Windows – through a glass darkly

Who wants clean windows?

We all do, that’s who. I was just sent the following article with “7 ultimate” tips for clean windows. http://tinyurl.com/q6fuujj  Go ahead and read it if you want, but I’m here to tell you you do not need any of the tips.  In fact, you only need a certain cloth and plain water.

Mystic MaidA friend gave me a “Mystic Maid” cloth months ago.  It looked like most any other microweave cloths, so I put it away. She had told me it was an incredible invention. Yeah, sure.  But later, for some obscure reason, I got it out and looked it up on the net (http://tinyurl.com/oh8sx7t) and thought, “worth a try.”

Was I surprised by the ease of no streaked clean windows? Oh yeah.  Yes, I had to rinse the dirt off the cloth, but that’s not beyond my skill level! I went back to their site to explore a bit more and found the “press reviews.” http://tinyurl.com/px5v6ex. I am now a believer, for windows, porcelain, stainless.  Because it costs $15, I treat it with care and don’t go after the really nasty stuff.

How much have I spent on squegee, mop, cloths, and cleaner? More than $15. But $15 is certainly worth it when I can, in 8 minutes, clean the slider to the patio, the kitchen windows inside and out with a single cloth and water.  I now have clean windows and can keep it that way with no bother.

This was NOT a paid commercial. Simple is better. And this is good Feng Shui!

A Feng Shui tune up – Windchimes!

Too often I hear people disparaging wind chimes as just another gewgaw to annoy the neighbors.  Beg to differ. Here’s a brief story to help you understand how the ancient art and science of Feng Shui uses wind chimes.

A client loved her new home, but soon realized that she was unable to relax and recharge.See through The home had a beautiful view of the valley, had lots of light, was room, and not cluttered. She called her Feng Shui practitioner wanting it fixed.

Here was a home that welcomed you, inviting you in. Yet once in the front door, all the energy zoomed out those gorgeous picture windows overlooking the valley. As far as the energy went, you could have had 3 or 4 big fans making wind in the home. No wonder she couldn’t relax!

The fix was to use strategically placed wind chimes to disperse and slow the energy. A visual metaphor is possibly a better illustration of what a good wind chime can do.

Picture a tray or plate with sand mounded on it. When wind meets the sand, it picks up grains of and takes them where the wind goes. This is the situation when the home’s chi is lost – right out the beautiful picture windows. Now quietly vibrate that same tray and what happens? The mound dissipates and the sand becomes flat, level. The chi enters the home, gets dissipated  by the wind chime and only later leaves.

Choosing the right wind chime is critical. We’ve all been on vacation where every craft shop and garden center has many, many to choose from.  Some are crafts gone mad. Come are downright clever. Others cute. You need none of these. Look for a wind chime that produces a positive effect on YOUR mood. A good wind chime is a pleasing sound one you won’t mind hearing when the wind moves it.

Some of the better ones are tuned to certain musical keys. You’ll resonate with one over the others. That’s the one for you.

Two manufacturers of high quality chimes are Woodstock and Music of the Spheres. You can listen to them online. See how they affect you. (These are just suggestions, I have no affiliation with either.) Pick the one that draws you – that creates pleasure. Then hang that one where the Feng Shui Practitioner suggested.

Of the client? Her practitioner brought her a wonderful one (she later got 2 more!) and she feels 100% different.

Sound is one form of energy that Feng Shui works with. Used correctly, sound can change your life! (You get a ‘tune-up’ for your car…what about a tune up for yourself?)

The Teacher got Caught

Recently my refrigerator went down and had to be replaced. The new was deeper than the old. Once in place, the new frig New Refrigeratorwould prevent the pantry door from opening. I got the men to remove the pantry door. OMG, I forgot that the back of the door had a 6 self storage unit on it filled with food. That one move required a total redesign for the pantry. It meant eliminating so much: unused spices, cans of unusual stuff I had not used in years….

Next came the realization I have more than enough. In fact, I have TOO MUCH. Time to dredge the depths of closets, drawers, the storage places and remove “stuff” clogging up the areas.

Once the pantry was done, what about the other parts of the kitchen? The coat closet? The dresser drawers. etc.,etc.,etc.

