Leib and Associates

Feng Shui and Ceiling Fans

It’s getting to be that time of year! The heat is on and so are the ceiling fans. I get asked often at this time of year if ceiling fans are ok in terms of Feng Shui-especially over the bed.

Ceiling fans are good and a necessary item in many homes, so they are a good thing to have.

As it relates to Feng Shui, it may not be good Feng Shui in these instances: If fans are running so high that your papers are flying around.

Why? Chi, or life’s breath, does not exist in extreme winds, so it cannot move through a space effectively if it’s been completely dispersed. Same thing applies to the inside of your home; too much wind is not good.

Over your bed:

The fan blades can be “cutting chi” if the blades face you. If you have a fan and sleep well and everything else in your life is good-don’t remote the fan. If you installed a fan recently and are having trouble sleeping, you may want to pay attention to your fan activity and your sleep habits.

Are you East or West?

KUA NUMBER FOR A FEMALE (born before the year 2000):

Add the last two numbers of your year of birth and keep adding those numbers together until you get a single digit.
I was born in 66
6+6=12
1+2=3
Add your single-digit to number 5. Bring this number to a single digit, too, if needed.
I get number 8
This is your Kua Number!

NOTE: For a female born after the year 2000, add 6 instead of 5.

KUA NUMBER FOR A MALE (born before the year 2000):

Add the last two numbers of your year of birth and bring it to a single digit.
Tom is 65
6+5=11
1+1=2
Deduct your single digit from number 10.
Tom is also gua 8
This is your Kua Number!

NOTE: For a male born after the year 2000, deduct from 9 instead of 10.

If your Life Gua number is 1, 3, 4, or 9, you belong to the East group.

If you personal Life Gua number is 2, 6, 7 or 8, (5 for female becomes 8, and male becomes 2) you belong to the West group.

Tune in next Friday to find out your best and worst directions!

Lights, Doors and Chats

Today and again tomorrow, we are so happy to be spending time at Phillips Lighting and Home hanging new Hinkley displays. They are friends as well as colleagues and it’s so fun to see projects evolving and get to visit.

On a visit with Carrie, we got on the topic of lights and doors and of course, Feng Shui. Your front door is one of the objects in your home that is influential in Feng Shui. The color is not so important to Feng Shui, but what direction the door faces does.

In 2020, My Bazi/Feng Shui teacher and master, Richard Ashworth-a genius and a great teacher, advised us to use the Western Entrance of our house rather than the convenient double doors in the Southeast.

I am a Western House person, as is my husband and daughter. In our current situation and generally, it’s better for us to enter from the West, Southwest or Northwest. For Eastern House people, the East, Southeast, North and South are more preferable. Which are you?

Check in next week to find out and to learn which gua or house you are in!

And finally, Floyd’s current front door-no, not kidding!

恭喜发财 Happy New Year!

Yesterday marked the official Chinese New Year-May this Metal Ox year be healthy and easy!

I was talking to Deb, my office manager, and she reminded me about turtles-pictured below is the mythical dragon turtle-attractor of wealth. My little guy sits on a bed of coins, though he’s missing the coin in his mouth. The turtle sits on top of him. The turtle is a source of longevity and health, and the two together are said to strengthen each other’s powers.

I’ve had him for years but he was packed away until a few weeks ago. Boy, I could’ve used him in 2020. I’ve come to learn through my recent Feng Shui studies that, though he’s cool, he’s not going to move the needle too much on the wealth/health front.

I have to say, since I moved him to his new spot in my new office, he’s been working some wealth magic for me in the form of being busy with lighting projects and orders. Maybe he is helping more than he lets on.

I’ll keep you posted-he’s in the southeast area of our house and he’s facing East-ish, an area that’s about family and finance. Even though these areas are not my lucky areas, He seems very happy there and I like having him behind me to guard the office.

The office reveal will be in next week’s Feng Shui Friday so stay tuned.

Feng Shui and Textiles

I was visiting one of my accounts this week, Phillips Lighting and Home in Modesto, and we were chatting about creativity that has stemmed from the pandemic. Creative people like these women need an outlet, and the most recent happens to be weaving on looms. These beautiful textiles are examples of the efforts.

