Sunday October 8th 2006 18.48
Hohn Low – Cold Dew
Richard Ashworth
Feng Shui Diaries
Solar fortnight beginning:
Sunday October 8th 2006 18.48
Hour Day Month Year
wood metal earth fire
yi geng wu bing
yuw wu xu xu
rooster horse dog dog
Month: wu xu the Dog.
Solar Fortnight: Hohn Low Cold Dew
Hot Dog
I fly into Hong Kong for the second year running just as the Dog of October arrives; this time as you can see above, a double Dog: year and month. This makes for a stubborn sort of month with isolated bursts of activity. This week proves to be one.
I am here for the 2nd International Conference on Scientific Feng Shui and the Intelligent Building. The words “scientific” and “feng shui” don’t often appear in the same sentence and my paper emphasises that. There is little that we can control and feng shui works best when we recognise it.
The fire and the metal above suggest volatility this month. As I have pointed out before, the three major stock market crashes of the 20th century happened in October. The South China Star headlines read “Hang Seng Index at all-time high” which might sound contradictory but all-time highs are often signals for selling sprees so I would not be too sure. I am just writing a note about possible aeroplane crashes in North America when I hear that a light aircraft has flown into a New York tower block. I can do without being right about such things.
Having sorted out broadband in my hotel room, I open an email from Aggie. She is building an extension to her new house and I have told her they need a kitchen door at a rather eccentric angle to the wall. This advice is derived from the chi calculation which is a formula to coordinate the entrances and exits of a building. Her architect is struggling manfully with the wierdness of it all but she wants reassurance that they are between them getting it right.
Once we have settled the exterior of a building which is perhaps 70% of the feng shui, integrating it with the chi calculation is most of the rest. In the majority of homes, curtains and soft furnishings are fine tuning. I have watched a feng shui master spend all afternoon surveying a home and only recommend an angled porch door. The chi calculation is that powerful. Having said that, when the interior is all we have to work on, getting it right is essential.
Since I surveyed Aggie’s house in January, their daughter Flora has improved. She has been suffering a mystery inflammation of the spine. Obviously she has been receiving the best medical and complementary attention but the improvement does seem to have taken place over this period and Aggie doesn’t want to rock the boat.
The email asks me to look over the draft plans. They have demolished a garage on my advice and I don’t take this responsibility lightly.
What was wrong in the previous house was hard to get a handle on. The routine calculations, flying stars, ba zhai and Imperial Heaven Stars didn’t give me much. There was a gutter that needed attention and the South East which relates to the eldest daughter was single storey where the rest was two. This is indicative but not usually too much of a problem. Puzzled, I asked a Malaysian feng shui master what he thought and he said “Look in the North West”, following I guess both the Taoist principle that everything is its opposite and so disturbance in the South East should relate to imbalance in the NorthWest and also that in a Dog year, any problem in the North West would be exacerbated. I have seen that several times in 2006. I looked closely but it did not seem to be the problem.
The single storey in the South East consisted of a kitchen and a bathroom/toilet. The bathroom chi was not exiting properly which is not ideal for a toilet anyway but it felt like a dead end. There was something very uneasy in there. We moved the little girl’s room about and compensated for the lack of a second storey but I kept coming back to the bathroom. Something nasty in the woodshed. It was as if the bricks themselves held something – which happens. I did some work with this chi; feeling the unpleasantness and breathing through it. Anybody can do this; it is just a question of focus. Centrally you have to be very honest about what you are feeling before you enter. But I still did not trust that room.
Aggy was juggling three kids including a baby with a multi-site business and a life, all from her home and for these and a variety of other reasons they moved house. Now they are improving the new place which is in every way bigger and better although several changes have had to be made. As it turns out, I can’t open the attachment to the email. So I send them what I hope is a reassuring reply and promise to look at the plans when I return next week.
The Hong Kong Conference is an interesting mixed bag. A young Japanese graduate student has investigated an island that has protected itself from sea and storms since the 18th century by surrounding settlements with a unique salt-resistant tree. At a gathering where the line between eco-design and fengshui is already paperthin her discovery is quite important. This tree is going to be of huge importance as coastlines recede in the 21st century in the face of global warming. The student smiles in that uniquely shy Japanese way as she is applauded. Derek Walters who must be the world’s leading non-Chinese authority on Chinese Astrology, delivers another fascinating paper on the astrological Mansions of the Moon. It is intimidatingly informative and he receives a justified ovation. Afterwards he tells me that global warming is simply a cyclical phenomenon. It has happened before and it will happen again. He compares it with the fifteenth century when the fabled North-West passage to the North of Canada between Europe and Asia opened up for a brief couple of years. I am not sure whether this is reassuring or not. I rather suspect not. Gaia gets her revenge in even when CFCs are innocent of the charges..
Another paper compares the feng shui features of Washington DC and Beijing as well as their history. This speaks both of feng shui ideas worth digesting and growing Chinese certainty of their place in the world. Comparing Washington and Beijing is a powerful statement. In the next decades knowing a bit of Chinese culture may prove more than a casual accomplishment.
On my return, having managed to open the email attachment, I talk with Aggie on the phone. The new design has flaws – toilets without natural light and too much glass at the back – but nothing that should interfere either with Flora’s health or Aggie’s business.
She questions the wisdom of having three separate dormers at the back of the house.
“What can I expect from that?” she asks.
“Sibling rivalry,” I say. “Three of them slugging it out instead of the usual two.”
“Oh God,” she says, “That’s already started. Do we need to do something about it?”
“Wait till the dust settles and I’ll place some cures.” I say. “Looks to me like in relation to the issues that count, you’re past the worst.”
She sighs. I remind her to start the improvements in the South West with the trees that need felling and not to demolish the garage some of which is in the North West, until after November 7th when the Dog month gives way to the Pig.
Now I just have the 85, 000 words of the final draft of my book to correct, a radio programme to write and deliver, my youngest son to teach ( I do Thursdays), three overdue reports and a year’s worth of notes to master before my study group on Monday as well as remaining present in the lives of my other children and staying up to date with Sheila my wife. Oh…and eleven ba zis in preparation for next week’s surveys.
Busy week.
Still it beats working.
If this is not quite enough for you, my voice is featured on http://www.myspiritradio.com/3-ashworthr.html Programmes change monthly; this month there is an interview with Neil Somerville, (author of the annual Your Chinese Horoscope) as well as regular features like the Flying Stars for October. My new super-duper revamped website is at www.imperialfengshui.info and my book The Feng Shui Diaries comes out in April 2007.
Names have been changed.
Richard Ashworth