Leib and Associates

Water Element and Feng Shui

What are You Drawn To?

People who need the water element often seek out lakes or oceans to visit or to live. My daughter really needs the water element; she traveled almost 2 days both ways on a bus to get to the ocean in Argentina…that’s motivation!

I would never choose to live on cliffs over the ocean or on the ocean. I love to see it, but too much time near it makes me nervous. But I know plenty of people who spend all their time in the water. So how do you know? Looking at a destiny or birth chart reveals a lot about a person’s elemental structure.

Me, I need fire, dry earth (mountains, which is where we live), some wood-no metal needed for me and I’ll never run out of water, so I’ll never need to live in it, or next to it, that would be too much.

What are you drawn to? It may be something you need, and it may not be. See how you feel after a day in or near the ocean…calm, revitalized, anxious? These are all things to pay attention to.

Meet Irmgart, My Metal Rooster

It’s the month of the metal rooster! Meet my rooster Irmgart! He hangs out at Floyd, guarding the property. The metal rooster is associated with Fall/Autumn and the West. For me, metal is an element that represents output, which is work, and activity. To balance this, I need fire, my resource element, to give me strength, or I’ll get exhausted faster.

For my husband, metal is wealth, which is great! So Irmgart is great for Tom, but a little draining for me. We each have a combination of all 5 elements, and need some more than others, and at different times, which is what makes Feng Shui so complicated and confusing!

Often, we are attracted to elements we need, and sometimes, it’s the opposite and we surround ourselves with elements that drain us. Some of us love the ocean, but what we need is fire, or earth. Pay attention to spaces that drain you versus spaces where you feel revitalized. Also note what time of year it is in each of these instances and you may be able to see patterns.

California Dreamin’

Is Your Top Blowing? Lid Flipping?

Is your top blowing? Is your lid flipping? Your clients, children, friends, and otherwise convivial people? Rage, specifically road rage is the theme of the last few weeks going into next week in September.

I’ve been noticing this EVERYWHERE!!! In fact, I saw an altercation in moving vehicles on the road today! It finally dawned on me we are in a monkey month in a tiger year. Monkeys and tigers clash hard, so this Monkey month is usually pretty contentious! This month is no exception.

So what to do? Avoid confrontation. Seriously, don’t take the bait, count to 10-this too shall pass. If you get involved, it will not end well.

Just take a walk, literally or figuratively. This will ease in the second part of September. In the meantime, let the ragers rage and stay out of the way.

What a Difference an Hour Makes: Destiny Chart and hour of birth

I had to double check.

My Feng Shui Master had plotted my Bazi chart the old-fashioned way; looking at almanacs and lunar calendars. My Day Master was Weak Yin Earth-I didn’t like the way that sounded!

So, I do as I aways did; I researched the hour thing, as it is complicated and involved GMC, time in China, and time and exact longitude of birthplace. Like a scientist, I replicated the experiment on different websites, and my Bazi is totally different based on the hour entered.

With the online calculation, which I did it on no less than 5 websites, I’m solid Yin Earth! This is quite a different destiny than Weak Yin Earth and involves using and avoiding entirely different elements than I’d learned from the first reading.

When I interpret each one, they are different because the animal and element are different from each other for the hour. Fire Tiger(Tiger is wood) rather than Wood Ox (earth)

So, my entire identity changed because of one hour! I guess the question is: does it matter, and would I do anything differently? Yes, maybe, yes…

Knowing your birth chart gives you some great insight into strengths, weaknesses, and challenges and level of ease in one’s life. You can always change what you do as you move through life knowing these things.

Moral of story-If you want an accurate birth chart, KNOW YOUR STATS and embrace technology.

Three Coins and a Fountain

A couple of months ago, we installed, with great precision and cost, a water feature to help Floyd, us, and the Feng Shui.

So far, it seems to be doing some good! We’ve added some water plants, and some plants around. We are trying different accents. The fountain stays in place, but stays running all the time. It’s a nice sound and complements the natural sounds of the birds and crickets.

