Are We Still Weird?

Hardly a week goes by that Feng Shui doesn’t appear in the news. Sometimes it’s a mere mention of some celebrity incorporating its principles in a remodel or a new house. Sometimes it’s advertised as a selling point for a model home built by some upper-end builder. It might be mentioned in connection to a clinic that used a Feng Shui consultant to help bring about a harmonious environment. For those of us who have been in the Feng Shui world long enough, it’s gratifying to see it go mainstream. Not too many people are raising their eyebrows anymore.

Recently there was an article in our local Minneapolis paper about young Iranians who are expressing an interest in self-help books and motivational speakers. In fact, the book "The Secret" is in its tenth printing in Farsi. There’s a big interest in yoga and meditation and "advertising abounds on the virtues of feng shui and financial management."

You’d think I’d consider this good news. I should be happy that the benefits of wind and water have reached global proportions. No longer does a writer have to explain what Feng Shui is, but instead treats it as a matter of fact, presuming any reader will have enough recognition of the term to know the reference. I can present no argument to the contrary.

The issue for me is that this little snippet occurred in a weekly column called "News of the Weird." This column is typically one of my favorites. I look for it every Thursday to see what weird things people are doing. Most of the time, the stories are truly absurd----a thief who left his phone number behind during a robbery because he lost his glasses, or someone who collects and sorts rubber bands to the extent that he opened a rubber band museum, or the recurrence of the middle name "Wayne" in notorious prisoners. This is mind-boggling date describing the absurdity of people’s behavior or their bizarre situations. Those are the kinds of stories I expect to read about.

I challenge the appropriateness of the article about the Iranians for this column. Is this really weird news? Isn’t it more interesting news? Or uplifting news? Or hopeful news? My husband thinks I’m too sensitive and should just be happy Feng Shui and financial management were mentioned in the same phrase within the same sentence. Perhaps that’s true. But sometimes when many of us are working so hard to get us out of weirdness and into normalcy, even a small mention in the opposite direction ruffles my feathers.

From One Owner to the Next

We love our house. It has been the perfect home for my husband and me and, for a few years, my stepson. We love the size, the location, the garden----well, everything. Okay, we do wish we had a two-car garage sometimes, but other than that it has been the best house for us. There’s one major reason this house is so special.

Many years ago we were lucky enough to have bought our home from a friend. We knew her when she lived in the house, witnessed her change in life-plans, bought her home when we realized we needed a bigger place, and now live here ourselves. In case you’re wondering, this amicable torch-passing is very good Feng Shui. We knew her reasons for leaving, what happened while she lived here, and knew the Feng Shui specifics of the space. Once we became the owners, we could shift the energy that needed to be transformed and keep what we wanted to build on.

It might be helpful for realtors to realize how important this was to us----not only buying from a friend, but also keeping her up-to-date with regard to the changes we made. I realize some previous owners would have a fit if their "perfect" home was altered by the new owners. But not in our case. Our dear friend rejoices in each and every change, no matter how big or small. And we’re always so excited to show her what we’ve done when she comes back to town. It’s as though we want her to approve and bless the changes. After all, she is an integral part of the legacy of our home.

It’s too bad old and new owners couldn’t become friends, help each other through the transitions of moving out and moving in, share the intricacies of the home, relate stories of what took place in the house. Instead the buyers and sellers often don’t even meet for fear some sort of fight will break out. I’m concerned when someone has bought a new/different house but in the process legal problems and animosity arose between the buyer and the seller. This is a predecessor issue which could plague the new owners for years to come.

Perhaps our story is unrealistic in today’s world. For the first few years we owned the house, we all referred to the house as "our" home. We’d tell her about something we’d changed or done, referring to it as "our" home----acknowledging her ownership and keeping her as part of the experience. She’d ask how "our" house was or "our" garden. I loved it. Recently I received an email from her when she referred to the house as a temple that had been handed from one owner to the next. We didn’t create that temple alone, I can assure you. In the work that she did and the infusion of Feng Shui energy she put in the structure, she had as much a part in how this house is functioning today as we do. For this we thank you, dear friend, and "our" temple continues to thank you.

Back to Nature

In teaching and living the principles of Feng Shui, I am acutely aware of how disconnected we’ve become from the influence of nature. My husband and I are city folk and, although we have an ample yard, the shade trees and squirrels derail any efforts to grow our own vegetables. So last year we joined a community supported farm in order to bring some fresh food into our kitchen.
There is an abundance of these farms around here (and I’m sure everywhere) who grow organic, pesticide-free produce. Those of us who have paid into their efforts receive a weekly bag beginning some time in June containing whatever is being harvested. As anyone who has ever taken part in these community farms knows, it’s not unusual to get some mystery things, but our farm sends an accompanying sheet explaining what is all included and some recipes for its use.

What I love the most about this experience is the dirt. These vegetables come with the dirt and mud still caked on them. The eggs may still have some straw stuck to the outside of the shell. It’s almost as though I’ve dug the veggies out myself or gathered the eggs from under the chickens with my own two hands. I realize how important that is to me when I have to buy produce in the store, after the farm has closed up for the year. The potatoes are all washed and neatly stacked; the lettuce is in similar sized bundles, freed of any offending dirt. The eggs are in cartons. There’s something not natural about that.

Of course, we go to the farmers’ markets around our home. For the most part those vendors aren’t afraid to leave the dirt on their vegetables either. But the difference is that the vegetables we get from our farm were harvested with us in mind----not specifically us as in my husband and me, but all of us who support them. Without us, they wouldn’t be boxing up those vegetables that end up in our kitchens.

The other advantage to having this food show up on our doorstep is that it gets us cooking. Not wanting to waste this precious source of ch’i, we cook together, look for other recipes, try different combinations. I like to call this generational Feng Shui—where one intention brings one change, but leads to another one that hadn’t even been considered. Buying organic food to help out the agricultural community and to have good food leads to us to spending more creative and quality time together. That illustrates the true flow of nature.