A First Essay into the World of Feng Shui

These Diagrams are not intended to be Authoritative in any way but have developed out of my sketches as I grapple with trying to understand Feng Shui and its compass.

In the center of the first 4 drawings is a Compass all my drawings have North at the top in the Western Style. Early Chinese maps have South at the top to align with the Chinese Compass ( 指南针 zhǐnán zhēn ( point south needle )) . I suppose, to use a stone that remembered the noon day sun was magical ( lodestone ) and later a magnetised needle. We Europeans on the other hand thought it pointed to the Pole star i.e. North and we drew our maps accordingly. The Chinese have the flexibility to dealing with both systems and so should we.

The Chinese Compass has one VERY important difference they have 5 Cardinal Points North, South East and West as we do Plus they have the CENTER. This is an important point since it crops up over and over again not only in a Physical but also in a Spiritual sense. The characters are shown on the compass. 北 North , 南 South , 東 East , 西 West , 中 Center

It is important to note that my Diagrams all have North at the top lots of diagrams have South or Fire at the top including the “Black Hats” and some are just plain every witch way.

Wŭ Xíng (五行) The 5 phases of Chinese Chinese philosophy are shown in the first diagram in what I hope is a familiar form. With : Water (水),Wood (木),Fire (火),Earth, (土)&Metal (金). It appears at first glance to be a perfectly normal pentagram connected to a pentagon ( or sometimes a circle ) which indeed it is. But depending on the depth of the diagram and/or explanation this is where people start to get lost. In fact each element has a Yin 阴 and a Yang 阳 component and it is more like the second Diagram which shows the action path round a single continuous irregular decagon.

With the cycle Water >+> Wood >-> Earth >+> Metal >-> Wood >+> Fire >-> Metal >+> Water >-> Fire >+> Earth >-> Water ….. Flowing Positively out of the Yang into the Yin and Negatively out of the Yin into the Yang of any two interconnected Elements.

Each action causes an opposite reaction giving rise to the second cycle Water >+> Earth >-> Fire >+> Water >-> Metal >+> Fire >-> Wood >+> Metal >-> Earth >+> Wood >-> Water.....

The flows depend on the State of each Element and that is a whole different ball game best left to the Experts to explain. But I hope this throws some light onto what might perhaps of seemed illogical or unclear having 5 nodes and 20 interconnections down 10 paths, and also showing more clearly the duality of the Elements. The thing that struck me most about this when I saw the cyclic nature of it all was the beauty of what I had previously seeing as unconnected sets of actions turn into rotating cycles to which I gave Yin and Yang arrows. An awesome duality I had not previously seen suddenly bursting forth >> Two contra rotating cycles of alternating creation and destruction.

Going round the compass we start in the East ( Rising Sun ? ) swing South to Noon and then to the Center and follow round from West to North. This is the way the Chinese Counting set of Characters is used. The set is the so called 10 Heavenly ( or Celestial ) stems jiǎ, yǐ, bǐng, dīng, wù, jǐ, gēng, xīn, rén, guì or Characters: 甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬癸:to correspond with :- Yang East ~ Yin East ~ Yang South ~ Yin South ~ Yang Center ~ Yin Center ~ Yang West ~ Yin West ~ Yang North ~ Yin North. It is important to note this order or when these points are used in constructing further stems you wonder where 5 and 6 have gone and why one set starts in the north and this one appears to be all over the place.

Starting in the North we have Full Yin  ~ New Yang  ~ Full Yang  & New Yin symbols shown at the 4 Cardinal Points. These are pulled together to make a very familiar figure for a Balanced Center  shown as the last diagram. To which I have added a bāguà 八卦 ( set of 8 Trigrams ). This Bagau is the Later Heaven Version ( the Early Heaven version is used mainly for gravesites ) the version shown is used with a compass for Feng Shui 風水of Buildings and sites and in a modified version used by the “Black Hats” orienting with the base as the front door wall.

Any of the Kangxi Characters I have used can be put into dictionaries and further information found, the following also show the stroke order for writing.

< Chinese Kangxi is the original character set = Japanese Kanji which was a copy is the same most of the time >

Chinese www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/d…

Chinese www.chinese-tools.com/tools/di…

Japanese classic.jisho.org/

The list is by no means exhaustive. Chinese tools also has a very nice seal maker.

More to come if people find them helpful I will decipher more of my sketches.

☽O☾ Brightest Blessings ☽O☾