It also helps it feel a little bit cooler when we are near it. The birds love to bathe and drink out of it, and since it’s always moving and filtering, it’s probably fresher tasting for them.

The extent to which it’s protecting us and our home is not measurable, simply because we don’t know what would be happening were the fountain not in place.

We trust it’s doing its job! We really do. You kind of have to; there’s not a way to do a controlled study. Things do seem to be going more smoothly.

I’ll keep you all posted, but we do really love it!

I Ching – The Magic 8 Ball of Feng Shui

Feng Shui and Bazi are derived largely from “I Ching”-the book of changes. I just found this app on my phone this AM and have been playing with it.

It’s the Eastern philosophical equivalent of a Magic 8 ball. You ask a question, it gives you an answer, but far more detailed and precise than the Magic 8 ball… ahhh, technology.

I’ve found I’m not very lucky at this game! It keeps telling me the same thing in different ways over and over – I’ll have to work hard to get what I want, and maybe even then, I won’t get it.

I want a different fortune, but no matter how many times I shake it and how many different times I ask it, it says the same thing.

Maybe there’s something to this? I read the entire “I Ching” in college, but I never really consulted it when I had a life question or any question, for that matter. In Feng Shui and in Bazi, it’s all about the hexagrams, so I think it’s time to dust off my I Ching book and get busy.

Today is our 2 Year Wedding Anniversary

It’s our 2 year wedding anniversary! I can’t believe how quickly 2 years has gone by. I remember this day like it was yesterday, and all that we did in preparation, and all the people who helped us along the way.

Marking time like this is fun, and a little scary! It reminds me to try to make the most of the day, and enjoy it, even if it’s doing yard work or a Netflix binge. I don’t, by the way, make the most of my days, but it’s on my list!!

Knuckles in a Half Shell

For this week’s Feng Shui Friday, I’m sharing my husband’s new YouTube channel: Knuckles in a Half Shell.

He named it after one of our cats, but the theme is the film of his mountain bike rides. Why is this unique?

Tom had an emergency heart transplant in April of 2020. He was an avid mountain biker before, and his dream and goal was to be able to ride like he did before the transplant.

With a great deal of practice and patience, he’s flying on the trails on his analog bike, covering 1000ft ascents and descents. Truly amazing and incredibly inspiring.

Please check out his channel, and catch some of his joie de vivre (that’s chi in French)!

Sometimes, the Broad Advice in Feng Shui is Maddening

Well well, we are in the middle of July already! I have this daily Feng Shui Almanac App that I look at occasionally…

Why, only on occasion, you ask? Because every activity to be avoided is always the activities I’m doing that day.

Tomorrow: we are driving back from LA to our house with our cats and we have to get the car tire repaired.

We are not moving house… well thank goodness for that.

Sometimes, the broad advice in Feng Shui is maddening! Remember, your best day or my best day for a medical procedure is not necessarily tomorrow, as it says in my almanac. And sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do and Feng Shui be damned 😳

Glass Coral vs. Real Coral Placement

Is placing glass coral the same as real coral? Placement of accessories explained.

I had the opportunity to see one of our stunning Arteriors fixtures up close at our set up at the new City Lights showroom in San Francisco.

The coral on this fixture is white lacquered resin-there are 49 individual pieces that go into this fixture. I’m in love!!! Anyway, is resin coral the same as real coral as far as adding an element to a space?

In short, no, and don’t sweat it! Real coral would fall into a couple of Feng Shui elements that might surprise you.

Coral is actually an animal and calcium carbonate (limestone) skeleton.

In Feng Shui, animals are generally fire element, and limestone generally earth. Fire feeds earth so this is a good combo, but it lives in water, so it’s always in danger of being snuffed out….we see this happening today.

The Diallo Arteriors fixture-it’s fire because it’s lighting, the coral represents fire, but the resin stems are actually made of wood that is treated with lacquer to shape and seal it…

That’s the wood element, which feeds the fire element.

When we break it down, you can see elemental matches that don’t seem intuitive.

In the end, if you love the Arteriors Diallo like I do, get it and don’t sweat it! The smaller elements in a space don’t have much effect on their own.