LUNAR CALENDAR
March
20th – The Vernal Equinox
30th – New Moon – start a new project
April
15th – Full Moon with Lunar Eclipse – Passover – tax day, finish your taxes
29th – New Moon with Solar Eclipse – start a new project
Happy Spring from Feng Shui Design
Spring is here at last – according to the calendar. This change of seasons brings a change in our Feng Shui. As we know, Feng Shui uses Nature as our model for living. We emulate nature. Working with nature instead of working against it is always recommended in feng shui. This is called going with the flow. This winter, Nature threw us a curve. We needed to adjust our lifestyles accordingly and because we hadn’t anticipated this severe weather, some of us were caught off guard. Hopefully this weather challenge is about over. Hopefully, this Spring nature will become warm and harmonious so we will get back to a peaceful existence and can be outside more and appreciate our homes more when we get back to them.
Given the recent weather, perhaps this is a good time to discuss feng shui for the bathroom.
BATHROOM FENG SHUI
Indoor plumbing is a relatively recent invention. How soon we forget this fact – that our great or great great grandparents used out houses and didn’t have indoor plumbing. In ancient days when feng shui concepts were created, people definitely used bathroom facilities outside their living space. A pit in the center of the house would have been a very bad, smelly idea. Hence this created the bad image of center bathrooms in feng shui. Today our bathrooms are much better places to be but still the idea of them is less than an ideal place to spend a lot of time.
We try to avoid seeing the toilet bowl when we first enter a space because this is our area of first impression. Keep the door slightly ajar or closed – if used regularly. Definitely do this if the bathroom is the first room you see on entering your space. Businesses and restaurants where you see the bathroom signs first thing when you enter usually don’t do well. In offices, employees go there first and have difficulty getting settling down to work. In Asian countries it is considered unlucky, unhealthy to talk much in a public bathroom.
Keeping the lid closed on the toilet bowl is a good idea. It is thought that good luck and money will go down the toilet bowl. Just looking into it unnecessarily isn’t desirable because of what goes down there and what it represents. Yes, it happens but we try to keep everything auspicious in feng shui. If you cannot keep the lid down for practical reasons: let’s say, this cannot be done because the chi would be trapped due to infrequent use (moldy bathrooms are never good feng shui so keep the chi circulating) or if family members are not willing or able to keep the lid down, you can do the following:
Put a bowl of rice on the back of the toilet tank. Use uncooked rice and fill the container 2/3rds to 3/4ths full. Remember that a container should never be left empty or filled up completely. Empty is a sign of lack. Totally full means that this is as good as it gets. Please leave room for improvement. BSTB cure from Professor Lin Yun in your red packet. (Send or receive 9 red envelopes if you share this information)
If you have small children or it is impossible or impractical to have the bowl on the back of the tank. You can use an alternative method:
Put a small round mirror on the floor behind the toilet tank so that it reflects up. This also keeps good luck and money from going down the toilet.
Are you sending money down the drain? Any leaking water from faucets or toilets that won’t stop running are considered financial loss. Water equals money and leaking water is considered “money down the drainâ€.
The METAL CURES
Have you put your metal cure in the NW yet this year?
Many of us keep a clock with a second hand that we move from place to place each year when the #5 requires it.
In using the 5 element cures, – water, wood, fire, earth and metal — it is often a challenge to bring in an appropriate choice for your space. We can use the element itself or the color or shape of it. Let’s start with the metal element because it is often the most crucial element to add.
METAL is:
- Coins and metallic wind chimes (mostly for outdoors)
- Grandfather clocks, clocks with second hands, moving metal pendulums. (moving metal is stronger than metal that just sits there.)
- Metal weights and exercise equipment
- Kitchen and laundry appliances
- The color white or metallic sheens
- Round or dome shapes — for example, dinner plates
- Decorative items and home accessories – see photo of new lighting at DWR and metal reflecting balls at CB2
These reflective balls help you to get a wide view behind you and are also used where we need a mirror to bring in a side door to be seen from the street.
Creating a House for all ages
Being able to stay in our own feng shuied homes when we get older can help keep us young and help us maintain our independence. If we want to live independently, not in any communal assisted living, then we need to plan ahead for a very supportive place you don’t need to leave.
When buying your next home – consider the steps. Literally, consider the steps and the stairs. According to real estate surveys, homes with a first floor master bedroom are more desirable when looking at two story houses. As the baby boomers age, we will be looking for no stairs. Will we go back to ranch style homes or move to condos or apartments with elevators?
If you are building a new home, could you add an elevator to the floor plan where a closet might be on two levels?
If you want to stay where you are but dread the stairs might be able to retrofit an elevator. It would add $20,000 + to the price of your remodeling. Of course moving is also expensive and if getting upstairs is the only reason you need to leave your home it might be worth the cost. If you love where you are and want to be there forever, isn’t it worth considering making your home livable no matter what your physical limitations may eventually be?
For more about home elevators and other ways to make your home more accessible, you can read from the Silver Cross website: http://www.silvercross.com/homeelevators.html.
They also discuss a chair lift which is considerably less.
If you are living on a high floor, there is a down side to elevators if/when the power goes out. I experienced this first hand when an electrical fire took out the power for a few days at the building where I lived on the 20th floor. There was plenty of stairs climbing going on guided by hunky Chicago firemen with flashlights..