Windsor Knots and Windsor Soup
Windsor ties, Windsor soup.
“Same s***, different day.” Skepta.
The Groundhog Year of the Metal Ox wears on. The Rabbit month opened into the week of Meghan and Harry. Racism among the upper crust; who’da thought it?
Master Peter Leung with whom I studied Four Pillars awhile, reckoned that if a child’s chart did not have certain affinities with the father’s, the two were not related by blood. There have long been rumours about Harry, he looks just a bit too much like his Mum’s (alleged) lover Captain James Hewitt. But students of royal ba zis will have noticed that there is a Pillar that connects up the Windsors. Which Harry shares.
The Animal concerned is the Ox; any Ox – Harry’s Mother was a 1961 Metal Ox – but principally the Fire Ox. Years ruled by the Fire Ox include 1937 when the brand-new Royal Family moved into recently-emptied accommodation at Buckingham Palace following the abdication of Edward VIII. Those familiar with ba zi will be unsurprised to find this pair of characters – Fire Ox – also in the Queen’s chart. From that Ox year of 1937 on she was no longer a relatively obscure princess who could spend her life improving bloodstock, but the Heir to the Throne. It’s probably engraved on her heart.
Something similar may have been true of the next Fire Ox 1997, the year Harry’s Mother died. Predictably the Royal family shut up shop after the accident, claiming they didn’t do emotion. The Queen was very fortunate she had Tony Blair to talk her out of that. Whether it’s allowing her poor lost sister to marry or recognising the transfusion of grace that Diana brought the Royals, there’s usually an idiot adviser ready in such crises to insist that in line with tradition, she does the dumb thing.
That same Fire Ox presides over Harry’s Fate* from 2022. And many ba zi Masters myself included, have been watching out for it all this time. Some even, like me were pointing out in 2020 that 2021 would be a rough one for the Windsors. And the Murdochs by the way, so not all bad.
He was funny old thing, Peter Leung, both irascible and loveable in the way that only Chinese Masters seem to know how to do. Every analysis condemned the subject: weak, immoral, cowardly; humanity appeared to be essentially rotten. Following summary judgement he’d rush outside to smoke a rollie at every break, clutching an enormous chart that appeared to feature every Chinese character I knew and a thousand more.
“It’s all patterns,” he’d say. “If there’s a pattern I’ll find it.”
Follow me here: the unique thing about the Ox is that it dominates the Rat, technically the Earth of the Ox combines with the Water of the Rat to make more Earth. To the untrained observer it’s simply that Rats work to someone else’s agenda in an Ox Year. And there are so many Rats in the Royal Family: Harry himself, Charles and indeed Andrew. All run by the Ox of this year right now. The dead hand of Princess Diana perhaps.
Each evening at the end of class, a group of young Chinese Singaporeans would gather with Master Peter in the bar and make stock market predictions. I don’t know what or if he drank but I observed from the other side of the bar that he’d nip out for a roll-up several times an hour.
One time I sat with him. He told me he’d spent forty years in Canada. And that he despised Canadians. In future he was only going to teach in Cantonese. He may be doing that now for all I know. He was a brilliant man with a unique take on ba zi. Which was why I travelled 10,000 miles to study with him and learned a great deal in a very short time.
Interestingly, you will find the Metal Dragon of 1940 in QEII’s Four Pillars. That was the year the Windsors resisted the traditional stupid advice and remained at home throughout the Blitz. That if you will, is how Elizabeth first gained the credibility that has lasted to the present day. You’ll also find the Water Dragon of 1952 there, the year she inherited the throne. Again engraved on her heart I imagine. Horses now reduced to a hobby, she’d have to make do with Corgis.
What next for the exclusive soap opera that is the Windsor family? Meghan suffers the “Earth Curse ” in 2021. Some Masters interpret the Earth Curse as a break-up, but having watched those two holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes while they sought comfort from Auntie Oprah, I doubt it’s as straightforward as that. There are however three Rats in Harry’s ba zi, a pattern which tends to tie him to the Palace. As for Metal Rat Uncle Andy – under the bus in 2023 according to his ba zi and also common sense, if by then Earth Rat Charles has taken over. It’s probably too late for Charles to learn to shush the hidebound courtiers but by then he’ll have little choice, I expect.
“It’s all patterns,” Peter said. I guess he must have known what he was talking about because the young Chinese guys kept coming and he wasn’t doing it for free.
Richard Ashworth 9th March 2021.
*Can we be clear btw that Fate co-exists perfectly easily with free will? Wisdom often follows acceptance of paradox.
Richard Ashworth is among the most respected Western Feng Shui Masters. He was a pioneer of feng shui survey & analysis at a distance (now of course pretty much the only way to do it) on MySpirit Radio in the noughties. A good taster of his approach may be found on Audible at https://adbl.co/2m92Es3.You can also see him at work on tv’s Housebusters at https://bit.ly/2lJWLBl
Richard has worked from Lebanon to Bermuda, in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and with stars such as Kelly Hoppen and Gillian Anderson. Unusually for a Western Master, he has addressed the Grand Masters at the International Feng Shui Conference in Singapore. He teaches ba zi and Classical feng shui one-to-one online by arrangement.
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