Edited sentence: The female, passive, "lying-down" elements create the flat horizon and fall on the horizontal East-West axis.The male, active, "standing-up" elements rise straight up and fall on the vertical North-South axis.Then, the directions alternate between elements that are "male" (Air and Fire) and "female" (Earth and Water) as one goes around the compass.This arrangement also allows the Poles (N-S and E-W) to each fall into an alignment with an associated gender.This is felt to be better balanced