The Muffin Tree

Fifteen years ago my husband moved to Minnesota so we could begin our lives together. One of the few things he brought with him was an old cat named Muffin. After the first hour of being together, Muffin and I were bonded. I forgot she was his cat and not mine----I think Muffin forgot it too. By default my husband let go of any ownership of her as well. It was clear to all she and I were meant to be together.

A few years later, by some unusual circumstances, we given a June berry tree to plant in our front yard. The day we planted the tree, Muffin hobbled her nineteen-year-old body out to oversee the project. In Feng Shui fashion, my husband and I placed a couple of special meaningful objects in the hole while she watched. Since she seemed to want to take part in the proceedings, I brushed a bit of her fur and placed it in there as well. When we were done, Muffin wasted no time in blessing it in her own way, which entailed a lot of circling and trunk-rubbing. Thereafter we deemed it the Muffin tree. That was her last summer with us.

A few days ago the Muffin tree exploded with brilliant white flowers. Even though it’s been ten years, I remember the day we dedicated it to her as though it was yesterday. Each spring it’s as though she returns to remind us of the wonderful years we had together and the day we planted a very intentional tree. I always have to ask my husband what kind of tree it really is as I can’t remember its name, knowing it only as the Muffin tree. We have other cats now who are not nearly as interested in this story as I am. However, I will always be grateful for the gentle reminders of a special kitty.

Sparks Will Fly

Well, I finally got my current situation under control: the new fountain arrived and is flowing great and my “fiddling” with the front light worked and it’s shining brightly. I was still contemplating what the message was when something else happened to remind me that there is more thinking to do.

When Sunday turned out to be different than the forecast (sunny vs. rainy), I knew it would be a great day to get some much-needed lawn work done. I psyched myself up, put on my gear and headed out to the garage to start the lawn mower for the first time. I checked the oil, added new gas and pulled the cord. Nothing. I gave it some time, pulled again and there was a slight turnover. After several attempts, I realized that there was something more that needed to be done. Back to the house I went for the manual to figure out the next step: changing the spark plug.

This Feng Shui connection is practically screaming at me: my “juice” is loose. And that, my friends, is what I am focusing on these days: reconnecting my energy so that it flows uninterrupted. I don’t know if it’s the slow down of the economy, the dreary days or something else, but I have noticed that my “get up and go” isn’t nearly the level it used to be. Obviously there is something that needs to be tweaked to get that movement flowing again.

I had a bit more time to think about that during the mowing, trimming and sweeping that took place Sunday afternoon. And as I sat on the deck afterward, feeling a sense of accomplishment, I thought about some of the things I could – or rather at this point - need to do to recharge. A Feng Shui recipe of adjustments and activities is on my list. These should ignite me; making some sparks fly.

What kind of LUCK is this anyway?

I have been searching for a published explanation of a concept about "luck" that I learned somewhere along the way in my feng shui studies. It is a way of looking at life that has stuck with me over the years, but one I sometimes wonder if I imagined because I can’t find it in printed form anywhere. I have been contemplating it these last few days, and I thought I would share it with my blog reading friends. As we know, the Chinese are concerned with the idea of luck. In this discussion about Taoist thought as the core of feng shui it was explained that there are three kinds of luck: Heaven Luck, Man (Human) Luck, and Earth Luck. Heaven Luck has to do with aspects of your existence that you cannot change, i.e. the astrology of your birth – in both the location and the timing, your gene pool, your karma, your destiny, your calling, etc. Man Luck, or Human Luck as we prefer today, has to do with your actions and choices, your diligence in study and work, your ethic in interactions with others, and so on. Earth Luck is where feng shui enters in. This is the aspect of luck that our culture has largely overlooked. In many ways our society has ignored the kind of sensitivity and orientation to the environmental surroundings of living and working spaces that virtually every other culture on the planet has paid close attention to. This is why (I explain to my clients and students) feng shui is not a magic pill that you take that instantly makes your life problem free. You may impact your “luck” a great deal with your feng shui efforts, and often it is just the shot of luck your life has been longing for. But feng shui won’t change your karma. It won’t undo poor choices or bad behavior. I often say to high school students when I guest lecture in their classes - you may improve your school performance by enhancing the feng shui of your homework space (whether it’s your bedroom or the kitchen table) but you still have to study for the tests!

