Disclaimer provided! Most importantly, never make fun
of or take too lightly the ancient oriental arts, one of which is Feng
Shui" - pronounced
as fung schway. And
since I already have enough bad Feng Shui in my house, I better tread
lightly here. Still I thought some Feng Shui advice could be
re-directed to the garden and I
have graded myself accordingly
I will post a more
personally dishonest article later on, but as I can
barely see the cow in the lawn I thought the more honest approach would
be a good beginning.
Site the gardens entrance so it doesn't
face the back alley, an oncoming road, or utility pole. Corner houses
are also a negative. -4
If the left side (or right)of your property is too too, plant trees to
raise the height. I am fertilizing as we today. +1.
Avoid
the elemental conflicts such as placing water (in case my pond) next to
fire (the barbecue pit I just built.) Always be doubly careful in the
placement of propane barbecues! -1
If
you have to move, leave behind your old garden beds. Don't bring them
with. Start your new garden (or Nursery) with new ones. -5 I have
moved my Nursery three times. The minus I gave myself might
even be higher.
A pool of water like the fishpond is especially useful to conserve Chi +3 I
really have been working on this! Sadly,. since that time the pol has
died and the positive becomes a Neutral.
On
ponds and even aquariums within the home, it is believed that if well
provided for and well taken care of - fish die because they absorb the
negative Chi. "This is the point of having the fish in the first place.
So when a fish dies, be grateful to the fish and get another to replace
it at once. I have to wonder 'What if the fish aren't floaters and you
are unaware of their demise? Neutral
More
on water! Water elements in the garden are important and good for
positive Chi. Most believe that they should be in the 'front yard'
preferably on the East or left side looking out from your front door.
Putting a waterfall element in your backyard facing the house is also
good symbolizing abundance flowing towards the home. Neutral
My
pond is in the North of my house but does have a waterfall element.
Having movement to your water elements is important. +1
I am constructing some more elements for a friend of mine who
has
incredibly good Feng Shui. Do my constructions elsewhere rub off on the
gardener? Same for negative energies! Recent edit:
My waterfall died and the pond has dried up! The +1 is now a -2
The garden
should be free of distractions such as Martha Stewart like
Steel Tuteurs or eye poppers such as these. My own garden has NOTHING
LIKE THAT
ever since I plopped the gargoyle into the garage.
+2
 |
 |
Distractions such as barbecues or garden hammocks should be discretely
screen from view. -1
Be
careful not to plant a large tree immediately opposite the front door.
This is considering poor position as it deflects the entrance of
wealth. (So thats what happened! I argued that 12 ft. away at
the
S.E. corner of the house didn't count. Nope, since then it has matured
and is now mating with the house. I did cut the Eucalyptus in front of
the house down, but it keeps trying to come back. A minus 1 or even -2
Place
Mood balls and other reflective devices sparingly and never at the end
of the garden bed or where hay can sneak up on you. +2
"Clutter
and Debris;" get rid of the old and make room for the new. 'Less is
more!' Oh, my God, I am so forever doomed, both in the home and in the
garden. Makes sense however. Today I am getting the propane torch
refueled. -5
Arrange
your garden furniture so there is a hedge, fence or secure backdrop
behind you. This is especially true if you are a nudist. +1
Long straight garden beds makes energy flow too fast, use plantings or
curved beds to slow and capture the eye. -1 (An inherited
flaw, I always appreciate good curves!)
Avoid
making gates, entrances or exits directly in line with each other. The
invite coming into your garden should not be one to invite the visitor
to immediately leave. Neutral
or -1
Recently
I decided to add another. Sadly it is a negative. Never buy a property
across from a Raptor Center that deals with broken or injured birds.
Nightly
I have to listen to the heartbreaking sounds of eagles chirping
to their captive mates. I assume this might apply to Rest homes,
Cemeteries, Crematoriums and like. Too many ghosts or unhappy souls.
-3.
It
is good practice in the garden, (for air circulation alone,) not have
one thing lie on another thing. That's really important. And if you
look at it, just from that point of view you will realize it is for
aesthetics as well. It isn't good for a plant wanting to rise up, to be
stomped on by something coming down on it. So the branches have to go
-- that is the tree pruner in me. +1
A dear friend, now departed explained another truth. 'The
one thing I have learned about working in gardens is that you don't
carry over. You don't get so smart that you outsmart yourself, by
carrying over something that was successful. Because then, you're not
really looking at where you are, and that is a new involvement. That is
what growing older means and going through life is to have various
stages. Each one builds up on the other, and not lament that
you
don't have that which looked so beautiful, and "Oh, I wish I still had
it." You enjoyed it! It's really important!" Bita
At that time I gave myself a minus 2, but after
become disabled and loosing my Nursery plants and bonsai collection I
understand. +2
I think I only scored a total of about minus -10 (a -5 is a high negative.)
