Today's Stichomancy for Natalie Imbruglia

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tanach:

Genesis 5: 26 And Methuselah lived after he begot Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begot sons and daughters.

Genesis 5: 27 And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years; and he died.

Genesis 5: 28 And Lamech lived a hundred eighty and two years, and begot a son.

Genesis 5: 29 And he called his name Noah, saying: 'This same shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which cometh from the ground which the LORD hath cursed.'

Genesis 5: 30 And Lamech lived after he begot Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begot sons and daughters.

Genesis 5: 31 And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years; and he died.

Genesis 5: 32 And Noah was five hundred years old; and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Genesis 6: 1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

Genesis 6: 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose.

Genesis 6: 3 And the LORD said: 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for that he also is flesh; therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.'

Genesis 6: 4 The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men t

The Tanach

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

realized, for I shall die for you," and, taking the morsel in my mouth, I devoured it. One by one I ate them all, nor ever did anything taste better than those tiny bits of nourishment, within which I knew must lie the seeds of death--possibly of some hideous, torturing death. As I sat quietly upon the floor of my prison, waiting for the end, my fingers by accident came in contact with the bit of paper in which the things had been wrapped; and as I idly played with it, my mind roaming far back into the past, that I might live again for

The Warlord of Mars

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin:

shroud wrapped about his feet. I do not wonder at the single-handed murder of a single victim, done by the assassin in the darkness of the railway, or reed shadow of the marsh. I do not even wonder at the myriad-handed murder of multitudes, done boastfully in the daylight, by the frenzy of nations, and the immeasurable, unimaginable guilt heaped up from hell to heaven, of their priests, and kings. But this is wonderful to me--oh, how wonderful!--to see the tender and delicate woman among you, with her child at her breast, and a power, if she would wield it, over it, and over its father, purer than the air of heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth--nay, a magnitude of blessing which her husband would not part

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale:

Nahant

Bowed as an elm under the weight of its beauty, So earth is bowed, under her weight of splendor, Molten sea, richness of leaves and the burnished Bronze of sea-grasses.

Clefts in the cliff shelter the purple sand-peas And chicory flowers bluer than the ocean Flinging its foam high, white fire in sunshine, Jewels of water.

Joyous thunder of blown waves on the ledges, Make me forget war and the dark war-sorrow --