As many of you know, in the last couple of months my life went from sort of normal “busy bee” break neck speed (read Carole’s newsletter this month), to completely turning upside down. What with my house water disaster, and reconstruction moving at a slow pace, and my sister in the hospital for over a month having had 4 surgeries within 6 days, and my sprained ankle, and searching for a much needed job (which I have now been offered), and two sons graduating from college --- I have had to stop and ask myself – what kind of “luck” is this? Is it a karmic/astrological/metaphysical/spiritual lesson? Is it a reflection of my choices and behaviors? Is it my feng shui? My style is to look at all three. To me “luck” is a braid of many strands. At this point, I have come to a pretty major snarl, and need to pay attention to untangling the threads as best I can.

I went my astrologer, Nellie, on Saturday. She's amazing. I don’t go often, and I know practically nothing about western astrology. But it seemed like an appropriate time, given the circumstances. It’s funny (coincidence???) that some of what she sees as prominent in my chart are similar prominences in my Chinese astrology chart. I ran through my list of questions to focus on: work, money, home, marriage, caring for others – oh, just a few of the biggies in life. Naturally, she could see about 13 ways from Sunday how and why all my life “structures” have come down around me just now. Yes, I have some major life lessons to learn, most effectively summarized in her statement that “You need to rebuild your life by including yourself into the equations.” Ooooh thaaat. Yeah, that’ll be a lesson for me alright. Talk about the Heaven luck strand – there it is, plain as day. On a positive note, she pointed right to the spot on the chart that told her “this is not a chart of failure. You have the skills and strength to accomplish this.” (Thank you Nellie, I really needed to hear that.) And then I explained that on my drive over, as I was pondering all my questions it dawned on me that my relationship with my home IS a primary relationship for me. Immediately she circled a gaggle of astrology hieroglyphics in the very bottom section of my chart. “There it is, right there. Home is at your core,” she said. Home is crucial to who I feel I am and how I approach the world.

There it was, articulating something that has been true for me since I was a little girl - from the time I was rearranging the furniture in my parents living room and insisting on painting my bedroom lavendar with a rainbow across two walls! - right there in my chart. Fitting to my braided strands theme, at that moment I understood more completely than ever before, that for me my Earth Luck and my Heaven Luck are inextricably tied together. No wonder I ended up in feng shui. Now I just need to get my Human Luck moving in my best reconstructive direction! It's like that Mary Engelbreit illustration of the little girl and a sign saying "Life, put your self into it." Mine just needs to say "Your life, put yourself into it!" Now I just need to get ME into my Human Luck equation.

Thinking Outside the Box

I’m evidently into boxes. I blogged earlier about using a box to organize my desk, throwing everything into the box at night so that when I walked in the next day, I would be met with a clean, clear desk. I’ve loved the idea and have integrated it wholly into my routine. A few weeks ago I realized that the box idea isn’t a new one to me----I’ve organized my life by a box method. Back in the 70's I started putting together memory boxes rather than the proverbial scrapbooks. I would cover a sturdy box and lid with decorative paper and put in everything I wanted to keep for that year----pictures, birthday cards, memorabilia. The next year, I’d start a new box.

About 20 years into that process, I had a lot of boxes, as you can imagine, so I began a consolidation. First it was into five-year increments, then a few years ago I condensed it to ten year spans. As I went through each box, I had an opportunity to remember some moments, look over some old theater tickets, try to recall why some of the miscellaneous stuff might have been important. I had a birthday card from someone named Joan----I no longer remember who she was. It was easy to let a lot of it go.

So now I’m questioning the whole idea. Does anyone care what I looked like in 1976? or who sent me birthday cards? Perhaps the better question is whether I care? On one hand it’s my data, my history; on the other hand it’s in the past. I don’t have children who will one day cherish a photo of me in my bell bottom jeans. I guess I’m aware that at some point in universal time, all this stuff will be recycled by someone, never to be seen again. Shouldn’t that be me taking care of this while I can? Of course there’s always the possibility someone will want to write an extensive autobiography about me after I’m dead and will want any and all photos and memorabilia they can find. Then again.....

I ask myself WWFSD? (What would Feng Shui do?) I know the mantra that less is more, simplify, simplify, yet I also know the underlying Taoist belief about flow. Perhaps there’s no set answer, but instead a compromise. Maybe there’s the ultimate memory box where eventually the memories of the most important parts of my life end up, but there are interim boxes leading up to that point. That way my stuff is always moving around, I’m regularly assessing where it should go, as I choose to move it to another box or relinquish it altogether. No stagnent ch’i here. Yes, indeed, I do like those boxes.

