The Forms Are Everything
I’m in Yangshuo, down river from Guilin doing some research for a future Feng Shui tour and also writing a course about Feng Shui Form School Fundamentals.
Life has a funny way of taking us to places, so I hired a bike this morning and set off (as you do…) off the beaten track on an adventurous ride. The countryside here is truly spectacular, with all manner of shapes of hills and mountains…truly awe inspiring!
I turned off at an interesting side road, in order to follow the course of the Li River southward from Yangshuo. Finding myself peddling down windy, rough roads, I came to the end of the road and found a village gate. Daringly, I entered.
Every turn of the narrow streets was a picture postcard scene and I could hear a bevvy of people, possibly at a celebration, so I turned left to discover a lovely small lake: the centre of the village.
A pretty spectacular place to grow up!
To the left of the picture is the villager’s Ancestral Hall. It looked very old. It’s good to study these buildings in the village as it can tell alot about the villagers. Quite often this Ancestral Hall building is facing south, so I rode around to take a closer look.
I took a Luo Pan (compass) reading…hmnn faces on a southeasterly angle. Then turning to check the facing side I see the small, separate entry gate, facing a different angle, so I placed my Luo Pan there for a measurement…aha! Facing south.
Not only that, but you can see in the picture it is also facing directly towards the little lake, a strong source of water and yang qi. This makes perfect sense. But there’s one more spectacular feature that makes this find worth sharing…here it is:
A spectacular fire mountain in the south! South is the location of fire and so here we find the perfect alignment. Obviously the entire village was set up so that this orientation could be established, then it all blossomed around this beautiful Feng Shui setting.
The people in the village were very friendly too, extraordinarily so. There is an old Chinese saying, “Zhong ling, Yu xiu,” – ‘The natural beauty from heaven provides great people and successful events coming from the area…’ or words to that effect!
‘Mountains and Water, Feng Shui is nothing but the study of mountains and water.” Joseph Yu, 2002
So we see here that the village Feng Shui master has captured the essence of Feng Shui right here for us to see, and for the benefit of the villagers. It must have been a long time ago too, because the orientation is not exactly south any more.
I also believe that such a strong fire mountain should not be at the facing, without water to ‘cool’ it down.
Alternatively you can say this type of mountain is a Tan Lang mountain, representing Star 1, wisdom and love. Star 1 is water and so it is appropriate to have water here. This mountain also reflects the nature and personality of the lovely people here.
So you may read that mountains must be at the back, and water at the front, and that is the ideal Feng Shui setting; but here we find another perfect setting, and it’s not the supposed ‘ideal’ setting at all.
I have literally hundreds of such examples and putting them together in my Form School Fundamentals online course.
Enjoy your day, I’m peddling back to my hotel.
