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Summary – So lucky | Feng Shui
In this last part of my little „Feng Shui 101“ it is time for the big reveal. At least it’s big for me. However, I am going to begin with a summary of what I find to be the most important points. So, be patient – or scroll to the end of this article.
With all these personal Kua numbers, lucky and unlucky directions, and houses with back doors things can get pretty complicated: you and your partner/family members/room-mates very likely have different personal Kua numbers, plus the house has lucky and unlucky areas, which in turn might not match your personal areas of benefit/disadvantage.
And that’s not even considering that you might be living in a western house that was not built according to these Feng Shui principles, the toilet might be located in the wealth area, or the only physically possible way to have your bed facing is death … And how could knowing this be of any help?! Isn’t it just making you aware of that you’re doomed? Maybe ignorance is bliss …
Well, that’s not how I read it. From what I understand, it is important to remember that these „lucky“ and „unlucky“ areas/directions by no means equal „destiny“. With the knowledge about these directions, and the knowledge of the Feng Shui teachings, you can optimize the benefit from the „lucky“ areas – and there always seems to be a way to minimize the harm in the „unlucky“ areas.
If your personal beneficial and detrimental directions do not match the ones of your house, the personal ones seem to be more important.
And, maybe most importantly for the „worrier“ in you (that includes me, too): if your place of residence is constructed in a very un-Feng Shui manner, do not get hung up on the fact that your toilet happens to be in the wealth area. Focus on the things that you can do and let the rest go. Again, this is not determining your fate.
Now for the big reveal (for real now): Not only do Peter and I have the same Kua number (7), no – the lucky and unlucky directions of this number are also identical with those of the house (Tui)!!! Once again, I feel like the universe is waving it’s big foamy pointed finger …
At first I didn’t even realize the match between us and the house, I was too busy drawing the floor plan. Then, when I did see it, I thought that it had to be one of those math problems where it turns out that no matter which numbers you fill in, you always end up with the same result. Then I realized that, nope, if the house had been facing a different direction, we would indeed have a different result. So much for not questioning luck.
And just for fun (I really don’t know if this is interesting to anyone but me but anyway): here’s a list of the different rooms and their areas/directions in „our“ house (can’t wait for the day when i can drop the „“):
Bottom floor
- Entry hall – death: Better than it sounds, since you don’t really use this room for anything, I’ll just put in a bunch of plants, that seems to be a good remedy for most things unlucky. As are toilets, by the way, but I putting in a toilet in each of the four respective unlucky areas doesn’t seem very practical to me …
- Staircase/closet – loss & scandal: Also cool with that, for the same reasons. We’ll just keep the closet shut.
- Medium bedroom – obstacles, health, harmony: One of our office/guest rooms. Looking good, face desk away from obstacles, towards harmony. Too bad that the window is facing obstacles, I always want my desk by a window, not facing a wall. We’ll see.
- Bathroom – harmony: Some might say that’s a waste but, hey.
- Living room – harmony, wealth, misfortune, long life (and maybe some death): I think we can work with that.
- Front porch (don’t know if it counts) – loss & scandal, death, long life: plants, plants, plants
Second floor
- Staircase – loss & scandal: see above
- Hall – death: see above
- Master bedroom – obstacles, health, harmony. We should be able to have the head of the bed towards harmony, so I think we’ll be good.
- Kitchen – (a little bit of) death, long life, misfortune; with a pantry towards wealth: Well, let’s keep the glass half-full and focus on the pantry in the wealth corner. Long life is where the dining table is placed, so I guess that’s pretty good, too.
- Mini-bedroom – harmony: Our second office/guest room. I guess deciding who’s going to want which room will be tough – the harmonious but tiny one or the big one with the obstacle area?
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Lucky and unlucky compass points | Feng Shui
Before I go into the different kinds of houses and their respective beneficial and detrimental areas (according to the compass tradition of Feng Shui), here’s a brief overview over those lucky and unlucky directions/areas:
Lucky directions – and their main benefits
Sheng Chi (Breath Of Life) – wealth/prosperity
Tien Yi (Heavenly Doctor) – health
Nien Yen – long life, also in the sense of many descendants
Fu Wei – complete harmony
Unlucky directions – and their main problems
Ho Hai – bad luck and misfortune
Wu Kwei (Five Ghosts) – obstacles
Lui Sha (Six Killings) – loss and scandal
Chueh Ming (Disaster) – death
Here’s an article, that’s great for a brief overview, if you want to know a little more about these directions: Eight Mansions in Feng Shui.