Now I have 20 grocery bags full of stuff to be repurposed to others, sold, or donated.

And even after that, there’s so much left!

The teacher needs to be practicing what he preaches!

My wish? Those who enjoy what I coach would allow me to help them. You may know I recently ran a series of webinars and free teleconferences. They were singularly unsuccessful, and what follows was typical when I surveyed folks as to what was wanted, needed and what they would do about it.

Clients wanted me to give Feng Shui cures for their home. But the home was full of very confused energy, due to the owner’s multifaceted interests and pursuits. They felt if I gave them some Feng Shui cures, all the confusion would dissipate and their life would change. If we were in the kitchen, they wanted the finished dinner and I, as their cook, would provide it. What didn’t they see? Certain things would have to happen and happen in a certain order before dinner could appear. They could’t expect a calm, serene, and nourishing home (or ‘dinner’ of the example) until they became willing to clean out the clutter. Once done, clarity would become evident, or at least visible.

However, the clients would not, could not, face the challenge. Instead they wanted a device, or an object, or an arrangement, that would give them their desired result.  I don’t have a magic wand, I have a very useful tool kit. I can help facilitate, coach, offer tools that work, but I don’t have a magic wand. More importantly, Feng Shui is an art and a science, when used properly, harmonize the person(s) and their environment.

They did not seem to be in touch with the fact we co-create.

My point? If we want change, we have to be willing to do something different. Just as getting a new refrigerator showed me that I needed to clean out my space, sometimes what isn’t obvious at first has been staring me in the face for a long time! Who, in this materialistic consumer society of ours, couldn’t use greater clarity? Being swamped with all our material goods, we don’t see that we can do it, and do it together is far easier!

Once cleared out, the next steps appear. That’s part of the magic!

THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS HAS BEEN WON!

It’s New Year’s Day and in my neighborhood. like the greater part of Ashland, Christmas decoration are being taken down. Those, of course, that were not removed the day after Christmas. So the politically correct forces can declare an open victory against the religious aspects of this holiday. Many folks got their lights and geegaws up right after Thanksgiving, in order to match Walmart and Target. The expansion of the Christmas buying season has trumped anyone who found Christmas to be the celebration of the birth of the Christian’s Son of God. Material acquisition has trumped inward reflection and gratitude.

The next target? Obviously, the only one left! Thanksgiving. Madison Ave has yet to figure out how to Sarah Palin Turkey 5commercialize the bird, however, Sarah Palin did a pretty good job on it not so long ago. It’s interesting to note that neither the Jewish High Holy Days, nor those venerated by  Buddhists have fallen to the venal appetites of those who have elevated Money above Existence, Spirit, God or whatever such a power means. Does anyone see any human arrogance is such a path? What does it have to do with Nature and the real world? Not much , if anything, from this man’s point of view.

2014 is The Year of the Horse – and Chinese astrologers suggest we can expect Mother nature to step up larger and more dramatically as we keep climate change under wraps and in denial. Gaia is pissed off. Oh well, time for the Koch brothers to sell more Coors!

As you get rid of ‘Stuff’

One of the great advantages of clearing out the excess in our lives is we begin to see how we could be living more lightly on the planet. We start to see that our values change and our lifestyle changes.  I have friends that decided to move their family (3some) to Baja California and live in a popup camper for 6 months. Gabriella wrote a wonderful blog about that time. Returning their life to the States has taken another couple of turns, but she made this post which I think is valuable reading when considering how your life could change.

Lighting as a Tool

In the midst of the dark days of winter, you become intimately aware of how light affects mood and disposition. In Feng Shui, different qualities, color, and intensity can be used for specific effect. You know this when a candlelit dinner suggests romance and a dank, dark day suggests crawling into bed with a good book. Using lots of bright light can enliven a party, whereas bright fluorescent lighting can make you want to escape. Some people are actually nauseated by the wrong fourescent bulbs. What’s to learn from this? When buying a lamp, or reducing your electric use by using compact fluorescent bulbs, pay attention to the Kelvin rating of the bulb you want to use. [Kelvin is the temperature of the light ranging from cold to warm.] A good lighting store will have boxes where the same photograph is lit with different lamps. Find the one that you resonate with and use that. All of us are different and respond differently, but it’s worth the time and effort if you’re going to enjoy your home or business, rather than finding yourself in a poor mood.

