especially needed today because its opposite, the “modern pole,” is so excessive in its operation in our lives.
The imbalance that we feel today is, to a significant degree, the expression of the precarious balance between the modern and primitive poles of our human condition. At the core of this primitive pole (nature) are the four elements, which, after just a little bit of a learning curve, can be used in practical ways by anyone to fine-tune and bring balance into their life.
What is the pressing issue right and how are you addressing it?
Today, as we find ourselves living in the high-tech and virtual world, a growing issue is the loss of our “natural sensibilities.” Losing our natural sensibilities makes us vulnerable to eating “de-natured” or overly processed food and to be ever-more sedentary in our lifestyle. It affects the way we think, live, and heal ourselves. Add to all this is that we have become ever more materialistic in our life’s focus.
The four-element holistic model counters all that. It helps people see nature in a deeper way – its four elements are the expression of a set of (arguably spiritual) principles that unify us all. Again, with just a little bit of a learning curve, each person can begin to understand what they need to do to recalibrate the balance they are seeking – so they might create a better world for themselves and their children.
Dr. Howard Walsdorf Biography
What is your background in this subject?
For more than 30 years, I have been a holistic chiropractor, working to help my patients get their lives back from pain and illness. Over the course of this time, I’ve been researching (and therapeutically applying) a nature-based ancient model for understanding the world and bodily health. I discovered this ancient model early on in my trajectory as a natural science undergraduate student. It began with the intuition that the fire-air-water-earth of the ancients held important “spiritually natural” insights that we today have been ignoring.
A good deal of my life’s been organized around the four elements over the last 3-4 decades. I’ve found a way to integrate this holistic model (which upheld Western civilization for well over two thousand years) with what we know today as scientists. Further, because I am a scientist, I came to this topic with the mindset that spiritual concepts are but mumbo jumbo if they do not pass the muster of expressing themselves in physical reality.
As a biomechanically oriented chiropractor, I have developed the “Holistic Anatomy and Biomechanics Model,” which I’ve been using successfully to help my patients and others in my field to better understand the dynamics of our human body. With the goal of making this model practical for people dealing with pain and deeper health issues, I have devised a special exercise system called “4 Element Yoga”.
What is something that most people don’t know about you?
For over 30 years, I’ve been walking a mile to work just about every day, even walking up a hill to avoid the bus fumes of school buses. I like to believe this helped me to figure out much of what I’ve discovered four element wise. It’s helped me understand, for example, the importance of the heel strike in walking – it’s important for drawing the principle of Earth into ourselves.
I’ll also add this: to the consternation of my wife and some friends, I have never owned a cell phone. I think, on some level, I’m better for it. Again, it’s helped me to maintain my natural sensibilities and not get distracted by the hyped-up, high-tech world we find ourselves in today.
What are your passions outside of your career?
I am an avid gardener. My son calls me a “flowerholic.” I’ve come to realize that flowers are my art form. Art, I believe, comes as we seek to balance “the principles” that find form in the composing parts of our creative pieces. When the principles that underlie these component parts are in a pleasing balance, we call it beautiful. My choice of plants and their flowers’ color, texture, height,… are my way of having fun doing this balancing act. I also tend to find myself trying out a balance between what acupuncture calls “Metal” and “Wood.” Metal, as in pruning shears and well-defined edging; the Wood is more organic in the garden’s overflow of life.
Are there any social causes that you believe in and support?
Throughout my decades here in Syracuse, I’ve been very involved in a host of local civic-driven activities. I see the civic realm as where we together mete out a collective balance in the here and now of our lives. With that said, I believe strongly that there is a high and a low as far as balances in general. It is fair to say that “higher level” balances are more apt to be appreciated by most of us than lower-level, coarse, ugly-to-our-eyes ones.
This balance is affected by what kind of sensibility we bring to the places we live. My goal of promoting a natural sensibility (and scientific research) involving the four elements is why I created the Four Element Institute. Its mission is to use the four-element template to help scientists tease out and better define the elemental components of their studied level and to create such things as health class modules where the four elements are used to draw the student toward higher-level concepts involving food, their choices of activities, their screen time.
What is next for you?
I’m now semi-retired, working with my patients three days each week. I have decided it’s time to move forward with getting these four-element concepts out there. I’ve been working with a videographer and have videos on my GrowingHolistically YouTube channel. I’ve got a TikTok presence under @FourElementDoctor – it’s my Facebook page name as well. I’ve created a Four Element Learning Program that you can find at GrowingHolistically.com and on patreon.com/growingholistically
I’m also very close to launching an app that gives you reward points for doing certain element-focused activities, and that includes a Journal that helps you to use the four-element context to appreciate the journey of your life. We’re beta-testing it now.
Fire, Air, Water & Earth
Tell me about your book.
My book, Fire, Air, Water & Earth: Apply An Ancient Wisdom to Your Life (and Your Family’s, Too), gives the how and the why for bringing the ancient wisdom of the four elements into one’s life. I begin with a short historical tour of this important foursome: how we are collectively so very ignorant of the part they played for 2000 years in Western science, philosophy, and medicine. I show how Nature’s four elements express a set of four cosmos-spanning (arguably spiritual) principles, which present themselves as the four states of matter, the four forces of physics, and potentially as even the four genetic bases that code all of life.
I show how there is a top-down order to nature’s foursome; the fire of the sun is up top, and the terra firma of the earth is below our feet. Between those two, we find a lighter air and a denser water. In that order, I explore the way this foursome of principles plays out as the nerves, muscles, blood, and bone of our body, as our ability to generate creative ideas, to think, to have emotions, and to physically act. They even show up as “the what, how, why, and where” of our lives.
The book playfully taps into the time-honored concepts of astrology, which is very focused on these four to help the reader see the unique way we each balance this foursome psychologically. I show parents how they can be used to understand a primal set of four ideals and values, which play out in the development of their child(ren).
Furthermore, I give evidence that this foursome manifests as the life-positive biochemistries meant to be in our food. I use this “four element nutrition” concept to give the reader innovative and practical ways to improve the intake of healthier foods for themselves and their family. Importantly as well, it introduces the reader to 4 Element Yoga, which, in many ways, represents the culmination of my somatic work and biomechanical research.
Earth baby is the Product You’ve Been Waiting For(Opens in a new browser tab)
Where can people buy the book?
People can buy it as either an e-book or as a 280-page soft-covered book at www.GrowingHolistically.com or www.DrWalsdorf.com. Readers tell me they appreciate the way the book is illustrated to help the four-element story to be better told.
