Everything Under the Moon

I am planning out my sacred space, in which I will be casting circles. I would like to place one candle, colored for each element, at the cardinal intersections. I was wondering if there were any associations between them? I am already aware of elemental opposition.

Directions are associated with the elements in standard western occultism, which Wiccans sometimes follow. This is a short correspondence list:

Air - beginnings, thoughts, knowledge; East, yellow, fan, flute, smoke/scent; leaves
Fire - vitality, will-power, friendships; South, red, spice, guitar, candle, coals, sun; flowers
Water - feelings, psi; West, blue, potions, shells, citrus, rattle, mist, ice, H2O, moon; stems
Earth - endings, material needs, job, home; North, green, grains, stones, drum, cords; roots
Ether - balance, soul travel; Center, purple, quartz crystal, bell, wings & flight; seeds

There are variations by region as well.

SpiritTalker wrote:Directions are associated with the elements in standard western occultism, which Wiccans sometimes follow. This is a short correspondence list:

Air - beginnings, thoughts, knowledge; East, yellow, fan, flute, smoke/scent; leaves
Fire - vitality, will-power, friendships; South, red, spice, guitar, candle, coals, sun; flowers
Water - feelings, psi; West, blue, potions, shells, citrus, rattle, mist, ice, H2O, moon; stems
Earth - endings, material needs, job, home; North, green, grains, stones, drum, cords; roots
Ether - balance, soul travel; Center, purple, quartz crystal, bell, wings & flight; seeds

There are variations by region as well.

I’m curious as to why air isn’t opposite earth and water not opposite fire?

90% of the Wiccan books I've read follow this as standard but may just be parroting each other. I think in this arrangement the elements "flow" around the circle in order of elemental density, east/Air being the least dense, then South/Fire, west/Water, north/Earth is last as being most dense. This would assume one faced east to start casting a circle E-S-W-N. As each element is called the density increases toward manifesting the circle: "East, South, West, North I summon ye & call ye forth..." or in other words moves thought from the etherial realm into the physical realm to construct the circle.

I've read in Traditional Witchcraft-Cornish Book of Magic by Gemma Gary another (non-Wiccan) arrangement is with (+)air, white positioned at north, (+) red, fire-east, (-) black, earth is south & (-) gray, water-west. So there you'd have arrangement by polarity opposite positions. "Air, earth, water, fire work ye now to my desire." it makes a crossroad figure if you plot it out which is just another means of picturing manifesting by association. Cross roads symbolize intersection of realms at etherial center.

The regional trads each do things their own way. You can use whichever system makes most sense to you. & experiment to see what feels real.