4/10/04
BY THE YARD
This is the time for burning permits where we live, and it’s a mad rush to gather all the clutter from the yard to burn before it rains again or before the permits are nixed until next year. So we’ve been raking, pruning, and gathering fools. And it FEELS SO GOOD! De-cluttering the yard is important because as the weather gets better, we begin to move outside. So as you begin to locate hammocks, volley ball nets, trampolines, love seats, grills, nerves. So tell us what you think and e-mail us a little “bio” feedback.

7/19/03
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
It’s been a few weeks since we’ve sent out a tip of the week and on reflection, it seems like a good time to get back to some basics. The bagua is a template which can be placed over any physical space. That yard, building or room can now become an implement of change. The bagua is made up of nine equal parts, or guas. Each gua relates to life issues, compass directions, body parts, family members, seasons, time of day, colors, shapes, materials, elements, and numbers. And these are just what is understood to date. As we study our environment, Feng Shui masters will add to the list. Whether you want to jump start your career, end a relationship, strengthen a part of your body or improve a situation of any kind, you can use your environment as a tool for manifesting what you want. Many of you already know that the middle one ninth of any space is where you look when you have health issues, but did you know that this gua is also a “catch all” location for questions and issues that don’t seem to fit into any of the other eight guas? This is also the part of your home or business to tend to when you are looking to create more balance or openness. So if you life is crazy upside down, it’s time to tend to the heart of your space. This is where you want to use earth tones, yellows, reds, square things, pointed things, terra cotta, brick, clay, candles, sunlight and fireplaces. It’s not beneficial to utilize greens, tall rectangular things, wood, tall or woody plants or flowers. The number associated with this gua is five. It relates to the transition between seasons.

6/8/03
THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Before you set up the badminton net or the horse shoe set, consider dividing your yard into the nine equal sectors to see where to put all that summer stuff. The movement of any game is a great activator of Ch’i. You can pick you life issues and set up the games in the places of your life that need the most activation. Let’s say you and your husband have been trying to get pregnant. If so, then set up the horse shoes in the middle right one ninth of the yard. This is the Children sector. Remember to orient the bagua on the front walk to the front door. Another way to look at placement is by elements. Anything metal like horseshoes would go in the Children’s sector, also in the Career sector. The basketball hoop should probably go in Family, even Fame, as it is tall and resembles a tree. Volley ball and badminton nets stretch horizontally like water and would work well in Career or Family. The grill or the fire pit would go best in Fame or Health. Use your imagination and have fun! Afterall, it IS summer!!

6/1/03
WHO’S IN CHARGE
If your teenager’s bedroom is in the far left part of the house upstairs, then it’s no surprise that the family revolves around her. She’s in charge. Just like the boss in the back left office, this child’s room in the Wealth corner helps her take command. The obvious solution is to move her out. But if you and your spouse enjoy the comforts of the bigger bedroom, start by rearranging her room. Move her bed to a place in her room where she cannot easily see the door while lying down. This may need only to be temporary. As for directions, make certain that while she sleeps her head is not facing South as this is the most energizing direction. Colors should be more Yin pastels, and accent with blues to help her make better choices. It will also help her focus on her studies rather than controlling the family. Don’t forget to consider her place at the dinner table and in the family room. In this way, you can use Feng Shui to help enhance control as parents.

4/13/03
SPRING GREEN
Spring has sprung the grass is riz, I wonder where the mountains is...why it’s in the Northeast, or as our Black Hat students know, the Wisdom sector. This is associated also with late winter. Unfortunately we in the Berkshires are certainly vacillating between Spring and late Winter. Our crocuses have croaked once already. The earth element associated with Spring is Thunder and is linked with the Family sector along with green things, tall things, and wooden things. Linking the “fundamental conditions on earth and in the cosmos” is something that Master Lam Kam Chuen emphasizes in his book Feng Shui Handbook. In integrating all of life’s elements, Feng Shui reminds us to live in harmony with our surroundings and to “go with the flow”. So as we invite Spring into our hearts, we need to look to the East and fill our lives with Spring green, or as a clothing chain calls it “frog kissin’ green.” Bringing green into our homes and offices can help with family relations and basic money. Just don’t overload the middle sector where wood metaphorically uproots the earth.