Partially Hidden Front Doors and Straight Paths

Last week while Mother Nature was trying so hard to give birth to spring, I attended the 25th anniversary of Art in Bloom at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. With everything so brown, I needed that chi infusion of the color, texture and fragrance of beautiful floral arrangements paired with works of art.

As part of the celebration, internationally known speakers are invited to present on various aspects of gardens and floral design. The first speaker’s topic was about gardens of some of the Impressionist painters. We saw stunning photographs of Monet’s garden, which he compared with the gardens of Renoir and Cézanne. These three artists personified the use of nature as the model. While they were all conservationists, Renoir and Cézanne loved a natural feel in the garden while Monet liked order. As I viewed this presentation through the lens of Feng Shui, I was aware of some interesting aspects to their approach. The first thing that struck me as we viewed an absolutely breathtaking photo of Cézanne’s front garden was the fig tree partially hiding the front door to his home. Of course, an emphasis in Feng Shui is to have a front door that is not hidden in any way, even partially. I was thrilled that our speaker addressed the door just as I was thinking about it. He stated that Cézanne’s motif was devoted to nature’s reclaiming man’s dominion over it. Because Cézanne so believed that nature comes first, he would never correct for the roots of a tree disrupting a driveway, vines taking over a house or a fig tree partially covering his front door. His emphasis was to allow nature to be dominant.

Monet’s front door, on the other hand, was fully visible and framed by a beautiful arched trellis covered with clematis, roses and wisteria. Monet, unlike Cézanne, took a more formal, orderly and controlled approach to gardening. His garden paths, rather than being gently curved, were very straight. While in Feng Shui, curved paths are encouraged to allow chi to meander, there is a place for straight lines when the desire is to encourage chi to move quickly. Monet’s use of straight lines as a design perspective was very intentional. Rather than using straight paths to encourage one to walk quickly, he created the illusion that the garden paths went on to infinity. No need to hurry.

The invention of oil paints in tubes was pivotal. It allowed these artists to paint outside. They created gorgeous gardens because of their love of nature and their desire to capture her subtle nuances, including movement and flow. They designed flower gardens for a personal connection with nature and water gardens for introspection. A partially hidden front door or a very long, linear path became, in these instances, breathtakingly beautiful. What was very clear was that this gift of beauty was created from the power of their intentions.

Ch'i Over the Years

Ten years ago this September, following a distant call, I gathered the first class of what would eventually become the Wind and Water School of Feng Shui. To say that the program has evolved from those days is the proverbial understatement. Those who took part in that first group don’t even recognize what the training has become.

Not that those first classes were any less valid or substantive than they are now, but my approach has changed. I’ve re-arranged and re-formatted the hand-outs, changed teaching venues a couple times, added faculty, met the qualifications to become licensed as an official school by the Minnesota Department of Higher Education Services. And, bottom line, I teach the material differently. All of these changes have been exciting, appropriate, and in line with the flow of the ch’i.

Luckily, however, one thing has not changed in all these years----the faces. One of the pure delights I cherish is being able to watch the faces of my students as the light bulbs go on, as the words bring new insights, as they realize the possibilities. It was one of the first things I observed ten years ago, and it still happens with every group of students. It reminds me of my own journey. That ride is pretty exhilarating, that’s for sure.

I also know from experience that when you’re in a group having break-throughs, processing issues, supporting one another, making plans for the future, a bond happens. Feng Shui is no different. Some of the past classes still meet informally even though their classroom experience was years ago. I still have a dear friend who, at the time of our mutual study paths, was living in Florida and now lives in Pennsylvania. We wouldn’t think of going to a Feng Shui conference or take up another line of Feng Shui study without one another.

This past weekend one of my classes reached a mid-point in their studies. After a short ceremony to mark the occasion, they wanted to forever hold the moment so we took a picture. I want to share the photo with you to show you what I’m talking about.

It’s hard not to smile when you look at their faces. I thank them and all the prior students for blessing me with their open hearts.

Of course, nothing says "bonding" better than a group hug.

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My "Current" Situation

Over the past week, electrical issues have appeared in my space. Nothing major (thankfully), but interestingly both were by my “front” doors: my outside front light stopped working and a fountain that I had near my office door had a pump issue.

Last Friday I was having some people over and went to turn on my front light and it was out (so I thought). Luckily everyone coming had been here before and it wasn't an issue for people to find me. I bought a new bulb this weekend and replaced it. Last night, however, when I went to turn on the light, it remained dark. The bulb isn’t the issue; there’s something with the wiring. Maneuvering it “just so” will cause the light to go on, so I was out there this morning tightening everything to see if that makes a difference.