This page about the Kua number has charts for each of the nine numbers with the respective lucky and unlucky compass points, and how to optimize the benefits and how to do „damage control“ in the harmful areas.
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The importance of back doors | Feng Shui
Now for the houses and their lucky and unlucky areas. According to the compass school of Feng Shui, there are eight different types of houses, depending on which compass point the back door is facing. (It doesn’t seem to matter, whether your house actually has a back door, it’s automatically the side opposite the side with the front door.)
The eight kinds of houses and their beneficial/detrimental directions are:
Kan (back door facing north)
- most important direction/direction for harmony – north
- direction for health – east
- direction for long life – south
- direction for wealth – south-east
- direction for difficulties – west
- direction for loss and scandal – north-west
- direction for obstacles – north-east
- direction for death – south-west
Ken (back: north-east)
- most important direction/direction for harmony – north-east
- direction for health – north-west
- direction for long life – west
- direction for wealth – south-west
- direction for difficulties – south
- direction for loss and scandal – east
- direction for obstacles – north
- direction for death – south-east
Chen (back: east)
- most important direction/direction for harmony – east
- direction for health – north
- direction for long life – south-east
- direction for wealth – south
- direction for difficulties – south-west
- direction for loss and scandal – north-east
- direction for obstacles – north-west
- direction for death – west
Sun (back: south-east)
- most important direction/direction for harmony – south-east
- direction for health – south
- direction for long life – east
- direction for wealth – north
- direction for difficulties – north-west
- direction for loss and scandal – west
- direction for obstacles – south-west
- direction for death – north-east
Li (back: south)
- most important direction/direction for harmony – south
- direction for health – south-east
- direction for long life – north
- direction for wealth – east
- direction for difficulties – north-east
- direction for loss and scandal – south-west
- direction for obstacles – west
- direction for death – north-west
Kun (back: south-west)
- most important direction/direction for harmony – south-west
- direction for health – west
- direction for long life – north-west
- direction for wealth – north-east
- direction for difficulties – east
- direction for loss and scandal – south
- direction for obstacles – south-east
- direction for death – north
Tui (back: west)
- most important direction/direction for harmony – west
- direction for health – south-west
- direction for long life – north-east
- direction for wealth – north-west
- direction for difficulties – north
- direction for loss and scandal – south-east
- direction for obstacles – south
- direction for death – east
Chien (back: north-west)
- most important direction/direction for harmony – north-west
- direction for health – north-east
- direction for long life – south-west
- direction for wealth – west
- direction for difficulties – south-east
- direction for loss and scandal – north
- direction for obstacles – east
- direction for death – south
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Kua! Quoi?| Feng Shui
While we were up in Sundsvall, Peter found this Feng Shui book at one of the second-hand places. The discoveries we’ve made about „our“ house (and ourselves) are just uncanny. In a good way!
OK, I don’t know all that much about Feng Shui, and from what I gather so far it’s a rather complex teaching of energy flows, going way beyond the home decorating stuff that „we Westerners“ associate it with. So I am going to worm my way out of explaining it to you by recommending you do some research of your own, if you’re interested in the details.
I am just going to touch on the things related to our discoveries about us and the house, hoping I will get some of it right. So, here goes nothing. Oh yeah, the book is Feng Shui (totally makes the search for it easy … not) by Lillian Too. It’s from the 1990ies, so the pictures and illustrations don’t always appeal to me (weird, I grew up in the nineties!?) but anyway.
According to the Pa Kua and Lo Shu tradition of Feng Shui, there is this thing called Kua number. This number is determined by your sex and your birth year, and it gives you information about the which of the compass points are beneficial respectively detrimental for you.
Here is how you calculate your Kua number.
This site’s got a calculator, plus charts about the lucky/unlucky cardinal directions for each number.
But wait, there’s more! Houses/buildings have „lucky“ and „unlucky“ areas, too. More on that coming up, so stay tuned.