Tag Archives: Permaculture

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

Mainlining Feng Shui

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Recently a couple of articles have crossed my desk  trumpeting  a graduating class of Feng Shui majors leaving major interior design Institutes. Think, feng shui is going mainstream even if at a snails pace. And while it might be trendy to include Feng Shui on the curriculum, the deeper truth is experiencing how effective Feng Shui can be. Those of you who keep up with this blog, already know that I find the principles of Feng Shui being used under other names. If you want absolutely contemporary feng shui, learn Permaculture.

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.

How Green is Feng Shui?

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With climate change and going green being the hot topics of the day, it’s not unreasonable to ask how green is feng shui? At first, it doesn’t look very green. But if we take the feng shui blinders off, we discover that this ancient art and science is cutting edge environmentalism.

Feng shui studies how nature moves energy through a space, and how to best arrange that space for the most harmonious flow. A true feng shui master is sensitive to how energy moves, or doesn’t move, through a space. Adjustments are then made to remove blockages, and to make the flow is smooth. The most dramatic example of this work in the West is permaculture.

Bill Molison made a series of four short documentaries for PBS, taking four were dramatically different environments, and applying the principles of permaculture to each. In every case the results were dramatic, inspiring, and bursting with life.

See for yourself follow this link:

Check out the website as well: Creative Visions Feng Shui

Planting, Cleaning, Feng Shui

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This time of year I find myself pulling all sorts of flotsam and jetsam from the garden.  Then I remember that all the dead stuff is as much a part of the cycle as water is for growth.  No yin, no yang.  So what are we to do – what would Feng Shui have to say?

Simply break up the dead material into as fine pieces as you can and use them as compost.  Breaking them up synergistically helps them break down into nutrients for living plants and soil.  For the weeds which are trying to take over the world, put those into a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with water. Weight it down with a stone and let it rest for 3 days.  Then pour the water onto you living plants.  This weed tea is a valuable fertilizer that costs you nothing.  You can then add the “tea leaves” to the compost pile.

Remember, using chemical fertilizers and weed killer, you destroy the life of the soil.  Which means a) you must always use more and more chemical fertilizer because the soil can no longer do it’s work; and b) you have just decimated an entire living ecosystem in the interests of instant results.  It’s not the way Nature works, it shouldn’t be the way you work.

What’s Feng Shui about this?  You are using everything to build better nourishment and health.  You are cleaning out a space, but not discarding, rather recycling.  The results is aesthetically more beautiful and far more nourishing.  That’s what the correct use of Feng Shui can do – so see you in the garden?

Have you visited the main web site? Check this out.