Feng Shui

Jimster

Who rides? Who ride-icules?

I only ask 'cos the bathroom is being ripped out and man dem find corpse and corpse of dead birds and such under the floorboards.

Wifey is like some Voodoo Priestess on the side and reckons they were the cause of bad vibes.

I myself, whilst remaining open to the idea of Universal energy :mimics inhalation of recreational cigarette: ... and all that jazz, am prone to scoff at this Angel Heart palaver.

WHAT SAY YOU? Personal experience and ghost stories after spinning your toilet the other way welcome.

bassie

Smudge* the room, add a bidet and keep it moving.

*Smudge Ceremony

skel

This week I moved desks from the very corner window location to somewhere more inland ( to be nearer the team, yay) and Sino-Singaporean dude was all " you swapped great FS for that?! WTF?!1!?!?"

I told him to stop being such a hysterical drama queen and YMD

And guess what. No-one died. Yet.

Jimster

bassie said:

Smudge* the room, add a bidet and keep it moving.

*Smudge Ceremony

I thought this would be a Bobby Sands/Maze Prison anecdote but no, it's true:

To do a smudging ceremony, burn the clippings of these herbs (dried), rub your hands in the smoke, and then gather the smoke and bring it into your body, or - rub it onto yourself; especially onto any area you feel needs spiritual healing.

The words "WOODEN FLUTE" are being screamed at me, internally.

Keep praying all the while that the unseen powers of the plant will cleanse your spirit. Sometimes, one person will smudge another, or a group of people, using hands - or more often a feather - to lightly brush the smoke over the other person(s). We were taught to look for dark spots in a person's spirit-body. As one California Indian woman told us, she "sees" a person's spirit-body glowing around them, and where there are "dark or foggy parts," she brushes the smoke into these "holes in their spirit-body." This helps to heal the spirit and to "close up" these holes.

Recently we did a "light" house cleansing for a friend. We use the term "light", for this is a relatively simple ceremony as opposed to some that are more lengthy and complicated. Our friend had some serious emotional and relationship problems, and he felt they had left a heavy and dark atmosphere. First, we prayed together to the Creator and to the spirits for help. We then, burned sage, purified ourselves, and took the sage to all the corners, closets, and rooms of the house. We pushed the smoke with our hands to cleanse every bit of space - lingering over dark or cold spots that "felt" uncomfortable.

We used sage first in order to drive out the bad influences. Then we purified ourselves with cedar and, then repeated the cleansing process throughout the house with that. Then sweetgrass was used in the same manner to bring in good influences. All the time we prayed for help in this cleansing. Finally, we took a candle over the whole house and pushed its light into every corner. The People of the Pacific Northwest Coast taught this "lighting-up" of a house to us. We've been doing this type of house cleansing for ten years, and it never fails to "clear the air."

One more note about smudging. It is very popular among many novices to use abalone shells in smudging. There are many Native elders who are pleased to see so many new folds smudging themselves, but - some are concerned that abalone shells are being used when burning the herbs. On the Pacific Northwest Coast, for example, some holy men have said that abalone shells represent Grandmother Ocean, and that they should be used in ceremonies with water, not burning.

We know enough Native elders in the Northwest, the Plains, and California who don't use abalone shells - but instead clay or stone bowls - that we don't personally feel comfortable using a shell.

In any case, smudging is a ceremony that must be done with care. We are entering into a relationship with the unseen powers of these plants, and with the spirits of the ceremony. As with all good relationships, there has to be respect and honor if the relationship is to work.

The wife can acomplish all this and more with a single raised eyebrow, and I'll stick to the Adidas Sport shampoo/showergel combo for my wooden flute and Bobby's helmet. I mean, when did a fucking tree sprite design a ZX500?

Exactly.

Fug a Birkenstock, Twigwich.

DB_Cooper

I believe the primary element of feng shui is making sure there are no sharp objects, jutting furniture, or coffee tables that one can easily bark one's shin on, no? That and getting a good cross-breeze through a room.

ppadilha

I can speak on having dead animals in your house or office: NAGL

bassie

Man, you Brits throw some attention my way and I'll tell you anything.

Confession (second of the day): I have a sage stick at my house and burn it through the house after something particularly distasteful happens...which is rare, but it smells nice and walking around with fragrant smoke trying to forget a bad lovers' spat is helpful its own self-delusional way.

I also hang a nazar on my front door, mostly to let potential commercial and religious salespeople know I might be a Middle Eastern witch (the worst kind).

ppadilha

my mother-in-law keeps a gigantic glass bowl full of rock salt, heads of garlic, and bay leaves right by the front door of her house. Supposed to keep the bad vibes from entering.

I've also been told keeping things under your bed is bad feng-shui.

batmon

Place a stack of seven pennies in every corner of yo house.

bassie

I have this beautiful card which is a Quranic tessellation of a horse. Since I have less religion in me than the phone book, I thought the bathroom would be a nice place to hang it. My parents - who have only slightly more religion in their life than me - had a conniption, wholly of the superstitious kind if you ask me. I was instructed to hang it above a doorway so it blesses everyone who walks through it. Fine, done.
It looks pretty good there, too.

Flomotion

Way back I wrote a feature on a London FS master who had jaw-droppingly lucrative contracts with a bunch of big developers, interior designers plus some celebs and City banks... Weirdly his own house broke pretty much every rule of FS. He did have a goldfish in his wealth corner, though...