FENG SHUI during QUARANTINE

 

The first tip is to stay tidy while in an enclosed space!
The second tip is to not become discouraged by delays in life plans.

Do a small bit every day towards your goal, and reward comes at harvest time in this Rat year 2020. Autumn Equinox is September 22. Winter is the most fortunate season in a Rat year.

During quarantine, create good luck and maintain good health by doing feng shui in small digestible bites, like a mouse. Then you won’t become overwhelmed or caught up in a rat race. Rat year info.

Accept that things will take time. Save sweeping change or drastic measures for Water Tiger 2022. Then you can follow your feelings in springtime. But for now, Rat is a planner, and this spring of Rat year is ideal to focus on feng shui to clear the path for new opportunities.

CHINESE MEDICINE

Feng shui is part of Chinese medicine whereby health can be restored and maintained in a balanced and peaceful environment. Chinese medical theory is explained in my book Taoist Feng Shui that you can read while in quarantine.

TAOIST FENG SHUI in Spanish. The vases are lovely, but not dried-out leaves!

2020 and 2021 are Metal years. In feng shui, the element Metal is represented by the clean, pristine environment that shines like real metal. Regardless of the lucky element in your birth chart, everyone benefits by developing the element Metal for the next two years.

If there ever was a time to reduce and remove clutter, it’s now while you are stuck indoors! Rat year is an excellent time to organize and clean up, especially your financial records. There’s always a focus on money in a Rat year, and change in the stock market.

The element Metal correlates to the bedroom. (5 Elements info below.) Metal is a yin element, and the bedroom is a yin room for rest and sleep. 2020 and 2021 are the years to make your bedroom a healing (and tidy) sanctuary. Since you are home and have time, then transform your living room.

Rats are nocturnal animals. The hours of the Rat are 11 pm – 1 am. Those born during Rat year or hour can have a predisposition for insomnia. The Rat mind is always working and thinking, creating and planning. So 2020 is the year to create peaceful bedrooms for you and your family.

FIVE ELEMENTS

This summer when the COVID-19 is under control, boost energy and start a new cycle by painting your home.

What color exterior paint? Walk around the block and look at the colors of the neighboring buildings. Paint the color that looks the best with the others, and therefore improves everyone’s property.

The energy of any room can be transformed by adding a coat of fresh paint. If all rooms of your home have white or ivory walls, all white is too much of the element Metal that can lead to arguing.

So paint one room with color, or trim a room with color. Don’t know which room to paint? Paint the room most in need of being refreshed.

Remember, do the work in small, digestible bites in this Rat year. It’s easier with a group because Rat loves the pack. Start with one room, and by the end of summer, the whole house is done.

Each room of your home correlates to the five Taoist elements of Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood:

FIRE/HEART/LIVING ROOM – In Chinese medicine, the element Fire is represented by the heart. The living room is the heart of the home. Your living room is best with accents of the bright and lively Fire colors red, purple, orange, and all shades of red. Bright accents stimulate conversation and activity. Strong FIRE brings passion, energy, and creativity.

EARTH/STOMACH/DINING ROOM – In Chinese medicine, the element earth is the stomach. The dining room is where we eat and digest food. The dining room is best in earthen tones of gold, terra cotta, or other soft yin colors. Red walls (Fire) in a dining area are too stimulating and people eat too fast. Strong EARTH brings stability, balance, and patience.

METAL/LUNGS/BEDROOM – In Chinese medicine, the element metal is the lungs. The bedroom is where we sleep and breathe deeply while resting. Best bedroom colors are white, cream, and soft pastels. Avoid bright big prints on bedding and drapery, especially in children’s bedrooms. Colorful prints are too yang and not restful. Strong METAL brings logic, clarity, and intelligence.

WATER/KIDNEYS/BATHROOM – In Chinese medicine, the element water is the kidneys. In the bathroom, paint this room in a soft, quiet, and calm color for peaceful elimination of waste and for soothing bathing or showering. Light blue is fine. Strong WATER brings wisdom, peace, and serenity.

WOOD/LIVER/KITCHEN – In Chinese medicine, the element wood is the liver. Wood is used in a kitchen to feed the cooking fire. The kitchen must be kept very clean because this is where food is prepared, so white walls are best. But green accents or a plant are recommended to introduce the Wood element into this Wood room. Strong WOOD brings enthusiasm, spirituality, and growth.

LUCK ENTERS

Then start at your front door. Clean your entry to welcome all the good luck that will come into your home and place of business. Wash, sweep, or vacuum the front steps, porch, entry hall, lobby — whatever the entry is where you live.

