Richard’s Monkey Diary for August 2017

Animal Fortunes for the Rooster year remain on the website all year:
2017: Year of the Turkey. Now may be the time.
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Where to do what, when and why this month.
Summary: Where’s it’s all happening.
South East, Determination: Year Star: 9 Dragon Virtue, Month Star: 1.
This is where communication happens during the Monkey month. There is a rare clarity here. Dragon Virtue supports the good reputation of kuas 1 3 4 and 9 as well as certain Monkeys, Rats, Snakes, Roosters and Oxen. All year this is the place to be noticed in a positive way; both achievement and recognition continue to fall to those of us in South East facing houses and/or located SE. And romance is more favoured than ever. Convene, discuss, plot but above all communicate here this month. The 1/9 perfect 10 combination suggests extended time here will break through long standing career and recognition barriers.
Month Solution: plants, bright light.
Annual Enhancement: Four Plants (eg bamboo stems) and/or a Water fountain.

One to avoid; where not to be this month.
Summary: Where to go to avoid own goals.
North East, Wealth Star: Year Star: 4 gip sat, Month Star: 5.
5 is the power that resists being harnessed; usually best not to try. Keep the NE quiet till September. West Group kuas (8,6,7,2) are less affected and some Rats and Pigs but Monkeys and Sheep should steer clear and this is no place for a Tiger at the moment. Only delay is likely to follow lurking here, facing this way or repeated use of North Eastern doors. Keep the plants here but turn off the lights. No wild parties.
Month Enhancement: Six Pipe Metal Windchime, music box.
Annual Enhancement: Fire, (eg bright light). Four Plants (eg bamboos in Water).
Annual Solution: t’ang lung.

East and West Groups: Everybody falls into East or West Group by way of their birth date. The calculation is simple. To know where you belong, email me.

Know your inner beast. How Monkey are you?
Birth in the Monkey Hour (3-5pm)~: clever, playful children.
Birth on the Monkey Day#: bitter humour.
Birth during the Monkey Month (August)*: stand-up or techie.
Birth in the Monkey Year: brought up with some pedantry
~ GMT. # You’ll need a Chinese calendar for this. * Caution: Chinese months start later
A Dark Mirror: the London skyline.
“In order to find our place in the infinity of being, we must be able both to separate and unite.”
The Book of Changes.
On Thursday 28^th August 2013, sunlight reflected from the so-called Walkie-Talkie on Fenchurch Street melted the trim of a Jaguar parked opposite on Eastcheap. The Sun’s rays did something similar to tiles and a doormat the following October and more recently bicycles, carpets and doors. I don’t know whether Uraguayan architect Rafael Vinoly subscribed to the notion that form follows function but if so the London Fire Brigade seem to be the principal beneficiaries.
Fenchurch Street is in the heart of the City of London, for the time being the banking centre of Europe if not the world; there are more American banks in London than any other city. The financial district pretty much occupies the streets of Roman Londinium, running East-West parallel to the River Thames. Because the Sun travels East to West, this is a nice fair orientation that distributes sunshine equally.
Although the Romans were actually developing an existing Celtic settlement (dedicated as it happens to Lug the God of Light) the City is the oldest part of London. Bishopsgate marks its historical Eastern extreme and Moorgate the Western. You can even today – equipped with a key you can request from the Museum of London – descend under the pavement a few yards from the Bank of England and inspect remnants of the original wall, still marked with ash from the sacking of the City by Budicca in 61 AD. And from Roman times onwards, the East-West Streets – London Wall, Cheapside, Cornhill – shared the Sun’s blessing. Unlike the district around Wall Street which any New Yorker can tell you, is in almost perpetual shade.
And today banks of all nationalities stretch from Southwark across the Thames to the South and Westward beyond Aldwych; you’ll find Goldman Sachs’ unmarked ivory tower on Fleet Street just beyond Ludgate Circus, well out of the traditional neighbourhood. Much of this expansion has taken place since the “Big Bang” of 1986.
The Big Bang effectively de-regulated banking; from then institutions like Northern Rock could borrow money and lend it at a loss while junk bonds and their derivatives consisting of defaulted mortgages and other toxic loans could be sold-and re-sold until the financial markets were awash with assets valued in trillions but worth less than nothing. As an investment analyst friend of mine put it then: “How do I compete with a fresh generation with the minds of Chess Grand Masters and the instincts of lampreys?” Seemed like a good idea at the time.
What also happened around then was that a succession of huge buildings started to go up to the South and South East of the City. These included the Walkie-Talkie, as well as Heron Tower and the Gherkin (aka the Swiss Re building), tributes to the egos respectively of convicted fraudster Gerald Ronson and the architect Norman Foster. Because of their location, these vast buildings began to block the light to the City. And as of today planning permission has been granted for more than a further dozen. That’s perhaps twenty more megatowers ready to be planted between the City and the Sun.
My friend Master Howard Choy would say that feng shui depends upon qing or “affection”. For architecture to work, somebody must give a damn. He condemned cutting edge super-hub Kings Cross/St Pancras for example as lacking just such attention. Common sense really. As many of you know however, for myself I’m fond of answering the request “Explain feng shui” by saying that if you plant tomatoes on a North-facing wall, you’d best not expect great salads. Light is an essential to life. It’s obvious, isn’t it that as long as we are flesh and blood we are at the effect of shade, heat and damp? And in a sense all the complexity of Classical feng shui is simply what three or four thousand years of observation have piled on top of that fact. By extension light, that is Fire, means openness, visibility, spontaneous talking and straight dealing. Shadow is its opposite.
Anyway if politics is show biz for the ugly, then maybe banking is showbiz for the anonymous. What is for sure is that if power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely then proximity to wealth breeds dishonesty, and close proximity to infinite wealth, infinite dishonesty. And just as so much of the unchecked infamy of the City and of Wall Street could not proceed without lax regulation, so greed grows in the dark. I doubt that’s what Lug had in mind.
Richard Ashworth © 2017 

And here’s the (Western Astrological) take of the very perceptive Lorna Bevan:
5D Astrology Report August 2017 – Fire Walking

A Date for your Diary: Richard’s 2018 Earth Dog Forecast Day will be held in Godalming, Surrey on Saturday 2nd December 2017. There will also be an online Zoom session on December 3rd from 3pm for those in different time zones.

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Richard Ashworth is among the most respected Western Feng Shui Masters. He has worked from the Lebanon to Bermuda and with stars such as Kelly Hoppen and Gillian Anderson and unusually for a Western Master, has addressed the Grand Masters at the International Feng Shui Conference in Singapore. His day job remains “walking round people’s spaces being enigmatic”.
Richard Ashworth©
www.imperialfengshui.info