Have to sell? Want to sell?

Important Points to remember: Boost the curb appeal by fresh paint, flowers (no matter the season) and a GREAT front entrance. Doesn’t need to be overly grand, understated elegance is best. Not sure how to get there? That’s what I’m for! 84% of buyers use the the Internet to shop initially. Obviously a house the invites from the street is likely to get many more visits.

If you budget allows it, invest in bigger things. Kitchen and Bathroom are first. 59% of buyers have remodeled within the first 3 months of ownership. 47% did the kitchen, 43% attacked the bathroom. So these two can be make or break rooms for the sale.

Proud and Grateful

An excellent service for locating local service providers has started growing by leaps and bounds.  It’s called Thumbtack.com and it may well be in your area.  Check it out.  But why would I be pushing a thumbtack at you?  Simply because I signed up, and quickly accumulated 4 reccomendations from folks familiar with my work.  You can check that out at: http://www.thumbtack.com/or/ashland/feng-shui/effective-feng-shui-for-home-or-business This is not a quick and dirty service, they actually check you out. As you will see there’s a rather legnthy interview process which is also verified.  Since people tend to do business with people they know and trust, I appreciate the throughness of their approach.  Facebook has come up with it’s own –Stick (that’s right – Stick, could be Schick, but we won’t go there…), but then Stick wants to go into your address book and pull names and addresses out. No thank you!  In any event, if you do check this out, I’d enjoy your impressions. You might even want to add your own business.

Needing to Sell?

Here in the Rogue Valley, tradition has it that all you have to do is put your house on the market and somebody, sometime, will buy it.  And, until a couple of years ago, that was true enough…sometime.  Then something happened and we now have at 18month-2year supply.  And still folks don’t think what a good Feng Shui analysis can do to let their home stand out from the crowd.

Problem often is owners have an emotional attachment to their home.  Realtors want to keep on good terms with the owners so they tend to go alone with that attachment. Well, it isn’t Kansas anymore Dorothy, and folks would be wise to contact their consultant and ask for help. We bring an unbiased view tilted toward balancing the energy of the house and making it feel as nourishing as possible. The longer a potential buyer stays in the home, the more likely the owner is to get an offer, and these days, that’s important!

Pay Attention!

Pay Attention!
Allan Watts used to say that the trouble with English was that it could only describe parts of things and not the thing as a whole.  He used the illustration of a cat passing behind a picket fence.  Each space between the pickets was part of the description, and each was limited by what you could see – part of the head, then part of the neck and so on.
He contrasted this to the Chinese written system, which is made up of ideograms, or symbolic pictures of objects and concepts.  Thus, the symbol for a cat could be rendered in such a way that the reader understood that it was a grey tabby, kind of old, moving slowly, a myriad of characteristics.  It was in this way that Watts showed how we in the West have an incomplete understanding of the world as we communicate and think in a linear way (one letter follows another) while the Chinese use ideograms to communicate the whole.
“Alphabetic writing is a representation of sound, whereas the ideogram represents vision and, furthermore, represents the world directly-not being a sign for a sound which is the name of a thing. As for names, the sound “bird” has nothing in it that reminds one of a bird, and for some reason it would strike us a childish to substitute more direct names, such as tweetie, powee, or quark.” Alan Watts, Tao, the Watercourse Way, 1975, p14.
The natural world is not a linear system.  There are an infinite number of variables that interact constantly.  Indeed, we know that the only constant is change.  So to accurately describe one moment with all it’s variables would take ages in our linear, alphabetic language.
As we approach the New Year (the Chinese New Year will not be here until February 14) rather than making resolutions, I invite you to decide to approach the world differently –  pay attention to the natural world, for it is in that natural world that you will start to see great wisdom.  Once this process starts, the Chinese way of approaching how the part fits into the whole makes a lot more sense than our Western concept of breaking things down trying to gain control.  Indeed, as we in the West try to gain absolute control over the natural world, we end up trying to take more and more control through creating more and more devices which purport to give us more control. We finally become slaves to the devices of our own making, and still we cannot control even a small part of our world.
Take a look at the areas in you business that don’t seem to be working and try and observe what is blocking the energy from flowing smoothly in that physical space.  At home, look around your yard.  Where do things not grow? What areas are used often by your animals and where do they Not Go?  Inside, what room do you tend Not to Use?  Where do things gather (clutter magnets)?
Instead of trying to fix something quickly, take the time to pay attention and observe how the world operates in a
ny location you observe.  Don’t be in a hurry. Once you have a pretty good idea of what’s not being used or is out of control, what can you do to make it more harmonious?  Of course, that’s what I do for a living, but there’s a lot you can do before you need my services.  And if whatever you do does not give you the results you hoped for, then we do need to talk.  Hopefully, you will start to see that Feng Shui is not some mysterious or magical thing – it is very practical and based on considered observation of our natural world.
I think much of our problems today come from the fact that we (and I mean here our culture) keep attempting to remove our focus from the natural world and direct it to man made things. What is the latest incarnation of this?  Back seat DVD screens in cars!  People think they are buying distraction and quiet, but they are really demonstrating to their children that the man-made, the artificial, is more desirable than the natural.  And that, my friends, is a symptom of a real sickness.