Make this area clean, well lit, and inviting. Check the entry’s lighting fixtures, make sure the doorbell works, and paint touch-ups on scuff marks. Add an welcome mat if needed. Or replace an old one if it’s worn out its welcome.

For a business, make sure that your entry is clean and inviting, and that there is good signage with clear address numbers. A business must be easy to find, and attractive to enter. One third of business success is good feng shui at the entrance.

In this Metal year, stop clutter before it builds by maintaining the habit of tidying up before you leave your home or office. Then a peaceful environment awaits you when you return. Especially at your place of work, it’s not favorable to leave a mess over the weekend. Same for quarantine at home. Clean up your work space at the end of your work day.

1ST THING SEEN

TAOIST FENG SHUI in Russian. INTRODUCTION TO TAROT will be published in Russian this year.

What is the first thing seen when you enter your home? And when you enter each room? Your eye goes somewhere, so direct the eye by organizing each room so that the first thing seen sets a pleasant tone to make the room inviting to enter.

Make sure that the first thing seen in each room is clean and inspiring. You do not want to see a pile of paperwork or any type of clutter. Stay tidy, especially during this element Metal year, the time for a clean, pristine environment.

 

BA-GUA MAP

A popular style of feng shui is to overlay a map of eight tri-grams, or ba-gua in Chinese. For those who apply this method, focus on the Wealth corner in Rat year to create an abundance of money.

The wealth corner is located in the far left-hand corner from the entry. Every room of your home and office has a Wealth corner to embellish during this Rat year.

Also of importance is the Fame or Reputation are right next to the Wealth corner, on the middle wall farthest from the entry door. You want to maintain the good favor of others, and avoid gossip in a Rat year.

LUCKY PLANTS

Healthy plants in your home and workplace increase abundance. And plants offer fresh oxygen. I have many large Chinese evergreen indoor plants, and I can smell the oxygen they give off. If you have plants, you have time to focus on them now that you are in quarantine. If you don’t have plants, research a plant to add to your home after the quarantine. I recommend the Chinese evergreen. And they make a lovely lily (see pic).

Indoors or out, it’s best to have plants that stay evergreen all year, and that do not lose their leaves in any season.

For flower lovers, lucky flowers are orchids, peonies, and lilies. Roses are fine in a home or office, but remove them if there’s arguing. Avoid thorny plants like cacti. Don’t have a green thumb? Try silk flowers. I keep orchids, indoors and out, because their flower lasts so long.

Remember, take small bites in a Rat year. And be consistent. If removing clutter, start with one drawer. Then the next one. Want a big life change? Start making plans now, and pursue them in small nibbles. But keep nibbling. Keep in mind that results arrive in autumn.

Best,

Susan
http://www.susanlevitt.com

More info in my feng shui articles:

The Five Taoist Elements

Abundance for All Animals

Feng Shui for Real Estate 

Read TAOIST FENG SHUI to learn feng shui structure and history.

Use TEEN FENG SHUI as your personal workbook to learn feng shui, and then help others.

LUNAR BLOG

Interview about Monkey Year for Houston Chronicle

Lunar New Year promises a little monkey business!

Thing are about to get a little crazy with the arrival of the Red Fire Monkey

By Kyrie O’Connor February 5, 2016
Houston Chronicle

Nadya Shakoor paper sculpture / Mark Mulligan photo / Houston Chronicle

We are about to enter the year of the Red Fire Monkey. If that sounds to you like a year that calls for a helmet and elbow pads, you may be right.

Today marks the start of the Lunar New Year, or as it’s known in Vietnam, Tet. On Asian calendars, each Lunar New Year is associated with one of five elements, in this case fire, and one of 12 animals, in this case the monkey.

You say you want a revolution? Tumultuous 1968 was also a Fire Monkey year. So was 1776.

“In the Year of the Monkey, the status of events is changing quickly,” says Nan Hall Linke, almost certainly Houston’s only astrologer/therapist/landscape architect. “Watch the parade. Don’t be in it.”

The monkey is “smart, naughty, wily and vigilant” according to Allen Tsai, who runs the chinesefortunecalendar.com website, so the year will take on that character.

The year has yang, or masculine, energy, so it’s forceful, highly charged and resourceful, which of course has good aspects and bad.

Assuming you don’t want to attract the worst of the monkeyshines, what can you do to counteract the bad?

Susan Levitt advises starting with a tidy, organized home.

