Sunday July 23rd 2006 08.11
Dai Shu – Great Heat
Richard Ashworth
Feng Shui Diaries
Solar fortnight beginning:
Sunday July 23rd 2006 08.11
Hour Day Month Year
fire water wood fire
bing gui yi bing
zhen chou wei xu
dragon ox sheep dog
Month: ding wei the Wood Sheep.
Solar Fortnight: Dai Shu Great Heat
Curses
No this is not just random scatology. Amratalal believes he has been cursed. He has been seeing his substantial claim against a financial adviser through the death-by-paperwork that is the complaints procedure.
He believes the IFA took a sample of his hair and some belongings. Since then he has been hearing voices. It scares hell out of him. I’m not surprised; it would me too.
I’m not keen to define things. This is pretty much a rule with me. In so far as I have rules. My central premise is that I will go with the flow unless I have a better idea. And sometimes I do. That I think is the tao. The Mediaeval Law of Excluded Middle – everything is itself and not another thing – the platform on which all linear thinking is constructed, I like to treat as more of a suggestion.
So I’m reluctant to give too much energy to the idea of a curse. Still Amratlal, already ill and in an East-West house that has taken major feng shui work to turn around still needs comfort and relief.
“Only the good is true,” I remind him. “Everything else is a mistake.”
“How do I use that?” he asks.
“When you feel fear, simply give it love. Whatever it is that brings this fear and it could be many things simultaneously or separately, just wants love like you or me. It is not your fear. Just give it love.”
“How?”
“Think of someone you love and just feel. Nobody can curse you if you’re not playing that game. If you are playing in the world of shortcuts and march stealing there’s always another smart arse. Don’t try to win. Curses exist in the world of winning and losing. Winning and losing exist in the world of shortage and competition. There is no shortage and no need for competition. There is plenty of everything to go around. Simply accept what is so without aspiring to victory.”
I first came across these ideas in the Course in Miracles. And like any truth, discovering them was a process of recognition. Because these are universal ideas they are not part of any discipline – feng shui, religion whatever and belong to all.
Home Sweet Home
I looked at a possible new house for Lyn this week. Her daughter has been ill and she has had a lot on her plate. She is an effortlessly powerful woman; the kind that can juggle a baby, a business, two other kids and a life. One of her daughters has been ill. The house she is in now has serious feng shui weaknesses that look like the culprits. Some simple procedures appear to have helped but it looks as if although Lyn may be just about keeping her head above the flood, we may asking too much of the house.
The new one is fundamentally sound but the garage which is one storey and sticks out at the front while not being flush at the rear, has to go. It is in the NorthWest and this place has been occupied by a single father bringing up two boys for the last 20 years. A stubborn oddity like this is just the sort of neck-stuck-out you’d expect in the area that relates to Qian the Father. We don’t want Lyn and her young family to inherit this.
Following this thought, I next look for trouble in the South West – the area that relates to the missing Mother. Inches from the windowless South West wall there is a thick clump of quick growing conifer. No light comes through and the ground underneath is dark, barren and full of sharp dead needles. Nasty. On one level this is simply Heaven Chop (insufficient distance between elevations). On another, precepts of orientation dating from the Tang Dynasty have been violated. Mostly though it suggests what it would be like to be a mother here.
The trees have to go. During the week Lyn emails me; the trees belong to the neighbour.
Lyn is so resourceful a woman, I have fewer qualms than I might but sometimes I wish I only ever relayed good news.
How Do you Solve A Problem Like Maria?
Maria is about as low as she can go. She is broke, partnerless and heavier than she wants to be. Her rented home is full of inherent problems: the back garden falls away, the worst qi is in her office and living room and next door is too close. I could go on.
There is something about her Italian name that does not suit her.
At the front is a one-storey garage, part of the structure of the house but not connected by a door. I look at the Flying Stars, the temporary energies – not good. The garage is in the North East which is about endings. I have a vision of her here in her little car, the garage door sealed shut, the ignition on.
“You’ve thought of ending it here?” I ask.
“More than thought,” she says.
I tell her to open the garage as much as possible when she’s here. She’s not keen
“Things walk, “ she says.
“Play music, “ I suggest.
Her energy changes,there is a loosening.
“Do you like loud music? Rock’n’roll would be good.”
“Not loud music, no.”
“Uh huh.,” I feel into this. This is important. “Emotional music?”
“Now you’re talking.”
“Do you know Alain Stivell? Renaissance of the Celtic Harp? Plinking noises that suddenly turn into the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.” I have described it without waiting for her to answer my question.
“Yes, I know it.”
There is an eye-pricking moment.
“You’re a Celt.”
She explains that the Italian name belonged to her adoptive Sicilian parents. Sicilian-Irish, there’s a combination. I remember that joke about the Irish mafioso who was made an offer he didn’t understand. I’m largely Irish-Jewish myself.
It’s something about the Celtic response to music. The Italians are among the most emotional in their own response. What is music for otherwise? I have seen a room full of Italian men dissolve to Andrea Bocelli. But the Celtic response is double–edged. The Celt is capable of turning inspirational music into a wallow. And moroseness can so easily become a habit. And from habit to self-fulfilling prophecy is no distance at all.
The music she plays me is stirring stuff: Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms, Mark Knopfler’s Going Home, then a wondrously rousing piece of pipe music. I love it too.
Maria has every right to her pain. She was rejected, effectively orphaned and then carted from pillar to post. I have heard adults say children are resilient; no they’re good at appearing resilient. How are we to know who we are under such circumstances? And if we don’t know who we are, how do we know what our lives are for? There is a 40-something sitting in front of me but I see a six year old.
The answer of course is to look beneath our own surface, to not take the superficial so seriously. We do always know And we can always choose. But this is not invariably easy and it is especially not easy alone.
She nods along in that Irish way: quick to tears but quick to fury too. I ask her to remember to use the emotion as the inspiration it’s supposed to be. This is a talented and compassionate woman in quite a jam. She has the gift to heal if she will trust that she is herself watched over.
Would you believe it? – the garden abuts the motorway. Although it looms high above the garden, this is not the direct mountain. This is not the source of the qi but the river; the margin that holds it. There are a couple of tricks we can do to get it working for her and some classical procedures that are as old as the pipes.
We have turned the corner.
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
I will be away from the 8th to the 12th August; so response to communications may be a little erratic during that time. Sorry.