5th April 2005
Another spooky coincidence; Clear and bright; The five skills rodent; North west water: Latest news…
Richard Ashworth
Feng Shui Diaries
Ching Ming: Clear and Bright
Solar fortnight beginning:
Tuesday April 5th 2005 00.48
Hour Day Month Year
wood earth metal wood
gap gay gung yute
chee may shun yuw
rat sheep dragon rooster
Another Spooky Coincidence
There was a big mirror on the hallway wall of Lucinda’s house. It was one of the first things I noticed. Mirrors are powerful, I told her. Placed right they are incredibly creative, placed wrong they are trouble. Hers was wrong but just a yard away was one of the best locations for a door or water feature in this Fate period. So we moved it. This mirror is on the money now, I said.
Her boyfriend could do with a boost, she told me. So we moved an image of him in and a mirror out of the tai chi (dead centre) to make her priorities clear.
This week there was feedback:
“…he (boyfriend) placed a £6 bet last Saturday and won £1100, a week after the mirror being moved but no luck this Sat, coincidence?”
These are small figures of course but in a pretty desirable ratio. And these are the same principles, measurements and placing that are applied to million dollar businesses.
What were those odds? 183 to 1? I suggested she might be a little hard to please. To her credit, as it happens, she knows she is. There’s no such thing as coincidence of course.
Clear and Bright
The solar fortnight Ching Ming, Clear and Bright brings in the Dragon month. The weather with any luck will correspond. In the greenhouse, my sunflowers have started to sprout but the tomatoes are still shy.
Ming meaning bright is the same word as that adopted by Hongwu to describe the Ming or Radiant Dynasty he founded in 1368. The Ming ruled until 1644, a period roughly corresponding to the combined eras of Plantagenets, Tudors and Stuarts. A while.
This month’s dragon is metal, a White Dragon. The Dragon is the most powerful animal of the Calendar, presiding over the explosive expansion and fertility of late Spring. For Confucius, dragons among men were self-reliant and appropriately detached but dragons are also said to embody meteoric rises in social status. On the other hand, be cautious if you are positioning a dragon for this purpose. Chinese Imperial Dragons have five toes. Restricted results may follow positioning lesser varieties.
The Five Skills Rodent
Some weeks ago I observed that Chinese metaphysics in general and the Book of Changes in particular has been regularly plundered for song titles and band names. (Does anyone remember Marrying Maiden by It’s A Beautiful Day?) This month I came across a name just busting to be adopted: the five skills rodent.
Some background: once a month I trek to Neal’s Yard for Yi Jing classes with Peter Firebrace. The Yi Jing is of course the Classic of Change. The orthodox pronunciation I Ching is apparently one of those linguistic booby traps the Chinese delight in as it actually denotes a volume of pornography. So remember to say Yi Jing or simply Yi.
Relatively few people are aware that the Yi is also at the heart of feng shui. Every location on the compass relates to a particular Hexagram. Indeed the smallest gradations on the perimeter relate to the changing lines of that Hexagram. This is of central use as a changing line implies the Hexagram that changing the line would create. So if a door is inconveniently placed, we can put a mirror at the location of the Hexagram that the changing line implies and in effect open the door there instead.
Peter is concise, authoritative, sensitive and flexible. He also speaks and writes fluent Chinese. The current course which is always stimulating and often demanding, emphasises the changing lines of the 64 Hexagrams.
Last month it was revealed that line 4 of Hexagram 35. Jin, To Advance, features the talents of the flying squirrel or five skills rodent. Which sounds pretty nifty. The Chinese themselves however are dismissive. They consider that although the squirrel can fly and climb it can not travel far enough, it swims but not across a stream, burrows but not sufficient to conceal itself and runs but not so as “to outrun a man.”
There’s no pleasing some people.
North West Water: Latest News.
1. Some emailing back and forth with Leonie. She has a shower in the NorthWest where it is splashing away the metal. After working on this part of the house her son’s chest (also metal) is responding and she has more energy. But she and her partner are arguing more. Are things getting better or worse?
Rebalancing the North West will tend to regenerate father figures. All father figures. And often a woman with a tricky North West has issue with her father. As she heals this area, she will heal the father of her children as well as her own. It’s all or nothing. And attention to this will tend to bring up disputes that have been long-neglected. If they are aired – however robustly – in a spirit of seeking the truth, this is very healthy. When the issues recur, the technical term is bickering which is unlikely to heal anything.
Let’s go a bit further. Read on only if you have a tolerance for the obscure.
2. In the beginning is the tao. Then follows a series of yes/no decisions. Dark or light. Matter or spirit, this sort of stuff. Then follow, as the Chinese have it, the 10,000 things.
When we are born, an illusion we are presented with is a series of decisions as to what we will do with our lives. The first is broadly who to use as a model: Mummy or Daddy? The second is whether we will accept or reject that model. Then follow our own 10,000 things.
We tend to this binary illusion because it provides us with a road map. But at the price of consciousness. And there exists a further choice within this particular illusion: our own path. Rough or smooth, this generally comes without a map and involves radical trust. Faith is often associated with it. Faith in what?
Purpose, Higher Mind, God, the tao, what you will. No wonder most of us prefer a map.
Now as far as paths go “Yes, Daddy” is no different to “No, Daddy.” It’s just generally more comfortable. Coming back to earth, you might say “Yes, Daddy” suggests a trouble-free North West and “No, Daddy” suggests problems there.
Not to imply this process is limited to women; it’s an equal opportunities illusion. One way to describe feng shui is that it is such illusions made solid: I write as someone who spent 14 years in a North West-facing house with a bathroom over the front door.
Oh, and Lucinda, I hope you’ve read this far.
Any feedback is of course always welcome including notice that you never want to hear from me again if that happens to be the case.
Best wishes,
Richard Ashworth
Richardashworthfengshui@hotmail.com
Richard is featured in Channel Five’s Housebusters during 2005.
As ever, names have been changed to protect privacy.