Hurricane Sandy

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Stephanie Stewart

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a ghoul in the pursuit of knowledge when it comes to feng shui and ba zi. Whenever I hear about someone’s misfortune, which people tend to discuss more than their good luck, I immediately start thinking of questions: When did that happen? How did the person die? In what part of the house did the fire start?

One time I heard of an acquaintance’s house burning down and had to restrain my self on more than one occasion from going to take a compass reading and trying to find out more about the events of that day. I ended up settling for looking at the land form on Google earth and doing a drive by. Sort of creepy, right?

The great thing about studying feng shui and ba zi is that you can analyze absolutely anything so you can study all the time. When you need more fodder for study it is not that difficult to get accurate and detailed information about natural disasters like an earthquake or a storm, or “public” things such as information about the latest celebrity death or political candidates birth charts. The question in my mind is always “why?” Why at that moment on that day in that year did such and such happen? Timing is an important component in both feng shui and ba zi.

In this year of the Water Dragon (Ren Chen) many feng shui masters and consultants predicted we would see natural disasters related to flooding and earthquakes due to the yang water over yang earth nature of the Water Dragon year pillar. Yang water would be associated with flooding while yang earth is often associated with earthquakes. There are predictions that on December 21st of this year there may be a big earthquake due to the elements that will be present. History does show that there are earthquakes of large magnitude in Dragon years.

But this is supposed to be about Hurricane Sandy. What started me on this post was reading Cliff Mass’ blog: Hurricane Sandy’s Transformation.

What stands out:

In relation to the North American continent, Sandy started in the SE. This is the Dragon direction. The storm will get even more destructive as it moves toward the Dog direction or NW. The Dog is sitting opposite the Dragon. They clash.
This is the Dog or Xu month in the Dragon or Chen year, so it’s a month of clash energy where water and fire are released.
Sandy starts as a tropical storm (warm) but becomes stronger when it switches from a storm with a warm core to a storm with a cold core. Is anyone else thinking of yin/yang right now? In ba zi or feng shui terms, the yin yang relationship intensifies the effect and makes the expression more powerful.
Look at the pictures in the Cliff Mass post, especially the ones that show the temperature change – remind you of anything?

Don’t forget about the Hunter’s Moon (October 2012 Full Moon). It’s a major player in the storm that is hitting the east coast tonight.

Dry Earth

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Stephanie Stewart

You don’t have to be a gardener, farmer or feng shui consultant to know that the earth in Seattle is dry right now. It’s drier than than I have ever seen it before.

This is the first year I have considered the usefulness of an irrigation system. Rather than relying on regular watering my garden depends on mostly native plants placed properly. Californians that can take care of themselves and look good while they do it are welcome too. What I mean by “placed properly” is that every garden has micro climates. For example maybe you have a sheltered area, an open area, sunny, shady, dry, wet…If you plant things in the micro climate they want it will be much less work to maintain them. This is also how feng shui works.

Even if your garden was planned with feng shui and drought tolerance in mind, water will have to be added at some point in the season. If you have new plantings, transplants or seedlings they are going to need regular watering during their first year at least.

As long as your soil drainage is good and you keep the soil at a fairly consistent level of moisture, water will sink right in. The moist areas of earth tend to stay at a cooler temperature. If you are planting, transplanting or starting seedlings this is the type of earth you need. In feng shui and ba zi this cooler and moister earth is called Ji or yin earth. The wettest, coldest soil arrives when the thaw of winter begins.

The warmest, driest earth is present as summer turns into fall. Dry earth feels warmer than wet earth. Annuals or any newly sprouted/planted things tend to shrivel up and die when the earth gets too dry but the perennials, shrubs, and trees can tolerate it. This year, however, it’s been so dry that even many of the mature trees in my neighborhood were drooping and dropped their leaves early, obviously due to a lack of water.

When the earth is dry it tends to get more compacted here in Seattle and is testy about accepting water again. Until you’ve softened it up with a few days of sprinkling, the water tends to puddle on the surface and take awhile to sink in. In feng shui and ba zi this warmer and drier earth is called Wu or yang earth.

Today marks the first day of the Xu month or the month of the Dog in the Chinese Calendar. The main qi of the dog is Wu or dry earth but not typically this dry. We are so there.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Stephanie Stewart

It wasn’t gardening, that’s for sure. I’ve got the weeds and mess to prove it. This was the first year that my young garden was able to survive with very little attention. Some things even thrived. My little forest is growing up. I’ll give some of the credit to this temperate year of the Water Dragon which has now turned very dry. About the only thing I’ve done regularly in my garden is water and I didn’t even start that until late August.

This summer I spent every spare moment (and some borrowed and stolen ones too) studying the art and science of ba zi or Four Pillars of Destiny. Ba zi is an ancient Chinese method of predicting one’s overall life path and personality traits based on the birth data. The 4 pillars consist of the birth hour, day, month and year.

The birth chart analysis is based on observations of over a thousand years of data, theories from the I Ching (Book of Changes), and 5 Elements theory. It is said that when you take your first breath you inhale your destiny, which is based on the elemental phases present at the time. Ba zi is often called Chinese Astrology but it can be better explained as a statistical and logical analysis of the data, used in conjunction with certain algorithms. There are software programs written to decode ba zi charts but none will ever be able to compete with a human brain when it comes to recognizing the subtleties of human nature.

Having your chart analyzed is a great way to get to know yourself better and make choices that will improve your life. It can also be uncomfortable as no one likes to think about the aspects of themselves they perceive as unattractive or undesirable. Every quality about us has both helpful and unhelpful characteristics depending on how we wield it. Ba zi is not about judgement. It’s simply meant to help us understand why we do what we do, why certain relationships in our lives are the way they are, and what our hidden talents may be. The goal is to provide a solid foundation of understanding so you can make the best choices for yourself.

For example, each person has favorable and unfavorable elements in their chart. These elements will also come into play through timing. Most of us end up choosing a career that corresponds to the dominant (not necessarily favorable) element in the chart. That doesn’t mean that you’re in the wrong career. It just means that you might be happier in a career that corresponds to your favorable element or you could take a fun new direction in your current career. As the BaZi Queen says (I’m paraphrasing): The point of the analysis is to find out what your special gifts are and set them free.

If you made it this far and you’d like to see what elements are in your chart click here and enter your birth data, including time of birth. If you were born when daylight savings time was in effect subtract one hour from your birth time.

Well – that’s enough of the technical stuff for now. I’ll be writing more about feng shui and ba zi in the weeks and months to come. If you’d like to know more about how I ended up in Seattle studying Chinese Metaphysics click here.