As Feng Shui is thousands of years old and has gone through many incarnations, let’s put it into a little bit of historical context. If you have read books on Feng Shui, you may have found contradictory and confusing information. There are many schools and each is valid, but most books do not say which school they are using for the basis of their instruction.
It is told that 5,000 years ago Chinese peasants noticed how the position of their villages on the side of a mountain that protected them from the cold north winds and that further had small hills to either side of the village formed a safe haven (shaped like an arm chair) due to the form of the land. This was the beginning of Form School. Names were given to these forms: the Black Tortoise was the mountain and it protected the back of the village and its inhabitants. The Green Dragon was to the east and the White Tiger was to the west. Ideally a river flowed by the front of the village, initially providing sustenance through fishing and eventually trade and commerce. The river is known as the Red Phoenix. Roads have, for the most part, become the Red Phoenix of modern Feng Shui. These colors, red, white, green and black, are used today to represent four of the five elements or energies of transformation, along with their respective cardinal directions: south, west, east and north.
It is also said that Feng Shui was a secret kept within the knowledge of the emperors and their personal advisors for many centuries. Madame Chiang Kai-shek forbade the use of Feng Shui because she felt it had the potential to provide unnecessary power to the common people. It is also said that her husband’s rise to power can be traced to the especially good Feng Shui of his mother’s grave; some blame his downfall on the Communists’ digging up that grave.
The earliest themes of Feng Shui – such as the powerful effect of the environment on humans, the influence of auspicious and positive symbolism on our psyches, the balance of nature and chi, the landscape as metaphor and the need for protection and guardians, recreating the calm and peace of nature – recur throughout the practice of modern Feng Shui. It is an ancient concept, in existence since the beginning of human civilization. The fundamentals have not changed. And, as to architecture, people are always looking for the safest, healthiest, most comfortable and most joyful living place.
Additionally, Feng Shui is evolving knowledge, an art form that is alive; not fixed and immutable, constrained by dogma. Our perceptions change as our environments change. It is a fascinating combination of ancient and new knowledge, the addition of technology, the importance of sustainable lifestyles, the increase in our global awareness and the real concept of Oneness – all these provide incredible opportunities for life enhancement on every level.
This article was kindly contributed by Peggy Cross
