On Earthbending

ISSUE #119

For those watching Avatar and The Legend of Korra—both of which I just finished for the first time—here is an Earwyrms series on bending the four elements. It should be said to the skeptics that these are not inalterable divisions, these four primal states of being, but inventories that tell us what tools are available to us and how we can best employ them. Four faces of the universe that help us witness ourselves.

Stand barefoot on a bluff in the late days of spring and the toasted stones will warm you as would another's hands. Crunch a perfect apple in your mouth and you will find the grit can mirror silt. Reach your fingers like roots into dirt and you'll find seeds, find clay, find the living flesh of the planet itself. An ancient solace resides in stone; nothing can frighten those who have seen the endless, massive mountains.

The key to bending earth lies in your stance. The strength is found in attitude—not ego, but merciless clarity, a knowledge of how you're positioned in relation to your environment. In your body lies gravity's center, and this is what Toph means when she says it takes guts to move a boulder. From these guts, your will solidifies, your stillness forms a dynamic resolve, your patience spins a stalagmitic shell.

The earthbender must be averse to drama and suspicious of too much complexity. "You've got to stop thinking like an airbender" is what Toph tells us while training Aang. "There's no different angle, no clever solution." If you're going to move a rock, you have to be like a rock: stubborn, steady, always strong. You must level with the dirt, a substance without guilt, neuroses, or compulsions.

The Earth was born in the heart of night, from deepest space, most hostile realm of all. In its nature lies a spirit of grim, enduring determination. There is no need for transcendence; you are only the flesh, now and forevermore. Earthbenders find peace in the simplest substances—soft clay, thick paint, the firm pith of vegetables. To want much else can hew too close to folly. You learn to make peace with the hard, unyielding world.

But benders differ from earth in one essential way, and that is that people will change. It's tempting to stay the same if you model life after the ancient caves, but that ignores that caves will crystalize. The land is always building up, weathering down, sustaining, giving, and maintaining form. It is better to think, then, not as benders—not as nouns, but instead as verbs, those units which can relate themselves to time. It is not, therefore, that we are earthbenders; instead, we are engaged in the act of earthbending.