Allan Watts used to say that the trouble with English was that it could only describe parts of things and not the thing as a whole.  He used the illustration of a cat passing behind a picket fence.  Each space between the pickets was part of the description, and each was limited by what you could see – part of the head, then part of the neck and so on.

He contrasted this to the Chinese written system, which is made up of ideograms, or symbolic pictures of objects and concepts.  Thus, the symbol for a cat could be rendered in such a way that the reader understood that it was a grey tabby, kind of old, moving slowly, a myriad of characteristics.  It was in this way that Watts showed how we in the West have an incomplete understanding of the world as we communicate and think in a linear way (one letter follows another) while the Chinese use ideograms to communicate the whole.

“Alphabetic writing is a representation of sound, whereas the ideogram represents vision and, furthermore, represents the world directly-not being a sign for a sound which is the name of a thing. As for names, the sound “bird” has nothing in it that reminds one of a bird, and for some reason it would strike us a childish to substitute more direct names, such as tweetie, powee, or quark.” Alan Watts, Tao, the Watercourse Way, 1975, p14.

The natural world is not a linear system.  There are an infinite number of variables that interact constantly.  Indeed, we know that the only constant is change.  So to accurately describe one moment with all it’s variables would take ages in our linear, alphabetic language.

As we approach the New Year (the Chinese New Year will not be here until February 14) rather than making resolutions, I invite you to decide to approach the world differently –  pay attention to the natural world, for it is in that natural world that you will start to see great wisdom.  Once this process starts, the Chinese way of approaching how the part fits into the whole makes a lot more sense than our Western concept of breaking things down trying to gain control.  Indeed, as we in the West try to gain absolute control over the natural world, we end up trying to take more and more control through creating more and more devices which purport to give us more control. We finally become slaves to the devices of our own making, and still we cannot control even a small part of our world.

Take a look at the areas in you business that don’t seem to be working and try and observe what is blocking the energy from flowing smoothly in that physical space.  At home, look around your yard.  Where do things not grow? What areas are used often by your animals and where do they Not Go?  Inside, what room do you tend Not to Use?  Where do things gather (clutter magnets)?

Instead of trying to fix something quickly, take the time to pay attention and observe how the world operates in any location you observe.  Don’t be in a hurry. Once you have a pretty good idea of what’s not being used or is out of control, what can you do to make it more harmonious?  Of course, that’s what I do for a living, but there’s a lot you can do before you need my services.  And if whatever you do does not give you the results you hoped for, then we do need to talk.  Hopefully, you will start to see that Feng Shui is not some mysterious or magical thing – it is very practical and based on considered observation of our natural world.

I think much of our problems today come from the fact that we (and I mean here our culture) keep attempting to remove our focus from the natural world and direct it to man made things. What is the latest incarnation of this?  Back seat DVD screens in cars!  People think they are buying distraction and quiet, but they are really demonstrating to their children that the man-made, the artificial, is more desirable than the natural.  And that, my friends, is a symptom of a real sickness.