The fountain issue I also noticed last week. The pump was getting louder and instead of a nice relaxing water trickling sound, it became a louder humming (somewhat irritating). I unplugged it, cleaned it and while trying to adjust the motor, the knob controlling water flow fell off. I did some research on the web for a new pump, but didn’t find a match. Yesterday I contacted the place I had purchased it from and they are replacing the whole fountain!

Like Carole, I am in the midst of discovering the underlying message here. Both were near front doors – the Feng Shui area representing careers and opportunities. Does it mean that I need to devote a little more attention there? Or maybe my “spark” needs an adjustment? As I continue to ponder, I’m hoping that a new fountain and a working front light get my juices flowing again.

Getting the Ch'i Back to Work

I may have mentioned that both my husband and I are looking for work. I had applied to a few jobs and hadn’t heard back from anyone for about 3 weeks. Even the application to work for someone I had worked for in the past, a position I had met with her about in person already…. now I wasn’t getting any responses to emails or telephone calls.

I kept thinking of my dad. Later in his years as a Presbyterian minister on the west coast, he worked as an employment counselor for the State of CA, rather than serving in a parish. I remember his agenda with his clients: that he would encourage people to get some job, even if it wasn’t their ultimate job. Just the fact of being employed improved one’s outlook, one’s self esteem, and lowered their stress by having something of an income stream, and so on.

I look at his wisdom now in terms of energy flow. I had been having a recurring thought of getting “any” job – even something at a coffee shop, just to get the ‘job” energy moving. I hadn’t quite gotten around to it, what with my house torn up and in turmoil (status post flood), when I received an email from my old friend, Sue, who is a Psychologist and Psych/Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist. She has a private practice of largely managing psych and brain chemistry medications for people in therapy. She is an expert in medications as well as natural and complementary approaches to improving and stabilizing brain chemistry and function – so she is in high demand. She was asking me if, while I was looking for a job, I would like to work in her office part time and help her get organized and manage the inundation of phone calls and referred clients she has. PERFECT! We have worked closely together in the past, even in similar circumstances, and I jumped at the chance. Sure enough, having worked there precisely 4 times, I got a call back from one of jobs I had applied for. Then, a week later, I heard back from the former boss about the position we had spoken of – not calling me for an interview, but “inviting” (her word) me to take this job. While I haven’t entirely accepted this position just yet – pending meetings to better understand the responsibilities, I am humbled at a small glimpse of how the universe works.

It doesn’t mean everything is dreamy and fixed and perfect. I'm distracted now by so much of my life in upheaval, with multiplied stress because my sister, Nancy, has been hospitalized and quite ill for a couple of weeks. But it’s a small step in the right direction. And it’s gratifying to know that I heard the ch'i call me to get moving, and I got to see the beneficial outcome. Gotta count those blessings, no matter how small.

Enlightenment

A couple weeks ago I found myself engaged in light fixtures. One fixture project was planned, the other an unexpected surprise. To wrap up a kitchen remodel we started four plus years ago, my husband and I bought some pendulum lights for over the counter and the sink. Part of the delay in getting lights was due to the fact that we didn’t know what we wanted and were overwhelmed by the options. The other contributing factor was that we just wanted to be done with the remodel, with or without lights. So we shelved the idea until later.

One recent weekend we found what we wanted rather unexpectedly. When the lights were installed, it was as though the whole remodeling project took on a new life. And we were pleased all over again. At the same time, Debbie, a student of mine, gave me a small lamp with a lovely Asian flair----marking the end of her Feng Shui studies with me. I thought it curious that, within a few days, all this new light was appearing.

The kitchen pendulums had designated spots but the little lamp needed to find its home. I had it in my office, our bedroom, the entry, but nothing worked right. I found what I thought would be a suitable place in the dining room but then realized it was too close to the kitchen, competing with those pendulums.

So, I took a Feng Shui approach. Since the kitchen lights were in the south and center of our house (Fame and Health), I decided to complete that line of thought and place the lamp along the same axis----in the north (Career). I walked into the living room, lamp in hand, doubtful I’d find anything that would be appropriate. In fact, I saw the perfect spot on top of the television cabinet. The lamp nestled in next to some lucky bamboo as though it was always meant to be there.

I’m pondering the reality of having more light in my life. Feng Shui is the proverbial language of metaphor so there must be some message here, after all, the whole center third of my space/life has been lightened. Meanwhile until I fully understand the underlying meaning, I bask in the warm glow, grateful for the new vision it provides me.