“In a monkey year, do your frantic cleaning up before you walk out the door,” says Levitt, who lives in San Francisco and has written five books about astrology. “You’ll come home to a clean, nice place.”

Levitt specializes in feng shui, the Chinese practice of finding harmony with one’s surroundings. “Organize your home so you’re not living in the crazy,” she says, because there will be crazy aplenty outside the door. “You don’t want to live in a place that looks like a bomb went off.”

The same goes for your car and workspace. Sadly, those can’t be messy either.

But don’t buy new furniture or change your house around dramatically, says Levitt, who writes at susanlevitt.com. Feathering the nest is a task for 2017, the Year of the Rooster. And watch your diet, she adds. During the Year of the Monkey caffeine, candy and power bars will be oh so tempting, but oh such a bad idea.

Linke takes the decluttering a step further to include our inner lives. She advises decluttering your mind; just because the world is nuts, we don’t have to be.

“Be detached, still and optimistic,” says Linke, who has found yoga and Buddhist practices useful in her own life. “Do not continue the ‘compulsive extroversion’ that is the monkey year’s dominant energy.

On the other hand, she says, a child born in this year will be fun, creative, a bit wild – a little monkey. “A kid born this year will be very interesting and not at all passive or submissive,” Linke says.

She also harks back to some of the old sayings from ’68 that will have new relevancy in the new year, such as “make love, not war” and “be here now.”

A sense of humor – a monkey’s forte – becomes a life skill in this type of year. Keep a sense of humor and laugh a lot,” Linke advises. “Don’t take it seriously. What else can you do?”

Both Levitt and Linke cite “Journey to the West,” a 16th-century Chinese literary classic, as a good text for 2016. It’s a fantastical story of a monkey who becomes a disciple to a monk journeying west to India to bring Buddhist teachings, called sutras, back to China. “It’s a journey from unevolved to evolved,” Levitt explains.

But Levitt also urges people who have dreams they’ve always dreamed of acting on – far-flung travel, guitar lessons – to do so this year.

“Yes, go for it,” she says. “If you’ve always wanted to do something, do it. You’ll find out by the end of the year if you’ve succeeded or failed.”

And remember: We live in a fire monkey kind of country.

“We have so much crazy nuttiness, and we don’t even think it’s unusual,” she says. “There’s a lot of energy in America.”

Full Moon in Pisces and Autumn Equinox

FULL MOON in PISCES

Thursday September 19 at 4:13 am PDT is a full Moon in Pisces. Pisces is an intuitive Water sign who values sensitivity. A superb time for divination is during a Water sign Moon of Pisces, Cancer, or Scorpio but especially Pisces. Know you can call me at 415.642.8019 or email susan@susanlevitt.com to schedule your tarot or astrology reading for the full Moon.

On this full Moon, Mercury sextiles Mars, squares Jupiter, and is opposite Uranus. This could be challenging if you just react without reflecting. Save that for next year Wood Horse 2014. For now, try to slow down on this Pisces full Moon and feel your way. Then these Mercury transits can be optimistic and positive, and good for planning with a touch of Uranus genius.

Luck is with everyone to transform and find emotional freedom on this full Moon, and is most profound for the Water signs Pisces, Cancer, and Scorpio and for those born in Rabbit, Sheep, and Pig and years.

AUTUMN EQUINOX

Sunday September 22 at 4:13 am PDT is Autumn Equinox, time of equal day and equal night on Earth. Now is the exact point between Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice when the seasons are in balance. It will be easier to create balance, peace, and harmony on this gentle Rabbit day. The Moon is opposite Venus and Saturn and squares Mars so lighten up, go easy, and don’t isolate yourself.

The Sun enters Libra today so focus is on relationships. The Moon trines Pluto to intensify emotions. Excellent for autumn cleaning and feng shui enhancements, especially in the bedroom, as the seasonal wheel turns. Click here for feng shui tips to ease into Water Snake winter.

Happy full Moon,

Susan

Snake Year Tips – Especially for Pigs

Snake and Pig are opposite signs in Chinese astrology. So Snake year is not considered a fortunate time for Pigs. Snake year began a month ago, and I’ve received emails from concerned people who were born in the year of the Pig. Here is an example of an email from a Pig:

“I learned about you via Chinese Astrology and now follow you on Twitter; I enjoy reading your work! I am a Pig and the Snake year is presenting unique feelings for me. I’ve been scattered, forgetful and irritable- totally out of my character. Do you have any tips to share (gemstones, etc) to increase emotional balance??”

