All phenomena in nature and the universe is nothing but the process of manifesting and striving for yin-yang balance.  What we can also say is, if anything goes wrong, it is due to yin-yang imbalance.  Designing a menu is the same way.

Good menu design should:
o    be balanced according to seasons
o    consider who will consume the food
o    be a balance and combination of different dishes at the same meal
o    have balance within each dish.

I grew up in a family of ten; parents plus five boys and three girls.  I was the youngest boy.  During dinner, all ten of us would sit around a circular table. My mother prepared all the dishes. From time to time, my father would make a comment on the meal if the dishes tended to be too many cold dishes or too many hot dishes. By hot and cold, what we mean is not in terms of temperature but in terms of the food’s medicinal properties.   Then my mother would make the adjustments accordingly.  The suggestions made by my father also reflected the season and our physical condition.

Food is the first medicine for human beings. During summer you need more cold foods to dissipate the heat. Winter time you need more warm foods to store energy. And on the same table, there should be a balance of cold and hot dishes.  In particular dishes, the ingredients should also strive for yin-yang balance. My father always stressed having food that was in season and he did not care for the exotic food that came from distances away.  All the kids in our family grew very healthy.

There is much information available on the internet regarding the medicinal properties and energy of food.  Blue Mountain Feng Shui Institute also offers a course, The Yin and Yang of Food and Cooking, for those interested in this subject.

Work hard and work smart.

From a feng shui point of view, money flow is the same as energy flow.  The main entrance is the gateway for energy flow from outside to inside. The space in front of a door is crucial. If it is open, spacious, and well defined, the qi will corrugate and also provide abundant good flow into the house.  Therefore make sure your front yard is clean open and tidy.  Upon the entrance, the space should be open and inviting. It will be good to have some house plant to provide a good energy connection from outside to inside.

However, there are plenty of suggestions in other feng shui circles that you may find somewhat intriguing:

1.  Get a three-leg toad; it will help to bring money into the house.  (Wouldn’t a four-leg frog do a better job than three-leg toad?)
2.  Place a fountain in the house as water is money; water flow brings money flow.  (So, since water is money; it might be good to have a leaking roof in the house, allowing money to come to the    house!)
3.  Put a vase in the fortune corner of the room and also enhance it by a special vase spray.  (Whoever came up with this idea and also sells the vase and spray would surely  have a lot of money flow into their house, but not into yours.)
4.  Put a mirror over the stove, as it reflects more burners which will help you get rich.  (What an idea! Let’s suggest to President Obama to insert this idea in his economic stimulus package.  He could allow the government to buy every family a mirror to install behind their stove and our financial problem will be easily resolved.)

If you live within one mile of the tower, the impact of the electronic magnetic field could be significant. However, it tapers off drastically from there.  If you place a layer of copper or aluminum screen under the roof and the walls facing the tower, this will help minimize the impact.

Call a consultant as early as you can.
A competent feng shui consultant can guide you in site selection and present a schematic design: the form of building and the layout of rooms, according to the client’s needs and desire.  Often people ask for feng shui consultation after the house is built, and some mistakes have been already made. Many years back, the Boeing company in Seattle, asked for my feng shui input in the design of the headquarters of their Commercial Airline Group.  During our first meeting with the project manager, she asked “When do we start?”  As I realized the building’s outer structure was already done, I told her, “We are already three months late”.  Ideally, they should have asked for my input even before the building was built.  Their understanding of feng shui was that it is just related to interior design, and they wanted to add a feng shui touch to their design. This is the prevailing misperception of feng shui.

In general, when furniture is arranged according to feng shui principles, it will function better and provide a better feeling.  However, often many so-called feng shui concepts presented in feng shui books and teachings, are rigid rules and even superstition which do not reflect real feng shui principles.  So you might think you have arranged furniture according to feng shui principles but you actually have not. In this case, resistance to change occurred.  Sometimes though, people are not so sensitive to energy, and they do not feel any difference in the different furniture arrangement. In addition, feng shui is more than just a philosophy and science, it is also an art.  Therefore, under the same higher feng shui principles, people might have a different approach in furniture arrangement, and thus disagreement will occur. If you are sure you are on the right track, make gentle suggestions allowing people to slowly come around to see the benefits of the changes.  Do not force your way.

We live in color, so color plays an important role in our daily living. If we define feng shui in very general terms, as the relationship of people and their living environment, you may say color does play some role in feng shui design. However, the main focus of feng shui deals with the higher order qi energy instead of the physical energy of color.  In this sense, color is a small component of the body of feng shui knowledge. Much study has been done in both the fashion industry and the general product industries regarding the psychological and physiological aspect of color. This is commonly shared knowledge in the field of science and art.

It represents that Mr. “Mission Accomplished” can no longer continue trash America.  However, the negative impact that has been created will take a long time to resolve and recover. Obama does not have the magic power to reverse the current situation right away; he will first have to slow down the rapid muddy current, then redirect it with a curve and reverse the direction into a smooth flow.  It is almost an insurmountable task.  But if Obama cannot do it, nobody can do it.  He needs all the support he can get from Americans.

In the world, not much will change by the changing of the American presidency.  Even though Obama stresses about dialogue with countries of the world, the issue is less of dialogue and more of understanding.  As long as we are steadfast on our past foreign views and positions, we cannot expect others to change themselves.  The question is how much is the US willing to adjust or compromise? It’s important for US leaders to pay attention to not just the interest of the US, but the “higher” interests of the US.   Higher interest resonates with the world interest.

Let us also hope Obama is a Peace president and not a president who just changes the battle field. Even without war, humans have already suffered too much from hunger and disease.