The Four Elements page 4
Water is the Emotions
It is doesn’t take a master of symbolic insight to relate the many expressions of Emotion with the many-faceted Element of Water. The calm of a lake, the joyful progress of a meandering brook and the raging ocean are pretty much literary clichés.
But for the most significant aspect of Water we go back to the model offered by molecular science. Aside from its liquid state, Water has the ability to adopt the structures of both Earth and Air. It can be a solid (ice), a liquid or a gas (vapor). That allows our Emotions to be part of our Conscious existence (Air) as well as merging with our Bodies (Earth) to the point of complete inertia.
But how does it function as an aspect of our being?
As previously described, the input that our Minds have integrated, create an image of the physical realm out of consciousness. But our Minds don’t move through consciousness alone.
We have a tendency to look back at an incident or at any given day as a series of details. What we saw and heard would basically be a jumble of disconnected facts and images, except that our Emotional reactions incorporate the Mind's ‘data’ into a net-like structure that serves as a filing system for our memories.