Many people are now familiar with at least the concept that Feng Shui is the study of how we are influenced by our natural and man-made environment. There are also complementary fields in Chinese metaphysics which borrow from each other in terms of how we organize the information and interpret it.
For example, in Chinese Face Reading, we can look at the face like a map, where the chin represents North and the forehead South. Like a floor plan, your right cheek area would be associated with East and your left check would be West. In Feng Shui theory, each direction is associated with certain parts of the body. The North direction is related to the kidneys and the water element. So, if a person had something wrong (visually, structurally) with their chin area, we might interpret in Chinese Face Reading that the person could have some kidney dysfunction or fluid-related problems. Chinese Facing reading is quite detailed, where every line and mole on the face can be significant and the location can predict when a person might have a health crisis or some other event in their life related to their personal relationships or career.
I once attended a Face reading class and pulled up a picture of the actor Owen Wilson on my lap top for the teacher to see. Owen Wilson has a very unusual nose that is almost distracting for me when I see him on the big screen. Master Sang is not a big follower of Western culture celebrities, so he did not know when he saw the picture of Owen Wilson that he had been in the News right around that time regarding a suicide attempt. And yet, Master Sang was able to tell at a glance in his Face Reading mastery what was going on emotionally with this popular actor.
In Chinese Palm Reading, we can also look at the palm of the hand like a floor plan, where markings in certain directions may yield some vital information about a person that is consistent with some of the theories used in a Feng Shui analysis.
In Chinese “4 Pillars” astrology, each person is a combination of elements (water, wood, fire, earth, metal): pairings assigned to the year, month, day and hour of birth. These elements either nurture each other or they dominate each other. When one element dominates another in Feng Shui theory, we usually apply the reductive element to correct the imbalance and the predictable real life problem. For instance, if we have a combination of earth blocking water in the unseen influences of someone’s house, this could cause kidney, blood or circulation problems. The reductive or remedying element would be to add literal metal to the area.
In the personal astrology chart, we can look at which “pillar” a domination cycle exists to predict what kinds of problems or challenges a person might have. The year of birth is related to the grandparents. The month of birth can express the influence of the parents and the day of birth can relate to the person and their spouse. Hour of birth is related to children and career. If there is a domination of the elements symbolically in a person’s parent pillar, it could even be interpreted which parent might have a dominating or harmful relationship with the child.
In addition to these various systems all utilizing Five Element Theory and Eight Trigram theory, Yin Yang Theory also pervades these systems. Yin Yang theory explores the influence of opposites and extremes, such as with a house being too dark or too bright, too dry or too damp, too big or too small.
In personal compatibility in relationships we are often looking for an ideal pairing of yin and yang, the old-age version of “you complete me.” In Chinese medicine, we are noting the relationship of the internal organs as representative of the elements and yin/yang features qualifying certain health scenarios.
In the I-Ching (also written Yi Jing), we are looking at some very subtle interpretations of the symbolic Trigrams, paired up into Hexagrams. We can interpret the readings in relation to many aspects of our life and see another display of Five Element Theory at work.
The air you breathe, the food you eat, the thoughts you think, the meditation you practice, the way you make money, the house you live in and the greater outside natural environment all have a relationship with each other and an influence on the individual as well as the greater community, country and continent one lives on. We can compare the microcosm in relation to what we understand about our macrocosm. And the more one studies Chinese metaphysics, the more we can understand the complementary relationship between science and spirituality.
Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®
From the Feng Shui Theory Blog Series