Textiles can represent a few different elements in Feng Shui. If you use the material, it could be fire because the material is mostly wool. If you use the colors, we have a multi, with greens and purples -wealth, yellow and peach in the middle-health, and blues and greens which is Career and helpful people.

We often are drawn to colors that we need or colors that are our predominant element.

Which are you drawn to?

That’s Cat…

As we approach Mercury Retrograde of January 30th, the first one of the year. Delays, communication problems, travel delays… sound familiar?

We took ourselves and the kittens on the road to avoid losing power/falling trees/road blocks/ that was supposed to be the storm of the year.

So what happens when elements mix? Rain and fire debris/ash=earth and water. Earth restrains water, but when they mix you get a sludge that you cannot get through. You get stuck, literally.

How about wood and water? The rain makes the wooden things grow=rain + trees-water nourishes wood. Good, unless there is too much rain and the soil washes away and the trees fall over.

Cats represent the element fire, all animals represent fire-they are great unless you’re a hoarder, then it’s too much fire and you burn out. As we know, too much fire is a disaster.

So back to cats… we are heading home with them today. We are hoping all is well, Floyd is in good shape, and that our area didn’t slide away.

Elements! The balance matters.

Floyd and Stove Position

We have a kitchen!!!!!

Yes, a rough stage, but we can cook, wash dishes and we have counters… plywood until the soapstone gets put in, but it’s such progress.

The centerpiece of our kitchen is a fully refurbished O’Keefe and Merritt range, who I’ve not named yet… Ursula, Loretta…

Anyway, stove placement is one of the majors for the inside of the home. Ours faces North – Northwest, which is a very auspicious direction for me and Tom, who are western Gua 8s. It’s complicated, but one universal no-no for stoves is if they are directly opposite the sink. Noooooo-that’s exactly our setup. The cure for this is to place wood between the two-in our case a really, really, really narrow island or something that.

Destiny and the art of learning something new

This is my first book on the list for my course-there are at least a dozen books in my course list, but I’m chomping at the bit to tackle them.

In Chinese Metaphysics, your birthdate, time and place plays approximately 1/3 of your destiny. Feng Shui of your home is another 1/3, and the last is your own luck, which is basically your will to succeed in the things that are important to you.

They do go together, and though I’ve been mastering the Feng Shui piece for almost 30 years now, I finally realized the birth chart is an integral component to achieve real success.

There is always something more to know. I think my message this week is clearly that there is always more to learn. I heard stories from many of my customers this week as I’ve been back on the road in earnest. There is always more, and if we listen… I mean really listen, there is something to learn from each interaction.

When the Consultant Consults the Master

2020 has been a year for injuries in our household. Finding myself unable to Feng Shui Floyd, because life is just like that, I consulted a master. Richard Ashworth is a published master who is one of the only world renowned Classic Feng Shui/Bazi masters whose native language is English.

He advised us to move our bed so our heads are facing Southwest. This is to counter the opposing Metal Rat year to Tom’s yin Fire Day Stem.

I know this sounds like Greek…he also said to enter through our true Front door, which is in the Northwest, and much less convenient than our porch doors. Hopefully, this will help curtail the rate of physical injury sustained in 2020.

I’m excited to be studying with Richard to formally learn about Bazi (birth charts) and synthesize this with the classical Feng Shui in his dual mastery program.

Meanwhile, hold tight for a wild end of 2020, with Mercury Retrograde in full force-it promises to be volatile.

Balancing Elements

Tom and I both grew up in Palos Verdes. We are back, staying with Tom’s parents as we were evacuated from our house in Mount Hermon in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

It’s scary to leave your home not knowing if you’ll see it again, having to choose what to take and what to leave behind.

In the Santa Cruz Mountains we have a lot earth and wood, some water and some metal. Right now we are heavy in wood, fire obviously, and earth. Wood produces fire, fire feeds earth and eventually, earth creates metal.

In Palos Verdes, we have a better distribution of all the elements. It’s by the ocean, so lots of yang water, earth, some wood and some metal. Physical fire is weaker here, but Palos Verdes is in the south, which, in Feng Shui, is the direction of fire.

Though we love living in the forest, we are mindful that, with this imbalance, comes a cost. We are happy for the reprieve from the fires and smoke, and know that when the earth is out of balance, so goes nature.