As I study Feng Shui, the tradition, rules, and guidelines that have come down to us in the West, I have questions. Sometimes trying to figure out how particular ‘cure’ should be applied. Sometimes the poetic nature of the base principle becomes 
downright confusing as how to use it. The entire scheme of Feng Shui is steeped in a culture most of us here in the west find foreign – we don’t have the context. The poetic way it is expressed doesn’t fit our love of specificity.
The wisdom of Feng Shui made me wonder, what was here in the West that could also be called “feng shui”? Surely there had to be things that have been developed here that reflected the wisdom of the East but rooted in the West.
Our local paper, Sneak Preview, just published a notice that a Permaculture Design Course would be offered beginning in February. Many of the principles contained in Permaculture includes what a sustainable or regenerative lifestyle looks like.
This is NOT a Western middle class style. Permaculture incorporates what happens as climate change takes it’s toll.
The article defines Permaculture at “a system of land use planning and a design protocol for creating human habitations that embody three ethical foundations: care of the Earth, care of people, and the reinvestment of surplus to support those ethics.” It’s basis is positive approach to see our place in nature – not as dominators and controllers – but as an intelligent contributing part. If successful, is that not also the results of successful Feng Shui?
I’ve been invited to talk Saturday, Feb 27, at the Chinese New Year’s celebration in Jacksonville. I will tease out some of permaculture practices that I term Western Feng Shui and how we can use them now. I will demonstrate the interconnections between Fng Shui and Permaculture. Of course, many will say that Feng Shui is about the placement of items INSIDE the house. Originally it was used to site the grave sites of the ancestors. Hardly inside stuff! We can use it when siting a house, deciding whether or not to buy certain land, how to lay out an effective landscape. For those who feel Feng Shui is only for how to paint the wall and where to put the couch, I doubt that the talk will have any interest, but for others, I hope you will make it. The talk will be in the Old Jail in Jacksonville.
I will be giving two talks that day. You can make sure this will be a good use of your time if you will write me a note and tell me what you would like to know by attending. use <info@creative-visions.co> to send me what you’d like to take away.