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Pyramid Feng Shui Newsletter April 2013

Saturday, April 13th, 2013

Greetings to all who share the wisdom of feng shui!

 Mindfulness!

Once again, science is trying to catch up with feng shui.  Mindfulness is the new buzzword in medicine, health care and the corporate world.  Mindfulness even made its way onto the agenda of the World Economic Forum 2013, the annual event held in Davos, Switzerland. 

It seems to me that we have always been mindful with everything we do in feng shui.  Mindfulness, in itself, is an abstract term and beckons to be further defined with descriptive explanations, e.g. mindfulness as a “method to sharpen focus and open minds,” or “intentionally paying attention to the present,” as perhaps in “mindful eating.”

Feng shui has the immediacy and the presence of mindfulness because it serves as a constant reminder of what is meaningful and important in the way we live.  In feng shui we talk about intention and awareness, but in essence, we are mindful of our path in life and how we connect to what’s around us every moment of our day and night. 

Qi (Chi), therefore, is the mindful experience of how we perceive life with all our senses.  And mindfulness is a good reminder that feng shui is about more than placing furniture.  It is a more concrete and hands-on  effort to focus on the presence of specifics.  When we talk about qi, we are mindful of how we move through space, or what it is that captures our gaze, the fragrance or odor that enters our nostrils, and the rough or smooth texture of our walkway.

When we are suffering a disconnect in a fractured, information-overloaded world, the scientists see mindfulness as a panacea for living with more depth, meaning and connectedness.  Mindfulness is supposed to help us spend less time worrying about the future or fretting about the past.  To reach this panacea, though, you’ll have to spend time and money, read books and attend courses or retreats, practicing meditation, hopefully with the result of “directing your mind” and “settling into a more authentic way of being.”  (NYT 3.23.13)

We believe that feng shui is the more immediate and lasting method of connecting a person to the present and to place, and raising the self to a higher level of focus and awareness. Feng shui will give you mile markers and pegs to hang your hat, so that you know every aspect of your path in life as well as the process that guides you on your journey.  Instead of hovering in a meditative pose, we know when we need yin space to decompress, and when we need a boost of yang to get going.  Our deeply personal affinities are determined by either lacking or excessive elements and can be adjusted accordingly.  A mindful walk through our ba gua will connect us to what we see, hear, smell and touch, while mindful eating is stimulating or soothing to our taste buds. 

Mindfulness, thus, has been around for 5000 years, waiting for us to pay attention and discover feng shui in creating our journey by mindfully connecting to Tao.      

Be Mindful All and Every Day
With Pyramid Feng Shui!

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Pyramid Feng Shui Newsletter March 2013

Saturday, March 16th, 2013

Greetings to all who share the wisdom of feng shui!

 Feng Shui Tribe!

I’ve gotten hooked on a virtual community that operates under the name Feng Shui Tribe.  Why the word “tribe,” was my first reaction until I googled “tribe” and realized that it is a unique and innovative term to unite the various systems and schools that operate under the umbrella of feng shui.  Tribes are aggregates of people that are united by ties adhering to customs and traditions, common interests and beliefs, similar background, viewpoints and occupations. 

Under the leadership of Brenni Larson, the Feng Shui Tribe is conducting a series of 24 interviews as “Your Gateway to Health and Vitality.”  The Tribe seems to successfully unite feng shui experts from all the various practices and schools of thought – Form School, Classic and Compass School, Black Sect (BTB) and all other feng shui systems – in a harmonious effort to disseminate feng shui for the benefits of all who wish to raise their vibrations by using feng shui for positive life changes. 

Each speaker brings a unique viewpoint, running the gamut from the deeply spiritual to all the basic and pragmatic feng shui applications.  Brenni Larson’s “mission is to interview the top experts in the world and to introduce the variety of feng shui tools that you can use to raise your vibrations.”  Through feng shui, she hopes to reach nine million people with her vision to create a more balanced and harmonious world.  In her interviews the individual speakers address feng shui topics through their unique expertise and experience over many years as feng shui professionals. 

For example, Lois Kramer Perez suggests that “our entire space is a vision board” that reflects our past, presence and future; James Joy offers checklists of feng shui cures; and Carole Hyder describes how you can have “conversations with your home” that run the gamut from simple dialogue to written commentary and thank you notes.  The speakers answer questions on an audience dashboard and present their gifts to each participant.  Among many others, they offer tips on health and wealth, lifestyle and love, clutter clearing and intention. 

