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Pyramid Feng Shui Newsletter February 2013

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

 

Greetings to all who share the wisdom of feng shui!

Emerald!

Emerald is the new color of the year!

Last month we introduced the Water Snake of the new year which will bring transformation, rebirth and new beginnings.  Now let’s visualize this benign snake to be the color of a beautifully brilliant and translucent emerald.  As the Pantone color of the year, emerald resonates with all the expectations the Water Snake has promised for 2013. 

From extensive scientific research, we already know that green and a view of nature will speed patient recovery in hospitals, aid learning in classrooms and spur productivity in the workplace.  German researchers found that just glancing at shades of green can boost creativity and motivation. 

Emerald, however, suggests a more specific and discerning notion of a very special kind of green.  Emerald immediately calls to mind the precious gemstone of high value with shimmering watery depth.  Beveled facets create the translucent rectangle of the classic emerald cut.  Translucency is the Water Snake’s special quality of sensing inner truth and exposing falsehoods.  And the green rectangle defines all the characteristics we attribute to the wood element in feng shui, with emphasis on the sun rising in the east and spring symbolizing new beginnings. 

In this year of transition and transformation, emerald assists with understanding changes and new directions.  Emerald will help to discern information in decision-making processes.  Connected to the Tao of nature, emerald is a helpful tool when facing choices.  On a spiritual level, emerald is a healer, detoxifies negative energies and supports all emotional issues of the heart.  Emerald promotes personal growth and improves memory. 

How do we bring harmony and balance, promised by the Water Snake, into our daily lives?  And how do we apply emerald in our personal space and environment?  Perhaps green is not your color; perhaps you don’t want to redecorate or live in a green house with shades of emerald. Perhaps you’re not Irish and believe in the good luck of green clover, or flash your greens on St. Patty’s day.  Think about other, more subtle ways to introduce emerald unobtrusively and beneficially.  If you are the lucky owner of an emerald, wear it, or carry it with you, but don’t rush out and spend thousands to get one, a picture will suffice.

If green doesn’t appeal to you as a fashion color, you could get green undies or start writing your “to do list” with a green pen. More plants in a lush green with shiny leaves will bring nature to your interior environment while neutralizing chemical toxins.  Perhaps you could rid yourself of lingering negative energies and let healing vibes come your way by glancing at a painting with lush shades of emerald.  And last but not least, eat your greens and reflect on abundance, vegetation and natural growth.   

Bring Emerald Into Your Day
With Pyramid Feng Shui!

 

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Pyramid Feng Shui Newsletter August 2012

Tuesday, August 21st, 2012

Greetings to all who share the wisdom of feng shui!

Birthdays! Part II

Today let’s look at some practical applications for celebrating your birthday.  What type of energy do you want to experience on your special day?  Do you want to soar, be lifted high, be away from and above every day routines and chores?  Should it be a yang type of celebration with music and laughter and spirited activities?  Or do you prefer a quietly grounded yin type of ambiance with a few family members or friends to share a simple birthday meal?

If yang is your preference, let the wood or fire element guide you with color choices for décor and dress.  Is someone giving you red roses to vow everlasting passion and devotion?  Are you wearing your striped shirt or flaming red dress?  Create a wood memory, i.e. Tao connection with a new plant – a peace lily, a phalaenopsis, or lucky bamboo.  You could also plant a tree or shrub in your garden to grow with you from birthday to birthday.   

If all this is too much hype, let’s look at some earth options to tone it down.  Yellow flowers will underscore your good wishes for continued good health, and a card with dancing cranes is a symbol for vigor and longevity.  Perhaps you want to be on a nature walk or settle on a sandy beach for a picnic with your best friends. Sitting around a fire in a cozy setting will also give you this earthy feeling of togetherness.   

Metal and water might spark your creative options for finding a private hide-away on a secluded island or a historic point of interest.  Whatever your choice, make sure you feel connected and let the Tao be your guide in creating memories of the present and the past.  A family photograph, taken on your birthday, will anchor this point in time for future Tao connections. 

