Two years ago, I used fasting to cleanse my body as a way to celebrate my birthday. The fasting resulted in more energy, better mental clarity, and boosted spirits—as well as weight loss. I felt so good during the fast and hoped to continue as long as I could. However an important consulting mission in the Ukraine ended the fasting on the 24th day. Today, I still maintain the weight I achieved at the end of fasting.
Ten years in the making, the National September 11 Memorial was completed and opened to the public on September 12, 2011. The eight-acre park was designed by Israeli- American, Michael Arad of Handle Architects, a New York and San Francisco firm.
The Memorial is composed of a forest of swamp white oak trees with two square pools, one on each of the original foot prints of the North and South Towers. The core of the design is a 30-foot man-made wall of water that hugs the sides of the one-acre reflecting pools. The downward-streaming water is meant to symbolize falling tears.
Change is the nature of the universal energy, qi. The only thing in the universe that does not change is change itself. Change reflects the flow of energy. On a large scale, the planet’s energy shifts from continent to continent by the century. In the 19th century energy was high in Europe, in the 20th century energy moved to North America, and in the 21st century energy is flowing toward Asia.
Herman Miller invented the cubicle in 1956, with the idea of creating more privacy and helping to reduce distraction and increase concentration. Since then, the cubicle has become a standard feature of modern office design in the American workplace.
Offices designed using this modular unit, often called mouse mazes or cube farms, have become the symbol of human conditioning, and of the reduction of individuality to uniformity and blandness.
Human beings live between Heaven and Earth, nourished by Yang and Yin energy. The energy of Heaven comes downward from above, manifesting as sunshine, rain and so on. The energy of Earth rises upward from below, manifesting as food, water and other nourishing products. Heaven (yang) energy implies dynamic expansion while Earth (yin) energy implies collection, connection, cooperation and nourishment. Without the effects of Earth’s energy that emerges to balance the outward expansion of Heaven’s force, there will be conflict and strife. What are the most powerful factors in manifesting Earth energy, the energy of connection and cooperation? The answer is trees, forests and all vegetation. The places that tend to have more conflict in the world are just those
places that lack forests, or that have undergone recent, sudden deforestation. In modern history, there are positive correlations between the depletion of natural forests and the general level of strife and chaos in the world. This is the source of the problem.
In the arenas of politics, economics or other specialized spheres, there is constant effort to control chaos and conflict. The emphasis is not on how to solve the issues but on how to not create further problems. Due to this, there will always be an uphill battle to find a fundamental solution to today’s issues. From a feng shui perspective, the best solution is found in Mother Nature. We must look at it from an energy (chi) level. Chaos and conflict means there is too much Yang energy so it is necessary to increase the nourishing Earth or Yin energy or increasing energy for cooperation and support. How do we go about this? We must begin by planting trees and establishing greenery all over the world. In the meantime, where forests are abundant, water will be abundant. And water, to the planet, is like blood in the human body.
The global warming and the increase of CO2 is the modern urgent concern. While people search for different ways to find solutions, which are often complicated, we should just ask our Mother Earth for a solution. According to a scientific study, 20% of CO2 is attributable to deforestation, which is more than all of the world’s cars and trucks combined. Let us stop and take the time to think. How much of a positive impact will there be in solving the CO2 issue if instead of deforestation, we increased forestation?
A good old friend, an architect, came to visit from out of town. He brought along a few house models to discuss the design from a feng shui perspective. My friend is a Black Feet American Indian, who is tall, handsome and a gentlemen. In contrast to his commanding physical presence he creates intricate and beautiful beadwork.
There is a special bead-ring he designed showing five different color figures: white, black, yellow, red and brown. Each color represents the different colors of people in the world. The design of these five people, hand in hand, symbolizes world peace. He had shown a similar bead-ring to me a long time ago and I always remembered it because it impressed me so. During lunch, he showed me another bead-ring that he recently made. While I was admiring it, putting it on my finger, he said, “I do not want to give it to you because there is some flaw”. I smiled, put the ring back on my finger and said “it is mine now”.