Know that this Water Snake year can be too dreamy, and it’s easy to get lost or confused because the Water Snake is not grounded on earth like the other Snakes. The Earth Snake is naturally very grounded, the Fire and Metal Snakes are focused, and the Wood Snake pursues goals.

A very grounding gemstone for you would be green jade. It’s not too expensive and it’s pretty. Other grounding stones are garnet, jasper, or bloodstone. But they just aren’t as beautiful as jade. Maybe carry a bloodstone with you, and wear jade. Avoid clear quartz that can amplify confused energy.

And when overwhelmed, take a warm bath with a half cup or so of epsom salts. Be sure to submerge your head under the water. Stay for about 15 or 20 minutes in the tub, or until the water loses its heat. You can switch this with a half bottle of hydrogen peroxide. A series of five baths in a row, each evening, should be beneficial. You can add a few drops of organic pure essential oil of lavender for a calming scent.

And good feng shui! Clear out all clutter so you do not have chaos in your home, office, or car.

This Hare month that started a week ago will be better for you. Last month was Tiger month and that can feel like too much aggressive energy for the sensitive Pig. Even though Pig and Tiger are allies, Tiger energy can be a bit much.

Good luck,

Susan

EASY FENG SHUI TIP FOR WATER SNAKE YEAR 2013

FOCUS ON YOUR KNOWLEDGE CORNER!

Snakes love knowledge, wisdom, and learning. So this year focus on your Knowledge corner. The Knowledge corner of each room is located in the near LEFT-hand corner from the entry. This corner represents the tri-gram Mountain in the Black Hat Ba Gua (Eight Tri-Grams) style of feng shui. This Knowledge corner is where you focus to increase your inner awareness, understanding, and spiritual development. And Snake year is all about spiritual development. Be sure to keep your Knowledge corner clean, and do not allow clutter to gather there. A cluttered Knowledge corners equals a cluttered mind.

Your Knowledge corner is an excellent location for books, an altar, or spiritual objects. You can enhance this area with a bright light, a mirror, or a crystal ball to add illumination. Or add a wind chime, a mobile, or other moving object to keep this area active in your life. Fresh flowers and fresh plants are symbolic of fresh ideas and new mental and spiritual growth. But dried flowers and dried wreaths are especially not lucky in this corner because dried and dead things keep you stuck in the past.

The energy-producing items that can be problematic in other areas of the home — computer, television, fireplace, entertainment center, stereo — are all fine here. A computer in this corner can be used to acquire new knowledge.Television programs can open new doors to learning. A fireplace adds vitality to inner development. A stereo can inspire new growth from musical inspiration.

How many rooms in your dwelling? That’s how many Knowledge corners are in your home, and every Knowledge corner can be transformed. A one-room studio or cubicle has only one Knowledge corner, but a home with many rooms has many Knowledge corners, one in each room. More rooms just mean more Knowledge corners for you to enhance for increased consciousness and spiritual development in this Water Snake year. Keep in mind that Snake is a minimalist so keep your Knowledge corners clean and tidy throughout this entire Snake year. Good luck!

FULL MOON, HALLOWEEN & MERCURY

FULL MOON IN EARTH SIGN TAURUS

FULL MOON in TAURUS

October 29 is a full Moon in the Earth sign Taurus. Sensual Taurus
is ruled by Venus the planet of art, music, romance, and
relationships. All the delights of Mother Earth – especially good
food and drink – are in the realm of Venus. Now is the time to
socialize and show your appreciation of others. Luck is strongest for
the Earth signs Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn and those born in Snake,
Phoenix, and Ox years.

HALLOWEEN

October 31 is the solar holiday that marks the point between Autumn
Equinox and Winter Solstice. There is increased sensitivity during
this time of death and rebirth. A feng shui tip is to not decorate
with images of death such as skeletons and ghosts, but with images
of abundance like a cornucopia full of fresh vegetables.

Clean your home if it needs weather-proofing before winter. For
those of us in the Bay area, anticipate downpours during the winter
months of this Water Dragon year 2012. Next year Water Snake 2013
will also be rainy and stormy. Click here for my video about what to
anticipate in Water Snake year 2013.

MERCURY RETROGRADE

From November 6 to November 26 the planet Mercury will be retrograde
in Sagittarius and back into Scorpio. Sagittarius can be a lot of
fun, so lighten up and be inventive instead of pushing too hard to
advance your projects and initiatives.

Get into the holiday spirit early in this Dragon year because Dragon
loves parties. Just go slowly with your plans because the next new
Moon and full Moon in November are both eclipses. Projects started
during eclipses come to fruition in six months.

Happy full Moon,

Susan