Metal and water can be instrumental in creating your secret list of wishes to be fulfilled.  Focus on the time span of your personal new year, the next 12 months or moon cycles, in lining up desires or projects.  Let your ideas germinate in the secrecy of the water element and then sprout in the growth cycle of wood

For your birthday menu let mother earth guide you to healthful choices from a variety of seasonal produce, mixing a painter’s palette of foods in elemental colors.  A feng shui salad of leafy greens with ripe tomato reds and yellow peppers, mixed with slender disks of summer squash or zucchini, offset with black olives or edible blue flowers, will be visually satisfying and pleasing to the taste buds. 

Unwrapping presents, tissues, foil and ribbons will be your touchy-feely session; a fragrant bouquet of flowers or the scent of burning candles on your birthday cake stimulate your olfactory nerve;  a musical card, playing the chicken dance, will make you bounce, and the tune of “Happy Birthday to You” will joyfully complete your sensory experience.

Enjoy Your Birthday without Too Much Fray
By Planning with Pyramid Feng Shui!

 

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Pyramid Feng Shui Newsletter June 2012

Sunday, June 10th, 2012

Greetings to all who share the wisdom of feng shui!

Lighting Hazards!

Incandescent light bulbs, made from thin glass and very fragile, have always been packaged in lightweight cardboard or corrugated paper.  Not so CFLs and LEDs!  You need a tool chest to get into the impenetrable plastic casing around modern light bulbs.  There must be a reason; and the warning labels will tell you.  

  • CFLs contain mercury!  If a CFL is broken, you may be exposed to mercury, which can cause serious health problems, including possible nerve damage. 
  • CFLs flicker, but so rapidly that most people do not notice it.  For those that do, it is most annoying.  With extra cost and effort, one can find high power factor (HPF) CFLs that flicker twice as fast – too fast to notice for anyone. 
  • Some of the CFLs have a time delay to reach full brightness (more so in bulbs than in spirals).
  • CFLs can have a thin cold glow that makes things look sickly although this has improved with some of the newer products. 
  • On LEDs we found highly visible and explicit warning labels.
  • LEDs seem to have higher radio frequencies (RFs), and if not installed properly can cause harmful interference with radio and television reception, which can be tested by turning the equipment on and off.  Such interference can be corrected by increasing the distance or connecting the devices into an outlet on a different circuit. 
  • Holiday LED lights can be dangerous if broken.
  • Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) contain lead, nickel, arsenic and other toxic chemicals.
  • Red LED holiday lights contain up to eight times the amount of lead allowed by California law.
  • White LEDs contain high levels of nickel.
  • The only LEDs not considered hazardous are low-intensity yellow ones. 
  • If an LED breaks, wear disposable gloves and a mask to clean it up.  Place the broken pieces into a strong plastic bag and take it to the nearest hazardous waste-collection or recycling center. 
  • The shapes of some of the LED bulbs are so different that some of them may not be suitable for clip-on shades or conventional lamps. 

Finally, we would like to alert you to the fact that any kind light can stop the flow of melatonin.  This is the hormone needed for healthful sleep.  More than any other, the blue light from modern electronics will disrupt sleep patterns.  Block blue light as well as any other source of light before retiring for the night and limit exposure to TV, e-readers and cell phones before going to sleep.  In feng shui we have always recommended that electronics be eliminated in bedrooms, and now, it seems, modern science is catching up with insights and risk factors.

This completes our series on the future of lighting.  We will keep you informed with new information, and we look forward to serving you with lighting consultations in your home or business.

Check All Labels Without Delay
And Trust In Pyramid Feng Shui!

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Pyramid Feng Shui Newsletter March 2012

Saturday, March 17th, 2012
Greetings to all who share the wisdom of feng shui! 

Incandescent Light Bulbs!

In 2012, our vision for a lighter and brighter future is enhanced with feng shui adjustments that add the right kind of light to our environment.  Since 1879 we have lived in the comfort zone of incandescent lighting.  We have taken light for granted and are seriously shaken up when the power goes out.  We search for matches, candles, flashlights and batteries.  When a bulb burns out, shopping for a new one was always easy.  75 W, the most common strength, is highly visible in big lettering on the corrugated or cardboard box.  We know how much light we get when we see the Watt and we choose accordingly. 

In Pyramid Feng Shui we distinguish between general lighting, task lighting and indirect (ambient) lighting.  For task lighting, we consider additional factors:

  • The level of general lighting
  • The type of task
  • The age of the person
  • The season
  • The contrast between task lighting and general surroundings (ratio should be 3:1)

Even with these considerations, we were able to pick the proper light bulb for our purpose.  Things became slightly more complicated when halogen bulbs, with a longer lifespan, were added, as well as full spectrum lights, flood lights and spot lights, which are usually higher in watt.  These were used to highlight art, architectural and landscape details, and special effects.   