People are always looking for perfection, appreciate perfection and have difficulty accepting imperfection. If a beautiful blue and white, Ming dynasty vase has a small chip or has a fine hairline crack, the commercial value will drop dramatically. This is true for many objects. Why is it, that a vase with a small chip, no longer looks beautiful to us anymore? Why can’t we enjoy something with flaws, even though we are aware the world is full of imperfections?
Navaho and Hopi Indian tribes, purposely leave some flaws and mistakes in their work when weaving carpets or straw baskets. It is their belief that only God can make perfect things. This is an attitude of humbleness, the wisdom of learning to accept and enjoy imperfection.
We tend to focus too much on small flaws, and lose sight of the whole picture. This habit can be seen in our daily lives through our actions toward others, material things and events in our life. For example, we may think, “this is a beautiful piece of pottery, too bad it has a chip at the bottom” or “he is a nice boy, unfortunately he does not have much patience” or “the party was just perfect, except the soup wasn’t hot enough”. We always pay more attention to small mistakes, and lose sight of the whole picture. Such thoughts add to the stress and unhappiness of our lives.
It is inevitable that in life, we will always encounter some flaws, mistakes and imperfections. If we can learn to accept small flaws, learn to appreciate the beauty of imperfection, we will be a person with more tolerance and compassion and at the same time be more loving. In turn, it will make us more relaxed and happy. So give yourself and others a break from time to time, as only God can make things perfect!
When things in nature grow and their size and quantity is plotted on a chart, they tend to exhibit what is called the normal distribution curve or a bell shaped curve. This growth pattern, as seen in most natural objects such as, plants, animals and humans, shows the medium size will always be the dominant size, while quantity of the small and big size are much less, creating the bell curve.
In the novel, The Medicine Box, I described a professor experimenting using qi to enhance mushroom growth. The results created a crop that had a mixture of very giant sized and very tiny sized mushrooms, with only a small number of middle sized mushrooms. If we chart the crop results, it creates the normal bell curve flipped upside down, looking more like the letter ‘U’, an inverse bell curve, which is the total opposite from what is exhibited in nature. Why does this happen? It’s a mystery.
In 2008, the Chinese Shenzhou space craft carried 87 kinds of vegetable seeds into space. Recently, many vegetables grown from those seeds have come to maturity and their fruit has been harvested. All exhibit a very interesting result.
In the crop of eggplants grown from the seeds brought back from space, there were some the size as big as a honey dew melon! What also caught my attention was the fact that on the other hand, some eggplant were as small as an egg, with very few medium sized. This phenomenon is exactly the same as the mushrooms that were treated by qi projection. Similarly, both exhibit the upside-down bell curve, opposite to what is seen of vegetables grown in nature. Is there a common factor or influence from qi-treatment and space-treatment to these plants? If so, what is it? This could be a very interesting subject for researchers to study.
A Latvian family, consisting of a mother, daughter and son, has published a very nice picture book for children. After reading my blog regarding selling your home, they wondered if there is a similar way to help sell their book. There is good news, the answer is yes.
Physical manifestation begins at the information level. First visualize children reading and enjoying the book. With the existence of this visualization, information could trickle down to create a real manifestation. The effectiveness will be based on how clear the image of visualization one can project. What is the criteria for this? One is the ability of the individual and two is the scale of the image. Visualizing the image on a smaller scale is easier than on a large scale. This is because if the scale is too large it becomes more difficult to focus on an image. For example, in this particular case, to imagine millions of children reading the book is not easy, creating only a vague image and idea. Due to the difficulty, it can be interpreted as wishful thinking, thus not creating the desired result. So, it is best to start on a smaller scale.
Visualization takes practice. One can begin by first looking at a static object, such as a flower, tree, or even a cup. Next, with your eyes closed, see how long and how clear an image you can hold. Once you feel confident that you are able to do this, then increase the image content. Finally, move on to practice dynamic images. The big secret to obtaining good visualization skills is practice, practice, practice.
