Thursday June 5th 2008 16.12
The World of Wu Wu
Richard Ashworth
Feng Shui Diaries
Solar fortnight beginning:
Thursday June 5th 2008 16.12
Hour Day Month Year
Fire fire earth earth
bing bing wu wu
shen tze wu tze
monkey rat horse rat
Month: wu wu the earth Horse
Solar Fortnight: mong chung Grain in ear
The World of Wu Wu
In Mandarin the earth Horse is wu wu. In Cantonese it’s mow ng. The characters are the same, only the pronunciation differs. I prefer the Mandarin.
Few Westerners realise how language varies from region to region in China. Every child learns English from the age of six but the underlying tongues are many and various. I’ve been with a speaker of Mandarin – that is the official language – unable to make himself understood in the North West of Hubei Province in central China. It’s a big place.
Wu Wu of course sounds like woo-woo. Which seems appropriate. This may seem a trivial observation but one face of feng shui is simple divination. That is to say that on one level, a feng shui master reads a house like a tarot reader reads cards. And divination is divination is divination. If you receive a nasty tarot card, a skilled reader will emphasise your free will and your power to circumvent drama through learning. A feng shui master will offer all of that as well as suggesting perhaps you move your bathroom. Change the house, you change the person. This has always seemed to me a more useful service: averting as well as alerting to drama.
As an example of feng shui as divination, I recall Master Raymond Lo speculating that the character for yin earth kept appearing in a distinctive position in the ba zis of his homosexual clients. He had explanations but was not as I recall, fully satisfied with any of them. I had arrived at a similar conclusion (and no better explanation) but for me it was because although the Mandarin word is ji, the Cantonese for the yin earth character happens to be pronounced gay. Master Lo is a genius but I had the advantage of having been taught in a language that was to me foreign. My ignorance if you like, lent me insight.
In drafting a ba zi as in surveying a building, the layout will tell me things but so may the weather, traffic or birdsong. The sound of words is sometimes just as important.
When I was first working in the world of woo-woo in the 1980s I remember counselling a Dutch girl who had dreadful money problems. The zen-monastery cum-business-community to which I had fled after throwing my life up in the air at that time had, like any community, its own jargon. One phrase that was commonly used was “I’ve got that,” meaning something like “I understand.”
After talking with her for twenty minutes, I pointed out that she had said in her imperfect English perhaps a dozen times: “I’ve got det.” It was no surprise then that she did. This is divination in action.
Tango by the Tent Pole.
Joey has sacked me from Rock Band. If I drum as badly on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” as I did on “I think I’m Paranoid” (by Garbage) he will lose 50, 000 fans, so I’m out. The world of computer games is a harsh one.
I have been surveying Charlotte’s new home in Egham. She is staying around the corner while she brings it into the 21st Century. An old lady had been living there for decades, becoming increasingly immobile. The garden when I arrive is no longer jungle but full of stacked trunks and branches. Although the old lady is alive and elsewhere, she is still here. There is a spot in the North East – traditionally the Ghost Gate – where her presence is strong. We breathe in deeply and allow it. Charlotte too. She appears pleased with herself that she can. Good for her.
How do I explain the old lady being in two places at once? I don’t but I have a vision of her rocking back and forth somewhere not far away and drifting between the locations, not entirely present in either. Who knows what this may mean? Feng shui is made up of metaphors and we get less by explaining not more.
This being an East-facing home there is potential wealth at the heart, the tai chi. The Xuan kong flying stars (or fei sin) show the fortunate 1:6:8 configuration. The tai chi often reveals the nature of a house. Charlotte can expect good fortune here. I am glad. This is not always so. A little activation may help.
“Is the tai chi just on the ground floor?” Charlotte asks.
“No. The term means great tent pole. So it extends up and down. The higher in my experience, the spot activated, the more rapid the outcome.”
“And lower?”
“Slower but more lasting.”
“So how do I activate it?”
“A blue rug directly on the tai chi would be my suggestion; both floors if you can do it. Sit there every now and then and just feel what’s going on.”
“Any particular shape?”
“Shapeless is ideal.”
Blueness and lack of shape are attributes of the water which will activate this spot.
In this year, the year of the Rat which is inherently watery, there is plenty of water at the tai chi but it is unlikely she will get a rug down on this rough screed before the autumn and next year it may be important to boost it.
Charlotte has a steady boyfriend but neither is sure quite how steady. He seems to be maintaining a second life separate from hers. Not that he isn’t allowed to have friends to go to the pub with but this may tend to keep the relationship stuck. There is more misunderstanding between the genders on this issue than most.
A home facing the Rabbit at the Eastern cardinal point also holds the Plumflower or toe far star to the North. This spot of energy traditionally promises the flourishing of relationship if it is cared for. I like this to be in the garden, where we can place water or especially bright plants. This being a terraced house, there is no outside to the North but the living room wall will serve the purpose, I think. We locate it and I tell Charlotte what to do with it. Charlotte knows it takes two to tango but one of them has to be conscious and she’s probably elected.
We talk about the distinctive colonial programming that has shown up in her ba zi. The family travelled constantly during her childhood. The only steady fixtures were her sister and parents. Now she is not close to her sister and finds her mother oddly envious.
“If I buy a new car, she buys one too, only more expensive.”
Her Mum probably has a story. Charlotte’s father was a member of one of the biggest boys’ clubs in the world: the RAF. Her married life will not have been an easy one. The forces in the 50’s and 60’s and 70’s were bastions of stereotypical thinking. Thousands of miles from Blighty trying to maintain their Britishness, the émigrés of Hong Kong and Singapore and even Paris are often more British than the British. I know some of this of course because the ba zi pattern is particularly indicative and some because I have travelled a bit but I know more because my own father was in an even bigger and slightly more ancient boys’ club: the Royal Navy.
When I return home, put down my case and sit at my desk to read the emails, I put on a Madness compilation. Madness: the greatest band never to fill a stadium. Why not? Possibly because they weren’t invited to Live Aid, Bob Geldof I guess, cared about hunger in Africa but not for nutty two tone.
My girl’s mad at me, Suggs sings, Been on the telephone for an hour…
Why can’t she see; she’s lovely to me but I like to stay home and watch tv on my own every now and then?
I know it’s sad and silly but if you want to know blokes, listen to Madness.
Richard Ashworth © 2008
Names have been changed to protect..uh…me.
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