2/23/02
BALANCING ACT
We try to balance our work with our family and friends, our need for money with our spirituality. Yin and Yang is the philosophy of balance. Yin is feminine. Yang is masculine. Whether you’re a man or a woman, it’s important to strike a good balance between your masculine and your feminine sides. Red is a good color, a powerful color, but a house full of it is a house out of balance. Red is very Yang and is for enhancing Fame. It helps Health, but it destroys Creativity. If your house is a wood frame house with lots of fancy wood furniture, gleaming wood floors, and intricately carved wood trim, it may feel comfortable to Paul Bunyan, but his health may suffer. All that wood will tend to uproot the earth which is necessary for good health. Everything in balance! If you have a high stress Yang job, you want to come home to a more calming Yin house. Perhaps you need to be greeted by a gentle waterfall first thing in the door. Soft colors and soft edged furnishing would help relax you. But you don’t want it to be too Yin. Everything in balance! If you work at an ashram and meditate all day, you may want to jazz up your home a bit. Bright colors and hard edged designs may balance the overly Yin surrounding at work. In every case, think of balancing warm colors with cool colors, places that are full of stuff and places that are more spare. Create cozy warm spaces for intimate conversations, but also space to dance free. Mix bright lighting with dim light or candle light. Another way to keep things in balance is to use all five elements. Remember that you have at least three ways to represent the five elements. You don’t have to have a wood table with a lava lamp sitting on a ceramic tile with a copper bowl of water nearby. You could simply have a wood table painted red and yellow with a three black stones. The elements only need to be represented in some way even if by numbers. Use your imagination!

3/23/02
MONEY MATTERS
There are two sectors in the Black Hat School of Feng Shui grid that deal with money. One is Family, which governs over the money it takes to make your monthly bills. The other is the Wealth sector which deals with the money it takes to go away on vacations, eat caviar, and drink thirty year old Champagne. Don’t activate the Wealth sector until you’ve got the basics covered. The Family sector is the middle left one-ninth of any space. Make sure there are not a lot of metal objects, white things, or round things. Remember to remove all reminders of poor times, throw away broken or tattered things, clean up, and de-clutter. Then you should bring in tall, green, and/or wooden things. Add a touch of water, black, and undulating shapes. But if you think you are done, you’re not. One of the most important things to check for is leaking pipes. The metaphor is that your money can be leaking out of your life. Spend the money to fix the plumbing. It will be worth it. If your basic needs are met and you’re looking for wealth, do the same in the far left one ninth. This is where the tall, green, wood things work well. Don’t put water here. It’s too close to Fame and could water down the fire. You can use red, pointy, fiery things, but how about GOLD & SILVER things? Think of putting your most expensive items in the wealth sector of the whole house/office building as well as in that sector of each room. Or how about pictures of your dreams for the future? And if the bathroom is in the Wealth sector, make sure the lid is down and the door is kept shut. Bring in some purple towels and some expensive gold accessories, but don’t go overboard. The bathroom is not the place to over decorate. And don’t bring attention to the toilet! Are you done? Not quite. Now go outside and lay the grid over the property. The mouth of Ch’i is the front walk to the front door. Are you composting in Wealth. Did you create a huge metal windmill in the adult ed classes over the winter and place it proudly in the middle left sector of your yard. Move it to the middle right or front right. Just remember that there can be things holding you back outside as well as inside.

3/16/02
GREEN, GREEN, AND MORE ON GREEN
So when the Irish relatives hit tomorrow for corned beef and cabbage, where ya goin’ to be puttin’ all them green things? Why in the Family sector, of course. And maybe a few shamrocks in Wealth and Fame, too. Green is the color of money, and although it doesn’t grow on trees, it certainly comes FROM trees. And trees are tall things. So now you got the scoop on the Family sector. It loves green things, tall things and all shades of green. So if your brother dissed you or you’re having trouble paying the electric and the mortgage, look to fixing the middle left one-ninth of all your spaces. What you should look for here, are round things, white stuff, and an excess of metal objects. Metal chops wood. Besides the main elements mentioned above, you can support the family sector with watery, undulating, and black things. Water feeds the roots of the trees. But those roots have the power to uproot the Earth. That’s the middle one-ninth of any space. So keep the tall, green, wood things to a minimum here. Now lets get off green for a moment. Look at the metaphors. The family sector is not where you want anything that represents poor times, or stress around family matters. So if you and your sister argued over who’d get the big armoire from great aunt Harriet, it shouldn’t sit in the family sector. It’s a reminder of past rifts with your sister. You can put it in the Wealth or Fame sectors since they are supported by Wood and expect it to do less harm regarding family relations. Remember to move the offending objects with INTENT. Say what you want to accomplish as you make your changes.