That is in the garden - not the house or the barn! -7 there at least.
My
friend 'Dumpster' once commented: "Where
one wipes one's shoes when you leave."
Anyone more conversant with this
practice hop write in here. If you have Feng Shui suggestions for the garden, please let me
know!
If you
have advice for some impoverished over yanged metal person born 11/30/50
do ever so
quickly contact me!
There are many paths that can be taken to
better connect and deal with our environment in more wholesome ways;
the time is now! As gardeners we too abuse the environment, in our
poisons and chemicals often overused in the garden. We can no longer
continue this abuse. Feng Shui is popular not as a fad but rather as a
universal truth and many are finding simpler more intuitive
alternatives in the way we live and in the way we express ourselves to
others. We are approaching a new millennium, and
Feng Shui may help us to learn to love and embrace a clean and
sustaining environment as part of ourselves.
| This is Feng Shui in its purity." |
 |
After
posting this I got some interesting feedback. Part of it was:
"...Doesn't
matter what the compass is pointing to or what happening
up in space, if you build/arrange your house on a fault line or
in the valley
of an active volcano, you're asking for trouble. Tectonic activity,
magnetic field of this plant (now becoming unstable),
meteorites just don't
recognize Feng Shui." by Patty She adds more.
This
got me to thinking on this some more. I thank her very much. I will now
have to update the other article
as well.
The
modern and insulated American
society does not appreciate how important terrain is to
someone who has to
understand and adapt to it in order to live with it. Our
forefathers be they farmer
or rancher in the Midwest or Wyoming certainly did. Planting
protective
trees and placing your home or barn doors in relationship to
prevailing winds or
blizzards meant life or death for oneself and the animals. The
survival of the
latter – the survival of the family.
It was not that one fights nature, but
living with it. Making accommodations - because you understood
nature would
not.
Does Feng Shui
make sense? Partly. But some of those 'rules' were meant to reflect
the everyday
travails the peasant in China faced and was later exaggerated by
necromancers
and the P.T. Barnums of that day, who took it to new levels.
The orientations suggested would never
apply to Australia as weather challenges would come from
another directions
entirely.
I
realize I
needed to make some edits on
that article. Origin began in India and coming to China by the
Buddhists. The name comes from paying more
attention to the
wind
and water! Two things that the farmer had to deal and adapt
to. I
doubt they had
any interest in the 'placement of
objects and foo foo as their
possessions where to few to begin with.
As
for augmenting the divine force of
'Chi,' this would naturally occur where two natural features
meet, as earth
meets water. The farmer whose land possessed a pond or natural
stream was fortunate
enough. That is plain bloody sense. As for that being
translated into 'flow'
of paths or planter beds that was simply a reflection of
planting on sloped
terraces or being leery of straight flowing streams that could
erode your farm.
Such 'Chi' floods remind us that sometimes it can move too
fast for us.
Feng
Shui placements of windows
affecting depression. You betcha. A positive placement of
windows – giving you an
'open' view and connection between your dwelling "earth" and
the
"heavens" makes sense. Especially when you considered that
some of these people lived in
yurts or as our pioneers did in overturned covered wagons,
covered with sod to
keep the wind and cold out. Windows were a luxury and if
finally obtained were
carefully and frugally placed.
All
of this is based on practicality
and I should suggest it should be renamed to reflect 'wind and
water' with
'earth' as well. Most Native American tribes
understood this amalgamation very well
and sited their dwellings and villages accordingly. It did not
need a
traveling Buddhist to teach them that.
As
for your comment: "Tectonic
activity, magnetic field of this plant (now becoming
unstable), meteorites just
don't recognize Feng Shui." I totally
agree. Vulcanism, glaciers and changes
to the climate are things we really cannot do much
about.
That
said, we certainly are not as observant of nature as our ancestors were
and when a financial or tectonic event occures, this gadget dependent
"New Generation" might have a rude awakening. I am not even sure if
being hooked up to your Cable, Kindles and IPods is such a benifit
after all. The potential for becoming an evolutionary "black hole" is
only one giant solar flare away.
With
only minimal discourse with Patti, I recognize that she might be more
intelligent than I and far more literate and grammatical. So I expect a
comeback to this. I invite all other comments as well as long as you
understand that I may post the gist of the posting and will respond. I
will ALWAYS give your answers to my response. Until then, this is what you
get, until I figure out a way to get a RSS account.
Dreamweaver is ordered. I will add a link to this article. (MORE:On this Topic) and slip into a new page.
(c) Herb Senft around
2000, and more in 2013
Paths
to good Garden Feng Shui