My tip for today is that you take a closer look at your “ming tang” or bright hall.  It is the space at large through which you enter your home.  It could be exterior or interior, and you might ask what captures your eye as you arrive or depart from your premises.  In your conversation with what you see, you might ask “is it uplifting, welcoming and inviting?”  Does it say “hurry back to my embracing, comforting refuge!” Your view as you enter shapes your attitude toward your private life, your microcosm, while your view as you exit shapes your attitude toward the world and the macrocosm. 

If you get positive vibes from your ming tang, you must be intuitively creating your personal best feng shui.  If not, think about making changes, perhaps with the help of your feng shui consultant. 

Adjust Your Ming Tang without Delay
And Learn from Pyramid Feng Shui!

 

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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 January 2013

Thursday, January 31st, 2013

Greetings to all who share the wisdom of feng shui!

The Year of the Water Snake!

This year the Chinese New Year begins on February 10th.  After our turbulent year of man-made and natural disasters, the weary Water Dragon slinks away, and out slithers the Water Snake.  And fortunately, with all five elements present in Chinese astrological charts, the Water Snake brings a fresh set of energies to the New Year.  

With no element missing, the year’s outlook will be positive, bringing harmony with fewer obstacles and problems.  A new sense of calm pervades the year, and everyone will have a chance to see better times ahead.  People will refocus their goals and work to create a new world order.  As seen from a spiritual feng shui perspective, the Water Snake suggests that the spirits of the Earth will be helpful rather than destructive.

We are moving from the strong yang of the Dragon to the mysterious yin of the Snake.  That means outward activity will shift from Dragon, the doer, to inward sensitivities of Snake, the thinker.  2013 will be a special year that should bring advances for scientists and scholars.  The Snake picks up vibes and senses inner truths causing falsehoods to be revealed and exposed.      

Advice for the Snake year of 2013:  Pause and reflect on the past as well as plan for the future.  Like the Snake shedding its skin, let go of all attachments – emotional, mental, physical, financial, and spiritual – that may be holding you back.  The Water Snake will bring transformation, rebirth and new beginnings. 

On an individual level, the Snake is very sophisticated and prefers a cultural home environment.  The Snake is elegant and graceful with a flair for luxurious comfort.  We might want to think about enhancing our environment with feng shui adjustments that would endorse these characteristics of the Snake.  Clever balancing of the elements in your living space will replicate in the microcosm what seems so promising on the macro scale.  Adding a little extra metal in your living space will also feed the water element that is so closely related to the year’s tendencies.  Earth and metal add resources to water in the productive cycle of the elements, symbolically creating wealth.  Also, a little sparkle will lift the spirit. 

The Snake is private and secretive, appears to be lazy, and loves to go on vacation.  However, keen and cunning, intelligent and wise, the Snake is working hard behind the scenes, putting great value on material wealth.   

While Ahead, Let’s Make Hay
With Pyramid Feng Shui!

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Pyramid Feng Shui Newsletter October 2012

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

Greetings to all who share the wisdom of feng shui! 

Halloween – Spiders!

Halloween, our annual holiday of ghosts and goblins, has a long history of celebrations and connotations dating back to Celtic, Pagan and early Christian traditions. It marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the ‘darker half’ of the year. 

It was seen as a time when the ‘door’ to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings such as fairies, to come into our world. The souls of the dead were said to revisit their homes on Halloween. Feasts were held, at which the souls of dead kin were beckoned to attend, and a place was set for them at the table.

Early Christians believed that just before “All Souls Day” the dead would appear one more time to get even for injustices committed during their sojourn on earth.  People took steps to protect themselves from harmful spirits, therefore our symbols and traditions are designed to scare them away.  Costumes are meant to be a disguise from being found by revenge-seeking spirits.  Spiders are among the many haunting symbols and images meant to be scary and off-putting.

In contrast to the negative aspects associated with spiders in our western culture, we would like to present a more positive view of spiders as seen from the Taoist point of view: 

Mind in the center
Radiates to eight legs,
Creating a supreme web
To sift Tao.

 A spider is a perfect creature of Tao. Its body is an elegant expression of its mind:  It spins beautiful threads, and its legs are exactly suited to create and walk its web.  From its center, a spider radiates its world outward with a spare economy.

A spider’s posture in regard to Tao is to set up a pattern.  Its mind determines this pattern.  It realizes the flow of Tao and does nothing to interfere with it.  It simply creates its pattern and waits for Tao to bring it sustenance.  That which comes to it, it accepts.  That which does not come to it is not its concern. 

Once its web is established, a spider does not think of expanding unnaturally.  It does not make war upon its neighbors, it does not go for adventures in other countries, it does not try to fly to the moon, it does not build factories, it does not try to enslave others, it does not try to be intellectual.  It is simply who it is and is content with that.*

Scare Evil Spirits Away
With Pyramid Feng Shui!

*quoted from 365 Tao

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