1/26/02
DESTRUCTIVE CYCLE BASICS
Get out the wrecking ball guys and girls! It’s time for the destructive cycle. Is this the bike that Evil Knievel rides? No, class! First it’s about NOT doing any harm first. Then we’ll talk about actively destroying as a good thing. Certainly you are tired of hearing this, however, clutter is most destructive to good Feng Shui. Clean up! Next, you want to look into each sector of you home or office for colors, shapes, and elements which are harmful where they are. For instance, the middle one-ninth is about Health. It’s color is yellow, it’s shape is square, and it’s element is earth. Think yellow terra cotta tiles, or square clay pots with yellow flowering plants. What is supportive of your health in this sector is anything red, pointy, or fiery. Try those red candles you forgot to burn during the holidays, or some gold stars. What’s destructive here and has the potential to harm your health are tall columnar things, green things, and wooden things. So that big armoire that you painted antique green is a big no no in the middle of the whole house. Put it in the Family sector, left middle, or even in the Fame sector, far middle, where it can do some good. Refer to your Ch’i Sheet for the rest of the this information. If you don’t have a Ch’i Sheet, you can donwload it from our website. Okay, now we can start thinking about destroying things. Let’s say you have a bathroom in the Fame sector of your whole home. That “water closet” in the far middle has the potential to destroy or diminish your fame and reputation. So if you really want to get on the Leno show this year, think about how the water puts out your fire. The thing to do is to “destroy” the water that is there by introducing the color, shape and/or element that will destroy water. That element is Earth. If you have a boggy section on your land and want to get rid of it, you’re going to call for someone with a bulldozer and a couple truck loads of dirt. So if you bring in yellow tiles, yellow or earth tone towels and square things to that bathroom in Fame, you’re going to tone down the water. So that’s how it works. Remember that water puts out fire, fire melts metal, metal chops wood, wood uproots earth, and earth soaks up water. Class dismissed.

2/9/02
HAPPY NEW YEAR FEB. 12TH
While we Westerners are celebrating 2002, on Tuesday the Chinese will be celebrating the year 4699! And it’s out with the snakes and in with the horses. In this Year of the Black Horse, black symbolizes the Water element. There are 12 animals and five elements to deal with thus creating a 60-year cycle. This is similar to Western astrology’s 60-year cycle of the planet Jupiter, the planet of abundance. Anyone who has done any research on money cycles, easily can see that money trends run in 60-year intervals. I don’t know about you, but I love to see different systems agree with each other, especially when East and West come to the same conclusion. So what kind of a year is a Black Horse Year? If we were supposed to shed old skins and go through major transformations last year, what’s in store for us now? Like horses, we should see a great deal of adventure and passion for life. Horse is generally good for the economy. As horses run a lot and tend to be quite vital, this should be a good year for health and fitness, too. As some of you know, Gayle was in a life changing car accident in June. This year she will be rebuilding her body, and believe it or not, her physical therapist has offered to let her be one of the first to try out their new therapy. It’s called Hippotherapy and is done on horseback. Now that’s amazing! What will be your adventure?

10/6/01
BANK TELLER WEEK
That was all this week, so I hope you didn’t miss it. So now that you’re at the bank, let’s talk about your money. There are two money sectors to look to when dealing with money issues. The handy thing is that they’re next door to one another. Since the weather’s still warm, let’s work in the yard. The mouth of ch’i or entrance to your yard is the front walk to the front door. Some books will say that it’s the driveway but sometimes the driveway and the walk are not parallel to one another. Now stand at the beginning of your front walk. If you don’t have one, just stand at the edge of your property and look at your front door. Now peruse your land/yard. The middle left section of it influences the ebb and flow of the money it takes to meet your basic needs. This is the Family sector and is energized by trees, tall woody shrubs, tall perennials (a good investment) like hibiscus and hollyhock. Water is a fine assist here, so it’s a good place for the pond of swimming pool; but avoid a lot of white flowers, metal sculptures, and low round bushes here. These elements from the Metal sector “chop” wood and will invite money problems. The far left is the Wealth sector. This is where you want to load up on the purple flowers, the red and reddish purple fruit trees. Any of the Wood and Fire elements will encourage the extra money for champagne and caviar and trips to sunny France. The Wealth sector is a great place to bury a wish box. A silver box is best, but as Karen points out in Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life, you can always wrap it in tin foil. Write down what you wish for and place it in the box with a power tool. I’ve used quartz crystals, pieces from old Monopoly game. Sometimes I’ll even use a gold pen on purple paper. So whether it’s a new car or a titanium laptop that you want, give this a try. And e-mail us with your results.