Sunday Aug 8th 2006 00.40
Lap Chow – Autumn Begins
Richard Ashworth
Feng Shui Diaries
Solar fortnight beginning:
Sunday Aug 8th 2006 00.40
Hour Day Month Year
wood earth fire fire
chia ji bing bing
tze si shen xu
rat snake monkey dog
Month: bing shen the Fire Monkey.
Solar Fortnight: Lap Chow Autumn Begins
Curses
This time the curses are mine; last month was of course a wood sheep (yi wei) not a fire sheep. Apologies to those who spotted the typo. Everybody else move right along.
The Fire Monkey – what to expect other than singed fur
As regular readers of these ramblings know, the qi of every month reflects a year in the past. So often the events of the month echo that year which this month is the Fire Monkey 1956, the Year of Suez. That was also interestingly, the year not only that the UN brokered a ceasefire between Israel and the combined forces of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan but also the founding of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and of the (secular) Republic of Sudan. That the events of August might echo 1956 would imply peace in Israel and some resolution in Darfur. Last week Africa Action blocked the White House switchboard with calls demanding positive intervention in Darfur.
Contact them at mobilize@africaaction.org
I’m cautiously optimistic as the Ruling Hexagram for the quarter from June 21st to September 23rd of 2006 is Number 11, Tai or Peace. Tai consists of Earth over Heaven. As Heaven’s natural movement is upward and Earth’s down, they combine peacefully. Those voices that have not been listened to so far this year will have either expressed themselves some other way by now or are biding their time. The various flare-ups around mid-Summer have been expressions of this.
1956 was also Year Zero for rock’n’roll. So this month may see the breakthrough of radical new trends in music. The breakthrough will be small at first but will gather momentum.
Coals to Newcastle
Carla Wong called me in this week. It’s always interesting working with Chinese people. There is a certain coals-to-Newcastle sense about it which reminds me what Westerners bring to the party and it can be often be a big opportunity to learn.
Carla is from Hong Kong and like every literate Chinese, corrects my dreadful calligraphy. In this case she points out that I have written “choi jing” rather than “jing choi”. It means something quite different and much more amusing.
While Carla is laughing at my penmanship we discover how much she needs my help. She has taken on a new restaurant that is struggling. Gradually it emerges that the coffee shop she was prospering from is being taken over by her husband from whom she is splitting. She finds it hard to see this as a choice and clearly still has feelings for him.
Then it emerges that she has taken on this particular restaurant because a friend needs her to make money for the owner of its lease who in turn owes the friend money. Not a great basis for a life-choice.
There are too many tables. I clear one from a position near the front. Not only is it blocking the ming tang (the area where qi assembles) but it is the biggest table in the building and it is round. I remind her that a disc is a yang male symbol standing for mature man, husband and father. Her husband is in effect blocking her way.
Too many tables in too little space suggests a need to make more money more quickly than the space is willing to allow. Less is more. Fewer tables will attract more people to stay longer. Time and again, whether it is in the Forbidden City, at Chatsworth or on the waterfront at Kowloon, unused space in the correct location speaks of sustained opulence. Surveying even the tiniest first-time purchase, I look out for empty space because it so often means the owner will improve their lot.
Carla does not take easily to symbolism. She likes things literal. I find this funny. So often the Chinese admire Western logic and have no time for the metaphor that is locked into the very characters they write. It reminds me of Douglas Adams’ remarks about humans and dolphins being the dominant species on the planet, one dedicated to aspiration, progress and construction, the other mostly messing about in warm water and both thinking they were themselves the superior intelligence, for exactly the same reason. I know few Chinese who love what I love about Chinese culture.
The front door is all wrong and there is little we can do with it And she has three vast mirrors that are so large they induce vertigo as well as being wrongly positioned. Rather than condemn them all wholesale I do a finicky calculation that shows only one is actually fatal. Fortunately all that is called for is removing it and making good the wall.
The front fascia is yellow and faces into metal in the West which is under the circumstances too static. The earth of the yellow will make the place safe and secure. The day may come when that is the priority but right now what it needs is action. We need something that will exploit the metal. My brief is to get the place going rapidly.
Where I have done this before I have found that what is called for is often not so much balancing as artful unbalancing. I prescribe fire which will attack the metal. The fascia is to be red. That will create some ripples.
Every morning she places planters full of bushes outside and then hauls them back in again at midnight. I ask her if we can leave them out and arrange them so as to create a further ming tang on the pavement. It is a classical technique, creating inner and outer ming tangs, so as to give us two places that gather the qi We arrange the gap between them so as to form the appropriate chi mouth. This is based on the position of the road in front which is in effect a dry river for our purposes and the direct mountain which is where the qi comes from. What the road is doing is not as many think, creating qi so much as limiting its movement.
The direct mountain is visible which is not always the case. All that means is that there is a clear gradient in the road. The ground rises to the South East. Somewhere in that direction there is a real mountain but the hillock the street sits on will do for our purposes.
In China all qi is reckoned to derive ultimately from the kun lun mountains in the North West. Beyond them in that direction are the Himalayas. You might say the qi slips down to the valleys from the Roof of the World.
We place some water to excite the qi inside. After years of honing and observing I have two preferences for its location. One is rapid, the other will be more sustained. Remembering the hurry of the space blocked by the table, I am tempted to go for the slower burn of the sustained position. In the Imperial Place the Emperor sat calmly at the back. You didn’t see him hurrying down to the front to greet visitors. He awaited the proper time and then they came to him. Nonetheless I place the water at the quicker spot.
We sit down to debrief. She is reluctant to agree that her troubles are a free choice. She is determined to see them in terms of misfortune and fate. Yes and no, I say, in order to master our lives we must embrace paradox. Both are true. It’s your destiny and your choice. There is still more to do. The wall behind the shop falls away 10 feet and next door are planning a very aggressive extension.
There is something incongruous about coming all the way from Godalming to talk Tao.
The Madcap’s (Last) Laugh
A moment’s stillness for Syd Barrett. When I wrote in November that the founding genius of Pink Floyd would be prominent in 2006 and that we might even hear new material from him I had no inkling that he would have to suffer death by doorstepping. Shame on the newspapers who unsettled this gentle spirit. Nor did I realise that simultaneously Tom Stoppard was writing Rock’n’Roll (now open in the West End) which features Barrett as a pucklike guiding sprite. Stoppard clearly still trusts, in this the 60th anniversary of its birth, in the redeeming power of rock’n.roll.
If I was right about Syd, then my premise, that 2006 features some sort of karmic return of 1967 also implies a dire future for George W Bush. Krushchev denounced Stalin in 1956 I notice.
Feedback is encouraged including that you never want to hear from me again if that happens to be the case.
Richard Ashworth
Richardashworthfengshui@hotmail.com
Names have been changed to protect ..uh…me