5th June 2005
Siu Mun: Grain filling; Once you’ve got a name you’ve got a label; Isis; Sarah’s Kitchen; Cycles of Change III…
Richard Ashworth
Feng Shui Diaries
Mong Chung: Grain in ear
Solar fortnight beginning:
Sunday June 5th 2005 22.45
Hour Day Month Year
fire metal water wood
bing gung yum yute
chee shen ng yuw
rat monkey horse rooster
Siu Mun: Grain Filling
The stem/branch combination or pillar (above) for this new month is yum ng, that is mixed water and fire chi. Internally conflicted, this pillar is called “
This however is the peak of the year and the chi is at its strongest. If you are skilled you can really get things done this month. Conversely don’t install feng shui remedies unless you really do know what you are doing.
I used to be in an origami group but it folded
Feng shui gets an interesting press. Everybody knows that tai chi, chi gung,tae kwon do, even origami are lifetime studies but we are led to believe that we can master feng shui in a weekend. This month only the imprudent will act on that belief.
Above all do not start in the West or the East!
Once You’ve Got a Name, You’ve Got a Label
I have been working with young Donald for fifteen weeks. I normally restrict a course of ba zi sessions to five because I don’t want to create dependence. In the 90’s I assisted on workshops with a number of world-class healer/guru/teachers/what-have-you, a decent proportion of whose audience appeared to come back again and again to retain rather than heal their stuff. Eventually it dawned on me that I might be among them.
Donald’s family want him defined. And yang metal is not good enough. Is he manic-depressive, sociopathic, schizophrenic or what? The more I see of him, the less I know. He is not keen on risk taking but that doesn’t mean he needs valium. He fears that if he gets too enthusiastic he will be disappointed but then so do I.
When he came to me he was spending most of his time in bed. Now he plays computer games and he has signed on which means his mother is not totally responsible for his upkeep. And signing on was just the sort of death-by-paperwork that for him characterises adult life. Simple enough to you or me but for him it was the
I suspect that his best chance is not to be diagnosed and put in a box but to keep talking. And I’m perfectly prepared to do that indefinitely for nothing.
People are often labelled so that we don’t have to consider them as real people. It’s tempting to agree that Donald is a paranoid schizophrenic like one brother or a workshy dreamer like another. But the great thing about Chinese elemental theory is that to say a house or a person has too much metal or too little wood implies a solution. If you have too much of this we can drain it with a little of that.
Michael Breen once said to me that people are verbs not nouns. We can not be defined in any final way. By the same token, helpful description is adverbial: it modifies the verb of behaviour rather than pinning down the noun of who we are. He behaves this way or that; not he is this or that. Once you’ve got a name you’ve got a label.
Isis
I’ve been burning the midnight oil writing feng shui items for
The people involved are goodhearted, skilled and smart. The idea, a digital magazine covering subjects from crystals to the Course in Miracles, that is both up to the minute and incremental is ingenious and deserves support.
Interestingly I did a little feng shui for Suzanne who is behind
Sarah’s Kitchen
Sarah had two floods this month, both shortly after my survey.
The first was in the kitchen she was planning to make over. The water came up through the floorboards. The second flood was in the bathroom.
Her house faces may the Sheep in the South West and backs onto chow, the Ox in the North East. This is among the most stubborn configurations. And the back door is about as malicious as I have seen.
She is a bright curious woman and the kitchen is in the South which is of the fire element representing brightness, enlightenment and curiosity. Elementally and otherwise water puts out fire. By implication these qualities are threatened.
The second flood was in the SouthEast which represents the 1st Daughter, and by extension the fun and freedom of a young woman. A flood in aYin wood area is like new grass swamped with rainwater. It implies exhaustion by duty. It’s too much. Which sounds like the sort of message a thinly-stretched (voluntarily) single mother might send herself. But 27 seems a bit early to shut down.
So I’ll be off in the morning to do what I can to keep her bright, curious and underwhelmed. Her full survey, let me remind you, comes as always, with my commitment to stay involved until there is a smile on her face.
Cycles of Change III: why England
1966 was a bing ng double yang fire year. Its closest equivalent to date has been the yum ng year of 2002 when you will recall, we were beaten in the last eight by the eventual winners. We will probably do well again in 2014 but probably not before.
We did of course win a minor competition with a different-shaped ball at the end of 2003.
Ending Hunger
Focus appears to be on G8 in
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/mph/campaign/process.do
Any reassurance is very welcome.
Feedback is encouraged including that you never want to hear from me again if that happens to be the case.
Best wishes,
Richard Ashworth
Richardashworthfengshui@hotmail.com
If Poverty is to be History now is the time.
As ever, names have been changed to protect privacy.