All of the above will change as we stand at a crossroads, and from our vantage point we have to choose the direction of future lighting.  Government guidelines tell us that incandescent lighting will be obsolete, and that we must choose between wide arrays of futuristic looking light bulbs.  The highly visible lettering of 75 W or the equivalent has shrunk and is now part of a litany of incomprehensible tech terms for light bulbs that are imbedded in inaccessible plastic casings. 

With Pyramid Feng Shui, we want to help you cut a clear path through the jungle of light bulbs by stepping back and learning more about our familiar incandescent light bulb.  After that we will move into the complexity of futuristic lighting.  In addition to the large 75 W lettering, the old cardboard box gave you information about light output and life span, both of which you could readily ignore.  Let’s just review the simple facts:

  • Watt                     is the measurement of the amount of electricity used by the light bulb e.g. 75 W
  • Life                       indicates the number of hours the light bulb is expected to last e.g. 1000 hrs
  • Lumens                is the measurement of the light output of the bulb e.g. 800 lumens for 75 W

On futuristic light bulb packaging, watt has shrunk to smaller lettering equal to life and lumens.  We know already that energy efficient light bulbs have a longer life than traditional light bulbs.  But did we know that this lifespan is based on usage of 3 hrs @ day, and that frequent switching on and off will shorten the life expectancy?

To understand the future of lighting, we need to be familiar with lumens and learn that with higher watt comes higher lumens.  This is very important to understand since energy efficient light bulbs use less electricity and therefore require fewer watt for the same amount of lumens.  We need to shift our concept of light and brightness from watt to lumens, and since we are creatures of habit, this is a dramatic change in pattern and thinking.  For now, lumens is the key word to remember when you go about adjusting your feng shui lighting to fit the task. In our series of newsletters, we will help you decipher additional key words that matter on your path to a lighter and brighter future.  

Start Learning the New Language of Lighting Today
With Pyramid Feng Shui!

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Pyramid Feng Shui Newsletter February 2012

Saturday, February 25th, 2012
Greetings to all who share the wisdom of feng shui!

Color of the Year!

Tangerine Tango is the color of the year for 2012.  

According to Pantone, the famous color forecaster, we have moved from the friendly Honeysuckle Pink of 2011 into the more active and futuristic shade of a vibrant orange.  They call it “a spirited orange” that continues to provide the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward. 

The Pantone Color Institute, in its effort to distill the prevailing mood into a single hue, suggests that color can answer to people’s needs and that in 2012 Tangerine Tango encourages us to face everyday troubles with vigor and action. 

 In feng shui we sense a synchronicity in trends that express the feeling of the zeitgeist, encapsulating a mood, an attitude and an increased momentum of moving into the future.  Therefore, we address all needs with reference to the elements and what they represent.  The fire element is the unifying principle for 2012 in both color and light.

Feelings, notions and abstract ideas can graphically manifest in the layout of the feng shui ba gua.  When we stand at the entry to our space, which is the point of the” self in the now” and look straight ahead, the farthest area in our visual field represents the future.  Symbols of what we strive and wish for should be placed into this sector of the ba gua.  A bouquet of flowers in our enticing Tangerine Tango will stimulate visual acuity with a positive outlook for a better future.  Since fire is the missing element in this year of the Dragon, the futuristic shade of Tangerine Tango can be used to balance the elements in your personal choices for fashion, home and business environments.  We recommend Tangerine Tango as an accent color rather than a dominant color since it can be overwhelming in its intensity. 

Another interesting and parallel trend in this year of change and positive development is the popping up of neon colors in a variety of hues and shades.  Again, as accent colors they can transform the grays and blacks of recent fashion trends into an updated version of mood enhancing coordinates.  If you really can’t stand a futuristic orange, a neon lime green will boost the missing fire element in this year of the green Dragon.  Neon colors and the mix of yellow into red to create Tangerine Tango expand our vision for the study of light as this year’s theme of adding fire for a lighter and brighter future.     

Add Color to Your Day
With Pyramid Feng Shui!

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