Tag Archives: Nature

Expanding Feng Shui – the good news!

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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.
At it’s base, Permaculture teaches how to synergize with Nature.

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.

Adding Feng Shui to your landscape

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Beauty almost always includes positive Feng Shui. Good modern design often means simplifying, so it often unknowingly incorporates basic Feng Shui.

Here’s a link to 10 backyard renovations, each and all of which bring beauty in simplicity. There’s only one problem: notice how angular and yang they are. If you like these ideas, soften the lines (bringing yin energy in) and enjoy the results.

http://tinyurl.com/mwazxdb Zen outdoor fountain

THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS HAS BEEN WON!

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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!

Unusual Beauty/Changeable Chi

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It’s strange to me how we, mostly in the West, cannot appreciate what Nature does without our help. This fall, particularly here in the Northwest, has been especially color rich. Such glorious combinations speak of positive chi, but chi of a different nature. Fall is a time of transition with a glorious procession of events: first the leaves put on their spectacular show and then they reverse place – from on the tree to on the ground.  They present us with another incredibly wonderful picture of beauty, HOWEVER We then get out the rake or blower and get all those pesky leaves out of sight. How bizarre!   Now there is another beauty – and more chi. Were we sensitive to what nature has to tell us, this is a time to take another look at our life, to quiet ourselves and to go inside. I suggest we can learn much by paying attention of the every changing chi in the progression of the seasons.  Remember, I Ching says everything is always in a state of constant change. [And Feng Shui developed from the principles contained in the I Ching.] Let that change in and let you life be filled with the richness of the colors of fall.

Seen Your Animals do Feng Shui?

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Why my connection with animals and the energy work that I do did not connect before now is a mystery.  But no matter – the 11 years ago that I took the formal Feng Shui training made me wonder how limited or how broad Feng Shui might be. Since then I have continue to look at where else there are keys to understanding unseen energies. I’m not into woo woo, yet at the same time there are things quite beyond our logical mind that work. I think our logical mind wants to call things not logical woo woo, when all they really are is bigger than our mind. I do judge much of humanity as arrogant, thinking we can understand what makes the universe work – but that’s a whole separate discussion. Coming back to where else I see Feng Shui at work, why was I not paying attention to the incredible places I go with animals?

One thing where we all can start (for the doubters in the crowd) is how the animals we associate with – noticing how each one has a district personality. If they were just “dumb animals” they would probably not have a district personality. But they do. I’m reaching out to my readers who have experiences with their own animals which are above and beyond. I want to hear from you. Do not be embarrassed, I want to start a conversation. Be sure you get the next issue of the newsletter, it has examples of what I am asking about.

The 12th Day of Christmas

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We’re through the holidays – now what? If we notice that Feng Shui follows the natural patterns of Nature, we’ll see that this is a quiet time, a time for drawing in. Nature is resting now, renewing. Covered in many places with a blanket of white, and in other with a blanketed in cold. In either case Nature is quietly rejuvenating. Follow the pattern, and let it be OK that we are not frantic with activity. A good book, a quiet fire, an intimate evening with friends – all these are incredibly nourishing. If you find yourself sleeping an extra hour a day or taking naps, Good!You’re allowing the natural flow of energy to slow, relax and rejuvenate. You’re recharging your batteries.

Getting out of the box

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A few lights seem to be coming on in the business world. The icon of great office furniture, Herman Miller, is starting to realize that the cubicle, a design pioneered by Miller, tends to isolate and objectify workers.   A small movement (may it grow and grow quickly) is happening, a movement to get a more natural relationship for people who work together. Tres Birds Workshop was commissioned to concept, design and build an art installation in Downtown Denver. The purpose? To encourage people get out of their offices for daily fresh air breaks. “We highly recommend it.  It’s wonderful to see that more people are realizing the more we make workers feel like they are filed in storage lockers, and then free them into collaborative relationships, the more we can create harmony and productivity.”  All the vegetation used in the installation was reused and/or recycled afterwards – including the furniture!

Another forward thinker is proudcing a movie “Three Walls” about just how wrong boxing people into cubicles is. You can watch a preview at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4qMtBTeLs0

Where did Feng Shui orginate? Observing the ways of Nature. Hmmmm.

Memorial Day – remembering What?

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This Memorial Day, I invite you to widen your remembrances: from those who have given their lives in conflicts to the whole of Nature.  The more I study Feng Shui, the more I realize that real prosperity comes from such study. Nature in it’s essence is abundant. The ancient Chinese studied the way Nature moved through a space and then cooperated and synergized with it, learning the subtleties the natural world presented.  By cooperating and augmenting those energies, they increased the bounty of the people they helped.  It is no different today.  Finding what blocks the flow, what is antagonistic, what energies remain in a place all can be moderated, redirected, eradicated. So Monday, take a moment to look in your garden – notice how the weeds want to crowd your plants out.  Notice how some plants do not like to be around other plants. Others, given some attention, bloom more vigorously than if left alone.  All this is the Feng Shui of the natural world.  Be grateful, as the lessons continue to present themselves.  Happy Memorial Day!

Disaster Feng Shui

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We are just beginning to learn and are going to continue to learn that the DeepWater Horizon oil is apocalyptic.  And while we let out yowls of protest, do not foget that it is you and I who demand gas for our cars and plastic for everything else.  It all comes from oil. As long as there is demand, there will be companies ready to go to any  length to get it and let us pay for it.  It took Eastern Masters hundreds of years observing the way nature moves energy to come up with the principles of Feng Shui. And because those principles work, Feng Shui is used widely with great positive effect.

Now we have an oil giant who skipped over the most basic safety precedes to drill for oil a mile under the water. It had not been done before and was based largely on theory. No observation of what might go wrong or what the consequences might be if anything did go wrong. We have already killed most of the world’s coral reefs (one of the foundations of the food chain) and now the results of BP spill threaten the entire sea and all it’s life.  It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.  And this is no Shui to go! And unless we lemmings slow down our mad dash, what awaits us is more of the same.

Widening the Field

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The more I study Feng Shui, the more I understand that what began “how to site your ancestor’s graves,” has important implications for the troubled world we live in today.  I just finished teaching an introductory course, the sort of thing retired folks might like to hear so they knew the Chinese were not sending voodoo into the US.  It went very well until the final session, when I wanted to use some video about Permaculture.

After all, good Feng Shui comes from observing how nature works and then augmenting it, letting it be even more bountiful than it usually is.  It was an excellent way for my seniors to start to grasp a bigger concept.  Several of them were bothered that ‘this isn’t Feng Shui.’  They certainly are to be honored for their choices, but I would like you, dear reader, to consider that Feng Shui can widen and widen.  May you find new uses, and when you do, let me know?  Thanks.